Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry moves through the first of two gigs at the Canadian Tire Centre like stuck in a bit of a fever dream. He sings his parts, whenever he doesn’t forget to. He sidesteps obstacles, whenever he doesn’t get tangled up in wires, landing flat on his face instead. He engages the crowd, whenever he doesn’t falter in the centre of the thrust, surrounded by phone-lights and colourful signs, staring into thin air. Niall saves him then, calling out “eh, earth to Styles! What’s going on there!”

Harry blames it on a cock-up with his in-ear, then shuffles off to poke fun at some fan signs, only to accidentally confirm some conspiracy he didn’t know about.

It’s a bit of a mess in all, but the fans seem to like it.

After the show, his t-shirt is soaked in water and sweat and some kind of fizzy foul-smelling liquid that someone at the barricade chucked at him. His jeans have ridden so far up his arse he thinks he might need pliers to extract his underwear from his colon, and there are bits of inexplicable green and blue glitter in his hair, on his skin, everywhere. His back hurts, his throat is sore, and Louis hasn’t looked at him at all today.

“Oh, you poor big baby,” one of the stylist’s backstage tells him as he moans and begs for water. She’s pretty and smiley and he thinks he might’ve slept with her at some point so he’s sort of itching to get out of the conversation before it becomes clear that he can’t for the life of him remember her name. But he’d like that bottle of water first, though. “Regular or fizzy?” she asks him.

“Uhm, no, flavoured, please, if there’s any around,” Harry mutters, leaning on a rickety fold-out table, “you know, that pink one that tastes like bubble gum, if we have, uhm—”

“He means the power c vitamin drink, he only likes that one,” Louis cuts in, helping the poor girl’s frown off her face, “spoiled popstars, am I right?”

She laughs nervously, then nods and rushes off.

Harry straightens up, though it makes his back twinge, and pats around for his phone in his back pocket. It isn’t there, of course, because they don’t bring their phones on stage with them. It’s being held by someone on crew, Liam would know who, but Liam isn’t around, only Louis is. Standing there, staring.

“Thanks,” Harry says, and Louis frowns. “For the, uhm— water thing.”

Louis’ eyes narrow, a bit of a mocking smile creeping into his expression, and Harry feels his face heat. He’s twenty-one and he is, really— he is a spoiled popstar, so he doesn’t know why he still hasn’t managed to media train his cheeks, but he hasn’t, so. They flame right up.

Tonight, it pisses him off more than it embarrasses him, though. “Don’t look at me like that,” he grunts, and Louis’ smirk drops.

Really, if anyone should be going flush with embarrassment, it’s Louis. He’s the one who showed up outside Harry’s hotel room in the middle of the night, sloshed off his face without a shirt on, begging for— sex, Harry thinks. Not Harry, necessarily, because he’d never beg for Harry outright, not even when he’s coming apart at the seams and fucked off his face. But sex. That’s simpler.

Just come here, he’d said, throwing himself on Harry’s hotel bed.

Fuck off, just come here already, he’d insisted, stretching his arms out, eyes closed, legs apart.

Just come on, Harry.

It wasn’t much for most, but it was a fucking moon landing for Louis.

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Louis says now, but he’s cut his eyes away, fingers fiddling with a random piece of sound equipment left on the table. “You looked like you were struggling.”

Why might that be, you prick? Harry wants to snap. “I’ve said thank you,” he goes with instead. “Anything else you’d like to add?”

Louis swipes his fingers along the table, toward Harry. He bites his lip, swaying a little. “No, I just… sorry. About last night.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, not as sharp as he wanted to. It’s not really about last night as much as this morning. Or the rest of today. “You were gone when I woke.”

“Had to get my stuff,” Louis replies, and looks at him again. His eyes have softened, mouth a little pursed. Last night he was clean-shaven, his hair undone and messy, and Harry had smoothed it back from his face so he could look at all of it, take him in as he took him again. Now, it’s the hair gel doing Harry’s job, and Louis’ face is difficult to look at like that; all out on display. It’s been Harry’s favourite face since he was sixteen years old, but it’s been drawn up sharper over the years, carved out and shaded in, as if to further emphasise to Harry what he can’t have.

Well.

“I’m sorry if I took advantage or, you know…” he begins, and Louis shakes his head, body turning away from him like it’s too much, right now. But when wouldn’t be? Really? “You were quite out of it.”

“Not that bad, you’re fine,” Louis says, leaning back against the table and crowd-watching now. The backstage crew is milling about, equally as busy now as they were before the show, and Niall and Liam are nowhere to be seen. Probably back on the bus or on their way to hotel rooms already. “Just in a bit of a state, really, but I wasn’t that drunk.”

Harry isn’t sure. He wasn’t slurring badly, nor did he have any problem telling Harry yes and no and get the fuck on with it, but he’d been out of it, certainly, and Harry should’ve stopped himself, probably.

It’s just, he didn’t know he’d ever get the chance again. Everything seems to be on the brink of collapse now, or irreversible damage.

“Come to the bus and sleep, if you want,” Louis says then, cocking his head back.

Harry’s stomach screws up tight, because there’s an offer there, he thinks, but it might just be his own wishful thinking playing a trick on him. God knows it wouldn’t be the first time. “I’ve got my room set up, though,” he says, careful.

Louis nods, looking unsurprised. “Yeah. Well.” He pushes off the table as the nameless pretty girl comes back with the wrong flavoured water for Harry. “You know I’ll be on the bus.”

*

                                                      1:15 AM

Harry - Are you awake + alone?

                                                      1:16 AM

Louis – yes on bus 1

                                                      1:16 AM

Harry – I know

                                                      1:32 AM

Louis - ?

                                                      1:44 AM

Harry – outside bus, can you let me in?

Louis opens the bus door carefully, wearing soft grey sweats and shushing Harry before he’s even opened his mouth. “The guys are asleep,” he whispers.

Harry doesn’t know why he’d assumed that alone meant alone alone; Louis is never fully alone. It’s pouring rain out, though, and about to seep through Harry’s coat, so he steps inside and carefully out of his boots.

The bus has a particular smell to it, one that used to permeate the flat in Princess Park. It’s not the notes of sweaty balls or pricey cologne, the fruity energy drinks, weed or tobacco. It’s underneath all of that, and it comes with Louis whenever he inhabits any one spot for too long at a time. It makes Harry ache with a kind of homesickness that can’t be sated by visiting his mum or his London house or anywhere at all, anymore, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t like to spend too much time on the bus.

“Who’s in here?” he whispers, feeling oddly like an elephant in a porcelain shop as he follows Louis down the narrow hall. Louis’ movements are so expert, second nature, even half asleep, because he lives here more than he does England, and he fits here so well. Harry doesn’t quite know how to place himself, between discarded Adidas trainers and empty cans of red bull, ash trays and Oli’s random vape pen collection.

“Oli, Steve,” Louis notes, pointing to curtain-drawn bunks as he goes, “Paul, Mohammed… Liam.”

Christ, even Liam. Right below Louis’ bunk as well.

Harry wills down the urge to moan about the fact that Louis asked him over in the middle of the night without informing him that he’d be in for a blue-balling bunk snuggle and nothing else. Come to think of it, Louis didn’t actually ask. Harry just showed up here, expecting.

It dawns on him that he’s done it again, once again; he thought he’d grown out of his insatiable streak when it came to Louis, – or at least gotten a handle on it – but here he is again, offered a hand and grabbing the arm.

“D’you wanna come up, or? I was going to sleep,” Louis asks, hovering awkwardly outside Liam’s bunk, one hand on the edge of his own. He swipes his fringe out of his eyes and Harry’s chest twinges with nostalgia, just the way his wrist curls, the way he flicks his chin.

Oh, Harry, not again, his mum would tell him. Oh darling, haven’t we been here before?

But mum isn’t here, and Harry follows Louis up into his tiny one-person bunk, squeezing into the wall while Louis draws the curtain. He’s sitting on his calves, hoodied back hunched, and his shape looks soft like this, almost vulnerable. The rain is pelting the little window, skies pitch back outside, and Louis falls at Harry’s side like a curled-up woodlouse.

“What are we doing here,” Harry sighs, wrapping an arm around his middle and pulling him in. He smells fresh and clean, citrussy, his hair just a little damp when Harry digs his nose in.

“Don’t know, just— ah,” Louis hisses when Harry digs his rain-clammy hands up under his hoodie and splays them out on his stomach to steal heat. It’s always so feverish, like a hot water bottle. Fuck, Harry’s missed his skin. “You wanted in here, I let you in.”

“Hm.” Harry mouths up Louis’ jaw, one-day stubble nice and scratchy, and Louis turns into it, meeting his mouth. It’s an awkward angle to kiss in, and Louis has to snake a hand back and hold onto Harry’s neck to keep from straining his own, but Harry can’t bring himself to slide his hands out from under Louis’ hoodie. He can feel Louis’ abs tense beneath his fingers, his breath stagger and shake, affected.

Eventually, Louis has enough, rolling onto his back and pulling Harry on top of him. As he goes, Harry pushes his jeans down a little, just to give himself the breathing room to cope when Louis’ thighs come up to frame him, squeezing. He sighs, pressing the line of his filling cock down against Louis. Angling his hips just right, the tip of his cock pokes out over the waistband of his boxers and goes under the layers of Louis’ clothing. He smears himself there, subtly, rubs his wetness into Louis’ skin and tries to will himself to let that be enough.

“Mhm, Lou, we can’t,” he says, regaining clarity for a second as Louis pushes him back.

Louis frowns, shakes his head and pulls his hoodie off by the back of the collar. He’s got a threadbare white t-shirt on underneath, but when he goes for that one too, Harry can’t help himself from doing the same. It’s stupid, but worth it for the way Louis’ bare chest feels against his own when he comes down again, and maybe they could just— just like when they were kids, they could just come in their pants, for old times’ sake.

“Harry, Harry,” Louis gasps between kisses, “babe, no, trousers.”

“Fuck.” Harry pulls back, panting.

Louis is red up to his temples, sore-kissed and stunning, and Harry can’t say no to him, ever, he’s well aware of that, but, shit. “Okay, wait, let’s—” He scrubs a hand over his own face. “Let’s, ehm… okay, let’s go back to my hotel room, yeah? Let’s do that, yeah?”

Louis frowns again, then slips his thumbs under the waistband of his joggers. “No,” he grunts, pushing them down, “it’s fine, just have to be quiet, under the duvet.”

“No, I…” Louis pulls his cock out, blood-heavy and thick in his hand, strokes it once, slowly, watching Harry watch. “This is ridiculous,” Harry pleads.

Louis steels his features, lips parting around a silent moan, shamelessly performative.

But hey, if it works.

“Fuck. Okay, fuck, fine, under the duvet, then, come on.”

The kick their trousers and pants down to the end of the bunk and shuffle around awkwardly to get from on top of the duvet to underneath it. Harry pulls it up until it’s shielding Louis from toes to shoulders, his own feet sticking out in the cold at the end. Louis is moaning into his mouth, noises increasingly urgent, and Harry tries to quiet them, but it’s hard when his own are getting in the way too.

“Fuck, turn over,” he says, “face down, in the pillow, Lou.”

Louis gets a bit of a defiant glint in his eye, but it’s the one he uses to cover for how much he loved being bossed around so Harry ignores it, grabbing him and forcing him onto his front. His cock fits perfectly up the split of Louis’ arse when he moulds himself into Louis’ body, and Louis cradles the pillow, face half-obscured in it. If they were alone, Harry would be begging to put it in by now, but they’re not so he tries to make do with what little slide his pre-cum provides, rutting frantically into Louis’ arse.

“Harry, give me, give—” Louis hand finds the back of Harry’s hair, pulling him back a little, “can you just, can you go down, please? Please.”

And fuck, does Harry want that. Under any other circumstances, his head would actually be spinning at the fact that Louis is pleading him, but right now he’s sort of in a bind. “Haven’t got space, I fucking can’t,” Harry hisses, feet already near flat on the back wall of the bunk, “I can— I’ll spit, give you a finger, yeah?”

“Yes, yeah, just— wait, no, hang on.” Louis throws hand out and pulls a small pouch from the corner of the mattress.

Harry gets the idea, taking over and unzipping. It’s got a small black bottle of lube in it, as well as a pack of condoms, opened.

Harry takes the lube, shoving the rest away.

“Do this a lot in here, then?” he asks, slicking his fingers up. He can’t reel himself in now, and Louis knows him. If he didn’t want the trouble, he shouldn’t have let Harry see. “’bout three rubbers left in that pack.”

“No,” Louis lies, squirming underneath him, hiding his face in the pillow. Harry shoves in two fingers at once, because he took Harry last night and god-knows-who else every other night. “Fuck, ow— fuck you.”

“Shush,” Harry replies, curving his fingers right, “quiet, remember?”

The hand Louis has fisted in the pillow remains fisted, except the middle finger extends itself. Harry leans down and bites it.

“How many?”

“Could— ungh— ask you the same,” Louis grits out, humping the mattress with such pathetic abandon that Harry has to follow him down to keep his fingers tucked against the right spot, “Thought you’d be— be with that girl with the wrong water, yeah? She wanted it.”

Harry squeezes in a third finger, then leans down into Louis’ ear. “Already had her, mate,” he tells him, and Louis huffs out through his teeth. “And you, last night, remember?”

“Don’t, actually,” Louis replies, twisting his neck to glare back at Harry, “drunk off my head or else I wouldn’t’ve let you, would I?”

It’s mean, too mean. Harry pulls all fingers out at once, unfussed when Louis winces.

“Funny, that,” he says, reaching into the pouch and nipping out a condom. Fuck it all, then. Fuck it. “Because you’re letting me right now.”

“Maybe I’m drunk right now,” Louis says, but his swallow is painfully audible, his eyes dark as he watches Harry roll on the condom. It’s his size – the biggest size – because Louis only fucks men with big cocks. Harry wonders if the others were as big, though, tells himself they weren’t quite, can’t have been, as he pushes inside and Louis bears down and white-knuckles the pillow.

“Be nice if you were drunk,” Harry says, closing his eyes to cope with the tight, hot clutch as he presses in all the way, “so you could take it properly instead of whining all time,” he adds, perfectly timed to Louis choking on his own gasp, “begging me to slow down, wait, not so hard, it’s too big, Harry, I can’t take it—”

“That’s a long time ago,” Louis snaps, voice edging on shrill. He goes stiff, then relaxes again, pushing his arse back. “So— ah, shit— so many cocks I’ve lost count, to be ho—oh, fuck— honest.” 

Louis’ arsehole clamps down and squeezes Harry, trying to push him back out, so Harry pushes back, buries himself stubbornly. “Stop fighting and take me, then, ‘m not pulling out,” he grunts, laying down so he can hook one arm around Louis’ shoulders and the other down near his hips to keep him in place.

He thinks about asking Louis if he’s struggling, just to hear him struggle to claim that he isn’t, but he doesn’t want to be called out on needing a minute himself just to keep from coming within the next thirty seconds. When they first started doing this, it took him months to beat the minute man allegations.

Louis is still squirming a little when Harry starts riding into him, groans like wretched from his gut when Harry pushes deeper and circles in little figure-eighths, trying to stretch that tight band of muscle, get it to give a little. He doesn’t know how to feel about the fact this was easier last night. It’s been a long time since Louis put out sober.

“Come on, babe, relax,” Harry whispers, gaining in speed as the tightness has him chasing friction, selfish. His back complains, but his cock couldn’t care less, and Louis keeps ah-ow-ah-ah-yes-fuck-ah-ing into his arm, utterly helpless. Harry keeps on chasing, rucking them up the mattress until he physically has to place a palm on the wall above to keep them in place. “Yeah, that’s it, just give it to me—” 

“Not— slow down, I can’t—”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Harry pants, self-satisfied, and slows down to kiss Louis’ cheek, “thought you said you’d been well worn out since me?”

Louis spits some pillowcase from his mouth, panting. “I can’t keep fucking quiet, you prick.”

“Oh,” Harry says, suddenly reminded that there’s a world that exists outside of Louis’ arse. “Shit, okay, well, be quiet.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Hadn’t thought of that, thanks, mate, all good, then.”

Fuck him, then.

“All right, I’ll shut you up.” Harry grabs the corner of the pillow and stuffs it into Louis’ mouth, then clams his hand shut over it. Louis doesn’t fight him on it, but Harry takes a second to make sure he’s able to breathe through his nose. Meanwhile Louis kicks him in the shin and huffs petulantly, ever impatient, so Harry grabs the back of his hair and shoves his head further down into the pillow. “If you make another sound,” he whispers, snapping in and in and in again, Louis’ breath puffing against his hand with every thrust, “I’m gonna pull you open,” he says, drawing his free hand down to where he’s already got Louis stretched to his limit, “and I’m gonna shove two fingers in beside.”

Louis’ hands fly back, one yanking Harry’s wrist back up, the other grabbing at his thigh to pull him deeper. He pushes back on Harry, as hard as he can while pinned, and Harry doesn’t manage more than two or three minutes at jackrabbit-pace before he’s too far gone, shooting into the condom.

“Fuck… shit.”

He pulls out, flopping onto his back, spent.

Beside him, Louis is spitting pillow from his mouth and coughing. “Fuck me, that hurt,” he says, but Harry can hear the sloppy sound of him wanking furiously. He crawls over Harry, balls hanging tight and full above his face for a second, bangs his head on the top of the bunk and then manages to get himself situated properly. “Kiss it better, it hurts,” he says, and Harry laughs out loud, “—shush!”

“Sorry. Sit.” Harry grabs Louis by the thighs and pulls him back until he’s sitting on Harry’s face, getting licked out like he wanted. His hole is warm and puckered, loosened from fucking, and the lube is smearing all over Harry’s face, but if Louis wanted to sit on his face and fuck himself on Harry’s tongue till the end of time, well, Harry doesn’t think he’d have much say in the matter, being a chair and all. He licks greedily into Louis, pulling at his arse cheeks and palming his balls.

“So good, so good, baby, keep—” Louis groans, and Harry can hear it in his voice, right as it cracks, that he’s finishing. He pushes back once more when Harry strains to get one last lick in, then slumps forward, faceplanting Harry’s thigh. “Needed that so much, you’re so good,” he’s panting, “so good to me, I missed it, I love you…”

Harry’s heart has swollen to the point that he’s surprised it isn’t ballooning out of his chest, but the reasonable part of his mind tries to knock him back down. “Wait, are you drunk?”

“No,” Louis grunts, then bites at his thigh.

Harry slaps his arse because it’s right there, still, spread out across Harry’s chest. He spreads Louis out a bit, just to see where he’s been fucked, just to feel. He sinks two fingers in, and Louis kicks out at the wall. “No,” he hisses, “no more.”

“Little more.”

“No.”

Louis clambers off then, getting himself turned around until he’s lying like he did when Harry fucked him, face in the pillow. The rain has stopped coming down now, and Harry can still hear Paul snoring somewhere outside the bunk, but they don’t seem to have woken anyone. He waits for a second to see if Louis’ going to tell him to leave, then turns over when he doesn’t, curling halfway over Louis.

Kissing the damp hairs on the back of Louis’ neck, he slides a hand up and down his dampened spine. Louis goes tense, then exhales, shaky, and seems to melt.

“I’ll leave in a minute, I just need to catch my breath.”

“Okay.” Louis shifts around some more, until he’s on his back, and draws Harry’s head in to rest on his shoulder. “Bloody hell, bub,” he says, chuckling hoarsely. He pulls finds some piece of fabric, possibly Harry’s own t-shirt, and wipes Harry’s face with it. “Got you looking like the aftermath of a bukkake gangbang or something.”

“Yeah? That’s hot,” Harry replies flatly, and Louis laughs again, then dips down for a peck.

“Don’t want to kick you out.”

Harry isn’t sure what to do with that, nor the conflicted look in Louis’ eyes. “I mean, I can’t, like,” he starts, “I mean, the guys are all out there.”

Louis sighs, closing his eyes. “Yeah, I know, I just… don’t want to,” he says. And then, quieter; “can’t honestly be fucked to care anymore. At this stage.”

It hangs in the air for a bit.

Seems too easy, somehow, after everything. Insulting, almost. Harry doesn’t even know how to explain it to himself in his head, but the best way he can make sense of Louis right now is to conclude that he’s a little bit broken after Eleanor still, and Zayn, maybe, and the hiatus, soon, and that he’s liable to make decisions he’ll regret in the morning. Harry can’t be one of those, however much he’d love to.

“I think you’re talking rubbish ‘cause you hadn’t been fucked well since me,” he whispers, trying for playfully cocky, “and there’s, like, a post-coital kind of high, you know…”

Louis waves a hand out to shut him up. “Okay, yeah, whatever, spare me the psychobabble, please.”

“I’ll go sleep on the couch,” Harry offers, lifting onto his elbow before leaning down for another kiss, “I’ll say something was wrong with my room or something, that’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

Harry steals one more kiss, then goes to figure out where the hell he threw his pants, but Louis pulls on his arm again.

“Stay for a bit, at least,” he says, and looks so startlingly sincere that Harry’s heart flips over on itself, “until I sleep.”

“What if I fall asleep, though?” Harry asks, but he’s already laying back down again, because he can’t imagine a world in which he’d ever say no to Louis like that. He’s never like this. It feels precarious, and like a mindfuck, like the prank crew might bust in any minute. He settles in, asking again: “What if I all asleep, though, Lou?”

Louis looks at him, smile gentle, and shrugs. “Then you fall asleep.”

*

Liam finds him on the couch in the morning, about an hour after he drug himself from Louis’ arms and shuffled down here. The blanket he pulled over himself seems to be embroidered in hot chip dust and he’s got someone’s phone lodged in his spine. Other than that, he’s very happy, waking this morning.

“The hell,” Liam grunts, bare-chested with his joggers riding low, a mug of tea in one hand and a cheese toast in the other. “When did you get in?”

“Last night,” Harry replies, “people were banging on my hotel room, the security or something, I don’t know…” he trails off, hoping it’ll suffice.

Liam dumps himself on the couch beside him and gives his hair a ruffle. “Good to see you in here, though,” he says, “kettle’s just brewed if you wanted tea. Actually, hang on— Mo!”

“Oh no, you don’t have to—”

“Yeah?!”

“Harry’s in here, pop a toast in for him, will you!”

“Yep!”

Harry groans, then winces as he gets himself into a seated position. Sleeping half a night in a one-man bunk with another man and the other half on a defiled tour bus couch really does do wonders for a back ache. Liam tries to tell him to come work out more often so Harry grunts noncommittally in response until Mo comes in with tea and flicks the telly on. Eventually Oli joins them, which is awkward, because he takes one look at Harry and Harry knows he’s clocked it. What’s he done that for, he thinks, haven’t we been here before?

He doesn’t say it, though, because it’s between him and Louis, and Harry and Oli always had a sort of unspoken understanding; you pretend you don’t know, and I’ll pretend I don’t know you know and then you’ll pretend you don’t know I know you know. And so forth.

“Lou’s in the shower,” Oli says, dropping into the couch between Mo and Liam. It’s said to the room at large, but it’s meant for Harry. Maybe for himself, too, trying to make sense of Louis’ decision making. Maybe he can’t either, currently.

“You still with that one, ehm…” he begins once he finds another lull in conversation, and Harry doesn’t believe he’s actually going there until he does, “the Jenner one?”

The silence that follows as Harry attempts to pretend he doesn’t hear it grows thick, painful.

“Harry,” Steve says, jabbing Harry in the side.

“What? Oh. Right, what’s that?” He turns his head and finds Oli already looking at him, all but rolling his eyes. “Sorry, what?” Oli doesn’t bite, staying quiet until Harry drops the act and just answers: “I don’t really know. Kind of, sometimes. She’s nice.”

“Very nice,” Mo snickers, and Liam joins in.

“Not, like—it’s hard to say,” Harry continues, feeling suddenly like he’s got something to defend, “she travels a lot too, obviously.”

Oli stares relentlessly. “But she’s your girlfriend, no?”

“I mean…” Sort of. Last they spent time together, she was. They talk when they can, still. But girlfriends aren’t to him what they might be to Oli, or Liam, or even Louis, to an extent. They fluctuate in and out, somewhat, and tend to understand that going in. “Yeah. I guess so.”

He bites his lip.

“Hm.” Oli nods, then turns his attention back to the telly. “Lou’s been single for ages now. For him, I mean. Hasn’t been single that long since he was a kid.”

“Only been, like, five months,” Liam says, rather dumbly, but it eases the tension to have him join in, takes the pressure off Harry. “But, yeah, I mean— El lasted ages, God. Tough one to come out of.”

“Yep,” Oli says, popping the p. “It was.”

“All right, I should probably head out, actually.” Just as Harry puts his tea down and gets off the couch, Louis comes out of the bathroom, naked save for a towel round his waist. There’s a fresh love bite on the side of his neck, glaringly obvious. “Hi.”

“Good morning,” Louis replies, making no attempt to feign surprise at Harry’s presence.

They manoeuvre awkwardly around each other in the narrow space, the eyes of the rest of the room hot on Harry’s back. Fucking hell, what were they thinking.

*

                                                      1:01 PM

Louis – thanks for staying xx

                                                      1:09 PM

Louis – Oli says we’re twats

                                                      2:25 PM

Harry – tell him thanks and ditto

                                                      2:26 PM

Harry – sorry I didn’t respond quicker, was getting a massage, my back still hurts though, no good vitamin water still, throat hurts a bit too + tongue sore because of last night, and I think I might be balding, also you slept on my arm a lot and it feels funny now, like the bicep disintegrated a little or something not sure, what was the name of the flavour I like again ?

                                                      2:27 PM

Louis – aw poor baby, missed your endless moaning

                                                      2:27 PM

Harry – are you drunk?

                                                      2:30 PM

Louis – yes

                                                      2:31 PM

Louis – no, and ill give you a rub after the gig tonight if you want

                                                      2:34 PM

Harry – flying back home tonight though, aren’t you?

                                                      2:38 PM

Louis – yes nvm

                                                      4:20 PM

Harry – <3

                                                      4:22 PM

Louis - <3

*

He’s just settled into his airplane pod, blanket on and headphones streaming his favourite sleep hypnosis podcast when someone taps his shoulder. Harry pushes down his sleep mask and looks up, finding Louis there in his oversized black sweatshirt and trackies. He looks over his shoulder, once, then back at Harry.

“What,” Harry mouths out.

The lights in the cabin are off, the air hostesses have gone off and they really should be catching up on their sleep.

“Budge up.”

Harry sighs, shifting around until Louis is squeezed in beside him under the blanket. His headphones come off, sleep mask too, and Louis ends up sitting sideways over his lap, curled into him. He was all right before the gig, and during it, Harry thought, and he didn’t avoid Harry like the plague. Of course, they pretended they didn’t spend the last two nights together, but that’s as familiar as waking up in bed alone with nothing to show for it but the marks on his skin.

“Are you all right?” Harry whispers, stealing himself to a scratch through the back of Louis’ hair. “You eating enough lately?”

Louis scoffs. “Fine, Harold. Just wanted to say hi.”

Niall’s got the pod to the left of Harry and Harry can see the bottom of his blanket-covered feet from this angle. Somewhere in a pod behind him, he can hear Liam half-snoring, half-muttering to himself about reps or sets or lifts or something. They don’t do this, like this; they never have. Just a year, the thought of getting a lapful of Louis on a plane full of people would’ve seemed absurd, forbidden enough to make it into a post-bender dirty dream or two.

“Hi,” Harry says, just as Louis leans up and their mouths come way, way too close. He smells like smoke and spearmint, musky aftershave and last night in the bunk, skin flushed, sweaty. “Shit, don’t kiss me, there’s people.”

Louis’ brows twitch together, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t what now,” he whispers, breath hot on Harry’s lips. Then he jerks up, fast, and fits their mouths together. It’s hard, closed-mouthed, almost demonstrative, his hands gripping Harry’s face to keep him from wrestling out. When he pulls back, Harry instinctively follows, aching for more.

“I’ll go,” he says, patting Harry’s cheek and throwing a leg out of the pod. “Night night, lad.”

“Lou—”

“No, you need your sleep.” Louis averts the hand Harry tries to wrap around his wrist and gets out. “See you across the pond.”

Harry groans, banging his head back against his seat as Louis walks off. He falls asleep with one hand on his crotch, the other tracing his own tingling lips.

*

They hardly see in the business and herding around that always occurs after landing commercial. Fans and paps have tracked their plane, all now crowding out the airport, and security decides it best to walk them out at an offset pace. Needing a Paracetamol for his back and his airplane-cricked neck – God, he’s an old man at twenty-one – and an XL tin of Basset’s for his mum, Harry ends up being the last one out. He only managed to say bye to Niall, who slapped a cough out of his back and told him off for being sentimental, – I’m sick and tired of your face, go get some bloody rest, you sound like you’ve deepthroated a horse, see you in a week, love ya – before he got stuck for half an hour, taking pictures with fans.

He's just arrived back inside his London house, which has been freshly cleaned for his arrival home, and flicked on the radio to drown out the echoing silence when he receives a phone call.

It’s Louis.

“Everything all right?”

Louis snorts on the other end. “Why’ve you got to be so bloody melodramatic, I didn’t call you screaming, did I?”

“No,” Harry mutters, sitting down on a barstool at his kitchen island. The surfaces are so clean he can see his own jetlagged face in the reflection. “But you called me.”

There’s a beat of silence on the other end. “Not like I’m fielding calls from you every other second either, is it?” Louis replies finally, having gone on the defensive now. “Just called to ask you something.”

Harry peels his hand off the counter, a nice sticky print mark now defiling the perfect unlived pristineness of his home. “Ask me, then.”

“What’ve you got going on this week?” Louis asks, “aside from three thousand massages, that is.”

“Was gonna see about visiting a chiropractor, actually,” Harry says, biting his lip.

Louis groans out loud, just like he’d hoped, and Harry laughs, despite his ailing throat. “Harry, I’ve told you this a million times, those quacks are fuckin’—didn’t I tell you what happened to my cousin? Theo, I told you this, he had a pinch in his neck, went in one time, got told he was misaligned or summat, two visits later and he’s a fucking quadriplegic.”

Harry smiles, pressing his cheek into the cold counter. “Well, he did get in a motorbike accident as well.”

“Regardless,” Louis insists, “regardless.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t.”

“So, did you want to, then?”

“Want what?”

Louis sighs exasperatedly. “Well, I don’t know, just watch a movie or something, order in and play FIFA, I don’t know…”

Oh. Oh. Harry takes his head off the counter. “What, just—what, during now, like—during the break?”

“No, in 2020, actually, I’m booked till then, so—”

Harry cuts through the snark: “What, just you and I? One of these days?”

“Yeah, I mean… that’s what I was thinking.”

“Right.” They haven’t done that in— fuck knows how long. Before the break talk started, at least – actually way before that even. Harry doesn’t know when he started counting time in albums, but he did at some point and it’s been at least two since he and Louis hung out one-on-one off tour, just because. He doesn’t know which one of them stopped asking first – probably himself, if he’s honest. Too busy, too lazy, too much of a mess.

There’s a difference between playing at friendship for purposes of keeping the peace, and actually being friends. Harry manages okay, most of the time, with the first one. The second is trickier. He faintly remembers their last attempt ending in a screaming match when Louis insisted he go home at the end of it because friends don’t fuck at the end of the night, Harry, that’s not what they do, can still hear his own pathetic retort well, then I guess we’ve never been friends, have we?

“I’ve got to, like, rest the next couple days,” Harry begins, trying to remember his schedule, “and then I’ve promised mum to come down. Kendall’s got a thing in L.A. I’ve got to fly out for on, ehm… Thursday. So I’ll be flying back in for the O2 gig just before. Won’t really have, like… much time, to be honest.”

“All right, yeah,” Louis responds, and Harry can’t quite make out the tone of his voice, “well, I guess I’ll have to pull up my downlow roster and make do.”

Harry jerks up pin straight. “What?”

“Nothing, I’ll see you at the O2, mate, I’ve gotta run, actually,” Louis rushes off, “You have fun with your girls, Harry. Say hi to your mum from me.”

He hangs up.

Harry marks the counter with his forehead.

*

Louis doesn’t call again, nor does he text. Harry sleeps away the weekend, then goes for a yoga day retreat with his mum. Usually, his tree pose is on point, but no matter what he does, he keeps stumbling, can’t find a point of balance, and in the end mum tells him to sit and take a breather. She asks about tour, the lads, Kendall, his throat and his voice and his back and his sleep.

“Are you all right, though? In general?” she asks him once she’s run through all the little safe points of tension that aren’t quite the root of the issue. “How’s Louis doing? After the split and all.”

Harry closes his eyes for a good couple of seconds, knowing full well that she’s giving him that look. If he meets it, he’ll crack. “He’s all right, I think,” he manages, fixing his gaze on the canvas ceiling of their shared luxury yurt, “bit tough, obviously, but…”

“Do you talk more now, then?”

Harry groans, rubs his thumbs over the arches of his brows. “Mum…”

“All right, I’m sorry.” She strokes her hand through his hair, just like she did it the last time, and the one before that.

“It stresses me,” Harry tells her eventually, voice small. “Just really… with the break as well, and I want— I don’t know. How to say no or yes or… what else to do or say, if not, you know, or… so many angles to think of everything from, for like.. if you do this, then it’ll do this or if you don’t do this, then it’ll cause that or… I don’t know. It’s always moving,  but it’s like it’s speeding toward a wall or something, right now, like on a steep decline, but also incline or…” He runs out of fuel, then hears himself. “Sorry, I’m not making any sense.”

Mum sighs, running her fingers through to the tips of his hair and then back up again. “You don’t have to,” she murmurs, “some things are a fool’s errand to try and make sense of.”

“What do you do, then? With all the stuff in your head?”

She shrugs. “Meditate or medicate,” she says, “or just go with the flow, I suppose. Like yoga.”

Harry ruminates on yoga until he falls asleep. Namely the downward facing dog, and whether or not Louis’ hitting that pose right now for some prick off his roster.

*

Seeing Kendall is always a breath of fresh air. She doesn’t ask questions she doesn’t want to know the answer to, she doesn’t make him promise anything they both know he can’t keep, and, well, the sex is always good.

If it were up to Harry, they’d skip the yacht party, but seeing as she’s hosting it, they go and they mingle. He likes a good quarter of the people there, loves a few, but he can’t he can’t unwind with everyone pulling on him all the time, questions more intrusive and difficult to swerve the more high and pissed everyone gets. Kendall’s real friends keep nagging him about relationship stuff that he couldn’t answer if Kendall herself asked him in private. Her peripheral friends keep trying to either sleep with him or get into an argument about the fact that they used to sleep with him and aren’t anymore. His own friends – most of whom fall into the peripheral category - are worse, though. At the end of the night, his head is so chock-full of unsolicited boyband breakout star advice that it’s giving him a neck ache just to carry it to bed. 

It's not until he’s been staying at her L.A. house for two days, conversation drifting in and out as they lounge by the pool, smoke weed and try out different superfood juices, that Harry’s little bubble of apathetic bliss bursts.

By something as stupid as a tagged Instagram picture of Louis partying at someone’s London mansion. It’s nothing unusual; there are girls and guys, some Harry knows. There’s Oli, Calvin, the other arseholes, and then Luke. Standing with his arm around Louis, eyes fuzzy, just like Louis’.

“What’s up? Are you okay?” Kendall pokes him in the thigh with a toe. 

He’s lying stomach-down on her bed, scrolling, and she’s sitting against the headboard, smoking a post-coital blunt and scrolling. They’re meant to be watching some Netflix documentary series about a guy who scammed some infuriatingly naïve woman out of her entire 401k by pretending to be a billionaire who had a slight technical bank issue, my love, but Harry zoned out the around the third time the scamming victim claimed that this could’ve happened to anyone after just divulging that she venmo’d her billionaire beau petrol money for a thirty minute drive without ever questioning his legitimacy. Kendall’s bed is comfortable, her room sexy and cosy with string-lights and dark raspberry-coloured walls, and Harry felt nice and emotionally zen or whatnot, so why the hell. Why the hell on a good day like this, actually.

“Yeah,” he grunts, scrolling away from the picture. When he thinks she’s lost interest, he scrolls back up. Then accidentally hearts it, panics and undoes it, then zooms in and hearts again. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She doesn’t ask again, but he can feel an expectation of explanation in the air, so he adds: “Back hurts a bit.”

She scoffs. “Liar.”

Harry turns, surprised that she’d actually call him out, but finds that she’s referring to the guy on the Netflix documentary.

Later on, when Kendall is sleeping, Harry drinks too much of the rosé she has standing out and finds himself by her poolside, scrolling until he’s sufficiently buzzed to do something stupid.

                                                                                3:49 AM

Harry – haven’t seen you with him in a while

                                                                                3:49 AM

Harry – luke

                                                                                3:54 AM

Harry – guess he’s still on your roster ?

                                                                                4:00 AM

Harry – sry

                                                                                4:07 AM

Harry – am I just a curl to you

                                                                                4:31 AM

Harry – ignore this msgs in the moaning please

                                                                                4:36 AM

Harry – slag

                                                                                Read 4:36 AM

*

There’s always an extra layer of excitement in the air when they’re back at O2 arena. Stage fright hasn’t got it’s claws in him like it used to back in the early days anymore; he isn’t bent over backstage with his head in a bucket and someone rubbing circles on his back five minutes before showtime like he was the very first time. Tonight, the first night back after a week’s break, it’s something else that’s got him feeling sick.

When Harry first meets up with Louis and the lads backstage before soundchecks, all is as normal as can be expected.

Except Louis keeps looking at him funny. Never up close, always across the room and a crowd of busy tech- and stageworkers. Always cut off with a small smile whenever Harry catches it.

At first, Harry thinks it’s because his hair’s looking funny. He checks it, twice, and it isn’t, though. Then he tries to corner Louis and ask him, but he wriggles out and they never manage a second alone. By the time the Jamie Lawson and Augustana have finished warming up the crowds and they step out under bright lights and twenty-thousand screams, Harry is hyperaware of Louis’ eyes on him, skin tingling. It’s agitating, because there’s a smugness there, he thinks, a sort of casual amusement at Harry’s expense, like he’s got the upper hand now and he means to take advantage.

So what if Harry sent a few idiotic texts when pissed off his head? So what if Louis received them and didn’t respond? So what if he did so while lying wrapped up in Luke’s arms after a half-decent fuck?

Fuck him.

Harry leverages the agitation into energy, putting on a show; he knows how to do that in a way none of the other pricks do. He knows how to let go, and he does.

“Steady, dancing queen,” Louis tells him, as the first exchange they’ve shared between just the two of them since they arrived. It’s said into Harry’s ear as they both run back for water, “don’t throw out your back again.”

Louis hops up out of his squat before Harry can snipe back at him, then runs off down the stage to pour his water down the back of Liam’s shirt.

Harry bides his time.

“Hey,” he snaps his fingers the second they all tumble off stage, “come here.”

Louis and Niall both turns and look at him, unsure who he’s addressing.

“Lou,” Harry says, panting through it, and nods for Louis to come, “chat for a sec?”

“Ehm…” Louis, with his white t-shirt soaked through in water and sweat, his skin shining and his eyes burning right through Harry, stuffs his thumbs in his pockets and stops shifting his feet. “No?”

“All right, you lads sort yourself out,” Niall says, apparently bored with it. He legs off, trying to reach Liam at the end of the hall. 

Harry takes one more look at Louis, then turns and walks in the other direction. He’s got no idea where he’s going, but he just wants a quiet corner, literally anywhere. He can hear Louis’ trainers squeaking on behind him, and stops when he sees a door left ajar, pushing it open. It leads to a small vacant office space with a desk, chair and bare walls.  

“I’m sorry about the fucking texts, okay?” Harry starts, staring at the desk.

“What texts?”

“Oh, you fucking—” Harry spins, finding Louis struggling not to laugh at him. “Don’t laugh at me.”

Louis rolls his eyes, taking a minute. “Sorry,” he lies, grinning right through it. Harry starts to do the same, helpless, when his eyes catch on Louis’ neck. Right there, on a spot Harry’s kissed and sucked forbidden marks into when Louis didn’t have the wherewithal to stop him more times than he can count, sits a lovebite. Not made by Harry.

Louis must see his smile falter because he touches his fingers to it as if he was waiting for Harry to notice.

“Him, then?” Harry asks, and Louis barely manages to blink before Harry shakes his head and pushes past him. “Never mind.”

“Hang on—”

“No.” Harry stops anyway, throwing his hands out. “I’m not gonna say anything I have any right to say, am I? So, just… leave it.”

A lady with a clipboard comes rushing down the hall, hastily throwing out a good job tonight guys as she passes in between them. Harry barely manages a yeah thanks and Louis says nothing, hanging against the doorframe, waiting.

“Say it anyway,” he says once she’s out of earshot. His arms are crossed over his chest, jaw clenched tight, but there’s a look in his eye, a fire there that Harry knows; something rebellious, goading. “Come on,” he says, “show’s over, popstar, drop the act.”  

“Oh, fuck you.”

Harry takes one step forward, then catches himself and turns instead, marching off down the hall. He doesn’t listen for Louis’ shoes this time, tells himself he doesn’t give a fuck if Louis is half-running to catch up to him or if he’s still hanging there in the door, unperturbed. He reaches his dressing room at record speed, slams the door behind him and rattles two cleaning ladies in the midst of clearing up his pre-show messes.

“Sorry,” he exclaims, panting.

“No no, no need, you did amazing out there, really, we’re such huge fans,” one of them begins, a full binbag in her hands and a mix of fear and adulation in her eyes. God, he hates that. He hates that look. The shrinking stature, flickering eyes, shaky hands, that instantaneous switch to reverence the second they realise oh. Oh, he’s not one of us, the peasants, the humans, he’s not Harry, he’s Harry Styles, even from people he would’ve gone to school with.

“Shit, I didn’t mean to startle you, but thank you so much,” he starts, still frazzled, and runs a clammy hand through his hair. It gets stuck because it’s all stiffened up with product. He drops himself on a sofa and starts ripping at it until it goes soft again. “Thank you so much, I’m sorry about the mess, my stylists and my team—well, myself, too, actually, but—”

“No, please. Please don’t apologise, love,” the older of the two ladies exclaims. “We’re so grateful to have met you, actually, my daughter, she’s a huge fan of yours, she plays that one, what’s that one; poooowerless, and I don’t care it’s—”

The door gets slammed open. “Harry!”

The two ladies’ heads snap up, mouths and eyes going round.

“Oh,” Louis says, flushed, and scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Hi, sorry.”

“No no,” the older lady says, “we were just telling Harry how well you all did out there.”

Louis drops his head, nodding. “Thanks, thanks,” he mutters, awkwardly stepping sideways so he can lean back against the wall. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, he’s clawing at the smooth tan skin of his own arms and his smile is tight-lipped, impatient.

Harry relaxes into the sofa, spreads his legs a little and watches.

“We’re imposing, come on,” says the older lady, pulling her younger co-worker toward the door. “Lovely to meet you boys, have a nice evening and good luck tomorrow.”

“Thank you so much, thanks for, eh—thank you!” Harry calls after them.

They exit the open door, presumably believing themselves to be out of earshot the second they’re no longer visible, because the young one giggled out loud and exclaims “oh my god, Larry is so real!” and the other one bellows laughing.

Louis groans, closing his eyes. “Fuckin’ hell.”

“Close the door,” Harry replies, prying his eyes off Louis to look at his rings as he twists them around instead. “Or leave.”

Of course, Louis does neither, crossing the room in slow, deliberate steps. He flops down on the couch, throwing his arms out. “Where have all your mates gone?”

“What mates?” The room was full earlier on, ram packed with friends and employees. Now it’s empty and Harry can’t conjure up a single name that doesn’t mostly fall into the latter category. “Where are yours?”

Louis glances at him sideways. “What mates?” he parrots.

“Oh, I don’t know, that ginger bloke, I’ve forgot his name now,” Harry replies, dry. If Louis wants to play it like that, they can play it like that. “And the other one. And the tall one, too, I’m guessing.”

A spark flashes up in Louis’ eyes at that. “The tall one? Who’s that?” he asks, overly light, taunting as all hell, “oh, you mean the one with the big cock? Luke, right, that’s it, isn’t it. I remember now.” He huffs, almost laughing. “Massive cock. Reckon it’s the biggest I’ve ever—”

“Shut up.”

Louis laughs, satisfied, and Harry’s cheeks burn.

He needs to retort, come up with something that’ll wipe that smirk off Louis’ face, but his words stick in his throat. Louis was always better at this than him, ready to slap him off balance with a perfect jab before he’s even gotten his last sentence out.

So. 

Harry turns, grabs him by the knee and yanks him flat onto his back. At least he’s got the upper hand in this regard.

Louis gasps, caught off guard, and Harry seizes upon it, grabbing him by the cock. He squeezes, hard, and Louis winces, slapping at his wrist. “Ah, fuck off.”

“No,” Harry mutters, but stops so he can shift back to undo his own fly. Louis’ eyes darken, tracking Harry’s hands, and it sends a wild surge of satisfaction into Harry. It has him squaring his shoulders, even as Louis turns his head and scoffs at him, has him pulling his still-soft cock out and shifting up. “Suck it,” he says, and Louis’ head snaps back, glares at him defiantly, “suck it up, come on.”

The flush in Louis’ cheeks is bad, angry red, but he strains against it when Harry slips a hand under his head to tilt it up. “Fucking—” he hisses, turning his head so Harry’s dickhead smears against his cheek. “Close the door first.”

It registers faintly, somewhere in the back of Harry’s head, but he’ll be fucked before he takes a single command from Louis tonight. “You close it.”

“You close it,” Louis snaps. It’s weak, childish, and Louis’ gaze keeps flicking back down to Harry’s cock before he catches himself. He’s all but licking his lips.

Harry lifts Louis’ head and nudges his cock at his lips again. It smears across Louis’ lips, pre-come leaving a nice sheen across them, and Harry strokes himself, waiting for Louis to give in and open. “Fucking open your mouth,” he groans, losing his patience, “clearly, you can’t go a week without cock now, so fucking here it is, have at it.”  

Louis looks up at him, eyes blazing, and Harry blurts another bead of pre-come right onto his lips. Then Louis leans forward and kisses the head of his cock. Just a peck, a quick smack of the lips and nothing more.

“More, come on.”

“Not like this, go on your back,” Louis insists.

Harry is about to argue him on it, not because he doesn’t like it on his back, but because it’s a matter of principle now, – and, fuck, Louis doesn’t even want him to give in, he’s just testing him again, playing him, driving him fucking crazy – but then someone walks right by the door.

“Shit.” Harry curls in on himself, hands covering his cock. The people are chatting, laughing loudly and don’t even stop to look inside. Once they’ve continued on down the hall, Harry closes his eyes, wondering whether he should just go and close the fucking door, come hell or Louis teasing him for it, but then he gets shoved onto his back.

“Good boy,” Louis says, then dips down and puts it in his mouth.

“Shit, no,” Harry groans, throwing his hands over his face as Louis’ tongue slides right up his slit and the velvet insides of his cheeks brush up against him. He’s good at this, always was, it’s all they used to do back when Louis used to pretend Harry was a freak for his ‘fascination’ with anal sex. But the thing is, too, that Louis feels in control when he does it like this; having Harry writhe underneath him, at his mercy, fighting not to fuck up and clash with teeth.

Retrieving a single ounce of self-control, Harry pushes Louis back. He moves fast, grabbing Louis’ shoulders before he can brace himself and manhandling him onto his back again. This time, Louis’ mouth falls open as he flops onto his back, already sore and sloppy wet, and Harry slides right into the heat of it.

“Fuck yes,” he sighs, as Louis braces on his elbows and Harry gets to wrap both hands around his head and just fuck into him. He might like the power of control, but whatever he says, it’s not what he likes best, it’s not what makes him fall apart. “Relax your throat,” Harry tells him, Louis’ eyes already watering, locked on Harry’s. “More,” Harry says, pushing, “more, open, more,” until Louis’ eyes are brimming over, his hands dug in to the backsides of Harry’s thighs, “all the way, that’s it, don’t gag, just let me stay there.”

He stays just past the point where Louis’ throat starts convulsing around him, his fingers twitching at Harry’s thighs like they’re a second off pinching for relief, and then he pulls back. Louis coughs and splutters, wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist and then nods, cocking his head back again.

“Throat’s gonna be fucked tomorrow night,” Harry says, and Louis just manages to open his mouth for a scoff before he gets another mouthful of cock to shut him up. “But you don’t give a fuck, do you?” Harry says, glancing briefly at the open door before he goes back at it, fucking Louis’ mouth, “so I guess I don’t either.”  

Louis digs his nails into the backs of his thighs, scratching at him, so Harry steadies a hand on the armrest behind Louis and goes harder at him. “Tighter,” he says, “suck more. Suck harder,” and Louis does, retaliating only with his nails, “did you do let him do this, fuck your mouth like a cunt?”

Louis attempts to shake his head without pulling off. Tears spring down his cheeks as he closes his eyes briefly, before he pushes forward for more and Harry picks up pace again, fisting his hair. “Good. Shit,” Harry hunches as he hears a roar of laughter somewhere in a room close by, but Louis only sucks him harder. “Didn’t let him do this, either, did you,” he says, pulling out to rest his balls in the warmth of Louis’ open mouth. “Lick them,” he says, and pulls himself right to the edge as Louis does it just right, flat soft slaps of the tongue like he knows Harry wants it when he’s close. 

“Don’t come in your hand,” Louis rasps, sliding his face away from Harry’s ball-sack, “they’re so full up, you’re gonna make a mess, come on.”

“Yeah, fuck, yes,” Harry gets out, before he eases himself back down Louis’ throat and empties himself. Louis’ throat cramps and jumps around him, but he doesn’t pinch, so Harry holds him close by the back of the head. One of Louis’ hands have left his thigh and Harry knows he’s got to be close, but he can’t stop staring at the open door.

When he pulls out, Louis wheezes and swallows, again and again, absolutely wrecked. His cock has come out of his jeans and he’s got one hand there, furiously pulling himself off. Harry bats it away and takes over, just about to crouch down and suck when someone knocks the open door.

“Oh, what— fuck,” the guy stutters out, before he backs out of the door and all but runs off.

“Shit—” Harry starts, but Louis grabs him by the back of the hair and fucks up into his mouth right then, hot spurts of come gushing down his tongue.

“Swallow, Harry, come on,” he hears, and tries, but half of it seeps out and down between them.

Harry pulls himself up and drops back against the armrest opposite Louis, throwing his hands over his spunk-slick face. What the actual flip.

“Such a bloody mess, look at that.” Louis fetches a couple wet wipes and scrubs at the spot of velvet cushion cover that took the cum Harry didn’t manage to swallow. “And you, you big baby, sitting there all wiped out, bet your back hurts as well, yeah?”

“M-hm,” Harry whines, letting himself come back down to the hum of Louis’ voice.

“Throwing a fit about where I’ve put my dick while you’ve been chin-deep in American pussy all weekend,” he natters on, moving around Harry. “Little hypocrite,” he says, ruffling Harry’s hair as he passes him. 

“I’m sorry. It’s just when, you know— you do know what you’re doing, though. Like, when you’ve just—when you’ve just let me again, after ages, you know, you can’t just… or at least you can’t expect me not to feel the way I always do when you knew who I was. You know?”

“No, Harry, you’re making very little sense right now, actually. I reckon it’s time you pulled yourself off the couch and went home.”

Harry throws a hand out in the general direction of Louis’ voice, openly pathetic now. His toes are buzzing and he feels nice and warm inside. It’s always good to know, at least for the moment, that he’s the last guy who had his hands on Louis. “Help me.”

“Really took it out of you, that throat fucking, hm?” Louis mumbles, helping pull Harry off his arse nonetheless. “Oh, wait, no that was me. All you did was be a terrible lookout and spit on the couch.”

Harry wipes his mouth and doesn’t think before he practically falls into Louis, wrapping around him. “Come back to mine,” he says, against Louis’ hot-flushed ear, “I’ve got your tea. And chocolate Hobnobs.”

Louis laughs. “Blue or red? The Hobnobs.”

“Blue, obviously,” Harry exclaims, affronted, “I’m not a psychopath.”

“Never know, wouldn’t put it past you to jump on some kind of sanctimonious dark choc health trend all of the sudden,” Louis replies, and Harry just scrunches his nose at that, then dips down for a quick kiss.

Louis pulls back first, turning toward the door. “All right, yeah, I’ll come,” he says, easy, and it doesn’t register in Harry’s head for a couple of seconds; once it does, it dawns on him that he hadn’t even considered the possibility of Louis agreeing.

“Oh,” he says, “okay.”

Louis pinches his cheek and pulls back from the embrace. “Wanna get out of here, then?”

“Mhm,” Harry says, nodding, “separate cars, or?”

“Yeah, all right, that’s probably smartest,” Louis says, as if to push the blame for the needy secrecy onto Harry.

Harry doesn’t push his luck with him anymore, though, because he’s sort of dazed at how much he’s getting and it feels too good to be true. A couple years ago, Louis would’ve been out of the room ten minutes ago, frantically chasing the random guy who walked in on them to pay him out of ever telling the story on.

Now, he’s done neither that nor refused Harry, and when Harry steals himself to asking about Luke again, as they stand in his bathroom side by side, brushing their teeth, Louis just laughs and says “nah, just necked on for a bit. Did you, with her?”

“M-hm,” Harry responds around his toothbrush. He spits in the sink and meets Louis’ eye in the mirror. “But you knew that.” 

Louis’ smile spreads wide around his toothbrush. “Did I?”

Harry shrugs, well aware that Louis isn’t asking him for any kind of serious answer, not with that glint in his eye. “Yeah,” he murmurs, and bites Louis’ shoulder, “and you don’t actually care.” 

“About that,” Louis replies, “specifically.”

“Mm.” 

And that’s it, as far as conversation goes. Louis stays the night.

*

Somehow, Louis ends up in Harry’s bed at the end of every gig at the O2 for the next seven days. After the second gig, it’s Louis who asks, quite casual, no eye contact, and Harry cancels his afterparty plans on the spot. After the third one, they’ve got a day off until the fourth one, and when Louis mentions in a room full of other guys that he’s got a birthday bash he needs to be at, Harry doesn’t bother asking him to come over. He does, though, many hours later, calling Harry at three am just to be let up. He’s drunk, then, and they don’t have sex, but they sleep tangled up in each other and Harry can’t quite believe it.

The last three nights at the O2, Harry doesn’t even really remember anyone asking. Louis just ends up back at his house, and Harry doesn’t question it. They only have sex on the last night, after an afterparty awfully reminiscent of many before, in which they both drink too much and catch each other’s eye across a sea of people, but never speak, never touch.

When Louis shows up at Harry’s house half an hour after he’s left it, Harry’s skin feels electric, chest tight with anticipation, and Louis looks like he’s feeling it too.

Fucking Louis in his own bed is something else. They haven’t fucked in a bed that didn’t carry anonymous white hotel sheets and the promise of waking up alone since they were teens; well, Harry still was, at least. There’s something about Louis’ skin against the bedspread his nan quilted for him, his hair against the cherry wood headboard, his clothes strewn on the fluffy pink carpets that makes Harry’s heart lurch in his chest. He can’t get enough, and he knows he’ll feel like he’s had none at all the second Louis inevitably pulls back on him again, but for now, he’ll take as much as he’s allowed.

“Come back,” he whines from bed, the day before they’re meant to play a gig at Manchester Arena. He’d promised his mum he’d come up yesterday, but pushed it until today when Louis showed no signs of leaving after their last show at the O2. It’s eleven AM and they woke up and had sex an hour ago, then fell back asleep, never to rise again. Harry had hoped.

His sheets all smell like Louis, all warm, all over, and there are open packs of Marlboro cigarettes accumulating on surfaces, binloads of buds scoffed out on his terrace floor, and enough empty Red Bull cans in his kitchen to build a small castle. He’s made himself at home, Harry thinks, then doesn’t let himself think any further. 

“I’ve gotta smoke.”

“No,” Harry grunts, rolling onto his stomach and patting the mattress. “Back here, now.” 

Louis snort-chuckles, jumping into his trackies. His hair is all mussed, soft and long enough to pull at. “I’ll get snappy if I don’t have one.”

“You? Never,” Harry exclaims.

Louis pats his head as he passes. “Be back in a sec.” He smacks Harry’s bare arse and leaves the room. “Gonna go moon all your neighbours now.”

“—don’t, they’re old and posh.”

“Even better!”

He comes back smelling like smoke, unsurprisingly, and kisses Harry harder for telling him as much. With anyone else, cigarette breath is a ‘meh’, if not an ‘ew’, but on Louis, mixed with his usual breath, it’s more an ‘all right, maybe there’s something to it, actually’. He lets Harry on top and in between his thighs, lets him lick lazily into his mouth and throw a hand into the sheets to find the lube. Harry slicks himself up, spreads Louis’ legs apart over his arms and slides in with a grunt.

It’s shorter fuck, Harry’s face in Louis’ neck and Louis’ arms locked tight over his back. “Come quick for me,” Louis huffs into his neck and Harry speeds up, chasing release in short, shallow thrusts without rhythm. “That’s it,” Louis sighs once he’s finished, “good job, good lad, just relax.”

Harry takes a second, letting himself be held before he comes to his senses, realising Louis hadn’t come. “Want me to suck you?”

“Nah, save it for later.” Louis smiles up at him, lax and sweet, cheeks pink, “make me breakfast instead.”

“Why are you—” Harry’s eyes roll back in his head for a second as he tries to count back. They’ve fucked at least five times in the last twelve hours. “Lou,” he says, “aren’t you sore?”

“Bit, yeah.” Louis just smiles. “S’all right. Feels good still.”

Harry dips down and kisses him. “No, but… why are you so good to me,” he whispers, overcome, “you’re so good lately, you’re like, just takeable, what’s… you know I won’t stop wanting, you have to set limits or else…”

Louis smooths sweaty hair back from Harry’s face and meets his eye. “Or else what, love?”

“Or else I just keep, I just keep, you know me,” Harry flounders, and Louis just laughs at him softly. “You know I just keep, like—”

“All right, all right,” Louis says, rolling his eyes, “no more until you’ve made me proper breakfast and changed the sheets.”

Harry nods diligently, then lands another peck on Louis’ mouth as if in conclusion. “Yes. Yes,” he says, scrambling to get up, “but afterwards, though—”

“You can keep.”

Harry leaps out of bed. “Yes, yes.” He’s dizzy, hasn’t eaten enough lately, running on giddy disbelief and adrenaline, “yes sir.”

He ends up postponing his mum for another day.

*

His mum welcomes him with roast for lunch and the surprise presence of his sister. It’s been months since he’s seen Gemma in person, and she’s switched boyfriends and started a new job since then so catching up takes up all the time they have before he needs to leave for the gig. They join up with Louis’ sisters and Liam’s girlfriend in the VIP box during the show, which has Harry’s stomach fluttering frantically. His mum didn’t ask about Louis at all during lunch, – not that she managed to get a word in – but he thought she levelled the lovebite on Harry’s collarbone a pointed look.

He doesn’t know what Louis’ sisters think or know – sometimes it seems like they hate him; other times he finds that he’s just inflating his own importance to cope with being ignored by Louis. 

Louis seems unbothered before and during the show; Harry knows what Louis looks like when he’s intentionally ignoring him. This isn’t it.

And yet—

His standards have risen, once again. It’s stupid, but it’s also sort of justified, he thinks as Louis hands him a bottle of water on stage without meeting his eye. After three days of full access and undivided attention, the slack half-hugs and group conversations just seem like a bit of a slap in the face.

And Louis looks incredible as well. That doesn’t help.

So, Harry runs to the VIP box as soon as security allows him out of the backstage area, and doesn’t look back, doesn’t say bye. He needs to recalibrate.

2:05 AM

Louis – D and P said to say it was nice to see your mum and Gemma tonight xx

2:06 AM

Harry – they’re in bed now, but they said the same, really lovely. I’ll pass the message on in the morning

2:06 AM

Louis – thx

2:11 AM

Louis – didn’t get a chance to speak tonight did we

2:16 AM

Louis – are you asleep cutie?

2:23 AM

Harry – yes

 2:30 AM

Harry - ?

2:31 AM

Louis - *image*

2:35 AM

Harry – you’re such a fucking slut I swear

2:35 AM

Louis – u like?

2:38 AM

Harry – it does: *image*

2:39 AM

Louis – oh hi lil fella

2:39 AM

Harry – not little

2:39 AM

Harry – take more, put two more fingers and show me

2:39 AM

Louis – nope that’s all you get

2:40 AM

Louis – limits, remember?

2:40 AM

Harry – no send more, w ur legs spread and flash on

2:40 AM

Louis – goodnight see you tomorrow xx

2:41 AM

Harry – send more pls

2:53 AM

Harry - slag

                                                     Read 2:53 AM

*

The lads want to go out in Manchester after their last gig at the arena, but Harry needs to be at a ten AM brunch with his mum and nan the following day so he declines. In the evening night, he gets a text from Kendall, telling him they can meet up in London for a night before he goes to Glasgow, followed by several follow-up texts from Jeff asking him about contract-related shit he’s been pushing out of mind since Louis became—accessible again. Then an hour later Louis texts.

1:04 AM

Louis - *image*

Louis – there you go, thought you’d waited long enough.

It’s a picture of Louis’ cock, in his hand, legs spread. It’s taken from below, with flash on, and Harry can just make out the line of his jaw, the curve of his upper lip. He can’t even bring himself to care about the cock, as nice as it always is. Tonight, it irritates him a little.

Aside from dragging a finger along the skin low on Harry’s back as he passed him during their second Manchester gig, Louis didn’t give him anything to work with tonight. Harry doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, really, but whatever he got and didn’t get, it underlined the inequity in their relationship. The last time Harry put a hand on Louis in public, – a hand, quite literally, petting over his cheek because he couldn’t help himself – was the last time he got to touch Louis at all, anywhere, for almost a year. He’d been eighteen then, and fucking devastated.

He's twenty-one now, and a fucking superstar; maybe it’s time he set some limits, too.

He starts by not caving to Louis’ low effort carrot-dangling.

1:15

Harry – don’t send this to me when you don’t know if I’m with people, they could see

1:34

Louis – are you with people?

1:35

Harry – no but it’s the point im making

1:41

Louis – sorry then

1:41

Louis – we all right? We’re still out, im a bit drunk soz

1:44

Harry – yes we’re fine, just can’t do this with you right now. Be safe xx

Read 1:44

*

“You were quiet today,” his mum says in the car back from brunch.

She’s driving, while he’s slumped against the passenger seat window, switching between re-reading the excuse he sent Kendall to get out of seeing her – read and unanswered -- and the last snippy message he sent Louis – read and unanswered. Some boyfriend he is, if he even is that. “Just tired,” he mutters, trying to remember the last time he had a relationship that didn’t end in more or less mutual ghost-fizzling.

“You’ve been a bit… muted.”

“Kendall and I are probably not gonna be seeing each other much more, I think,” he throws out there. It’s only when he says it that he realises it’s probably true. She doesn’t generally ghost him. “So, that’s a bit… yeah. But we’ll stay friends, I think.”

His mum remains quiet for a moment.

“All right,” she says finally, “if you say so.”

Harry frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Harry.” His mum sighs and he knows what she’s thinking. He closes his eyes just as she says: “He’s got such a hold on you, that boy. Could throw you off a cliff and I think you’d still be moping around after him.”

“Yeah, can we not—” 

“I’m not saying anything,” his mum says, turning the car off as they reach home, “I’m just saying, sometimes I think you forget how much that sort of thing goes both ways. If you can’t keep away and you can’t live with things as they are, then…” she smiles, “I think you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and affect some change. Pull yourself up by the balls and whatnot,” she says, ignoring his pained groans, “as much as I still see you as one, you aren’t a little boy anymore. And he’s not invincible. So, I don’t know…” she lifts a slack fist in the air, adding: “Be a man, take some charge.” 

“You can’t say that, mum,” Harry mumbles. “It’s like, misogynist.”

She rolls her eyes and gets out of the car. “God’s sake,” she huffs, “… twenty-year-old boy lecturing me about misogyny... truly never know what life’ll throw at you. – Oh, Harry, darling, be a dear and carry in the groceries for me, will you?”

“Yes, mum.”

*

They pop to Glasgow for two nights at the SSE Hydro arena and nothing spectacular happens. Niall partakes in a wank-off with some bloke working the sound equipment after to see who’s “the bigger man”. Harry can’t tell if the winner is supposed to be whoever comes first or comes last, but in the end they’re both losers in a away. Liam’s girlfriend breaks up with him and he sulks for about half an hour, then pulls himself up and claims it’s for the best as he needs to focus on his protein intakes more. Louis—Louis doesn’t engage Harry. Harry responds in kind.

After three shows in Birmingham, they head to Dublin for three nights in a row at the 3Arena.

And during the first show, just as they’re rounding off with Drag Me Down, Louis decides to drag Harry down. Physically.

“What the fuck?!” Harry exclaims, having landed flat on his back mid-verse. Niall seems to have taken over for him shortly after Louis appeared out of nowhere and rammed his full bodyweight into Harry.

“Sorry,” Louis mouths out, but he’s laughing right through it. He gestures toward Liam, who’s running off already. “Pushed me!” Harry thinks he’s screaming.

Louis points to his ear-piece and leans in, but Harry’s back hurts now, and Louis’ skin is glowing under these lights, Harry’s stomach hurts.

He pushes Louis away, shaking his head as he pulls himself up. As he does, Louis slaps his arse.

“Fuck off! Seriously.” Harry shouts, turning. Louis is still on his arse, looking up at him, and his shit-eating grin freezes right there on his face, as Niall and Liam shout the final nobody can drag me… DOWN. 

Because Harry isn’t a complete dick, he extends a hand down toward him. Louis takes it without looking at him, lets himself be yanked up and then lets go just as fast, spins on his heel and doesn’t look at Harry again.

Not backstage before they leave. Not at soundchecks the following day. Not during the show. Not after it, backstage again.

In the end, Harry feels so guilty – without being entirely sure why – that when Liam asks if he wants to come back to hang out in the bus for a bit, he says yes.

“Oh. Cool,” Liam says, and there’s another thing to feel guilty about—that look of genuine surprise on Liam’s face. God, he’s an awful boyfriend and an even worse friend. He hasn’t answered any of Jeff’s messages in weeks, not even the friendly ones, hasn’t answered Kendall’s one ‘?’ from the other night, hasn’t gotten back to Nick about lunch next week, hasn’t even liked the stupid little meme thing that Gemma sent him two days ago, he’s so sick of himself.

“We’re just gonna be chilling, you know,” Liam says as they walk toward the bus. “Nothing fancy.”

“I know that,” Harry replies, feeling suddenly a bit defensive, “Liam, I don’t—you know I don’t care about… I’m just me, still, I don’t know what this, like—I’m sorry if I’ve been distant, lately, but like... I just collapse, normally. Like, on the hotel bed. I’m fucking exhausted.”

Liam sighs, stops and pats his arm. “I know, mate,” he says, “me too. Be good with that break, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, shifting weight. “I mean, I might do some music of my own just to see, you know…”

“Yeah, I know.” Liam smiles. “Me too, I think. Maybe. First off, I’m just gonna sleep, man. Haven’t slept in, what, like—”

“Five years?”

Liam laughs. “Just about.”

The bus is occupied by Paul, Steve and Mohammed on the front end, playing cards and drinking beer, and in the back-room Oli, Louis and Niall, playing FIFA and drinking beer. Well, Niall and Oli are playing. Louis is lying on the chaise with a blanket over himself, smoking out of a cracked window and scrolling on his phone. He’s somehow managed already to switch from a white vest and black skinny jeans into a mottled green hoodie, Adidas trackies and white football socks.

It’s Harry’s hoodie, he realises a second after he’s taken his eyes off Louis. It’s been gone since Louis left his London house.

“Harreeeeeeeeh!” Niall exclaims, throwing his arms out.

“Mate, the game,” Oli hisses.

“Sorry—”

Liam dumps himself in the only empty spot on the left side of the sectional so there’s really nothing left for Harry to do but squeeze himself in between Louis and the window he’s smoking out of.

“Hey, ah—” Louis nearly drops his cigarette, but Harry is too tired. “Thief,” he mutters.

“What’s that?”

Louis leans over him, stubbing the cigarette out on the window sill before flicking it outside.

“Thief,” Harry mutters, “that’s my hoodie.”

“Oh.” Louis purses his lips, looking down for a second. Harry could swear his cheeks rise in colour. “Sorry, I’ll give it back to you in the morning.”

Which—that’s not what Harry was after. “No, I didn’t mean…” he tries, but Louis is back to scrolling through his mentions on Twitter, body sort of turned as much away from Harry as it can be without sliding into Niall’s lap. “Lou.”

The others are laughing at Niall’s abysmal FIFA skills. Harry pulls out his phone for something to look at. Someone hands him a beer and another message from Kendall ticks in.

11:01 PM

Kendall – hello ??

He starts typing something back, deletes, types again, then deletes and gives it up.

Another message ticks in.

11:04 PM

Kendall – bro I can see that you were typing and then stopped. Just answer me straight ffs you’re so frustrating

“Should just tell her you’re done if that’s it, mate,” Louis says. “Worse to beat around the bush about it.”

Harry startles, flicking off his phone, but wills himself not to look over. “You don’t know.”

“Don’t I?”

Another message comes in:

11:06 PM

Kendall – okay if you don’t answer me by tomorrow, we’re done for real this time. Im not dealing with this shit.

Harry sighs, relieved. “Well,” he says, “now she’s angry, I don’t wanna make it worse right now.”

“Christ,” Louis scoffs, “grow some bloody balls, Harry, seriously. You’re so fucking impossible to grasp onto properly, it’s fucking—”

“Shut up,” Harry snaps, and feels Niall’s head turn. He lowers his voice, adding: “Shut the fuck up, Louis, I mean it.”

Then he texts her, hands shaking with frustration:

11:10 PM

Harry – Hi, I’m really sorry I haven’t been in touch much lately, it’s not because I don’t care or meant to ghost you. I think you’re right that you shouldn’t have to deal with this, and I think honestly I’m just not boyfriend material. I think we should probably put a damper on things for a bit. Really hope we can still be friends. Lots of love xx

Louis seems to have lost interest – or he’s pretending to, more likely – and Harry waits with his heart in his throat until her response ticks in.

11:15 PM

Kendall – …

Harry sighs, unsure what he’d expected. She’s never been one for dragging out the dramatics. He’s just about to tuck his phone back in his pocket and think up an excuse to leave when he sees Louis’ name flash up on the display.

11:16 PM

Louis – why are you even here?

“Because Liam asked me,” Harry replies, refusing to respond on text. He puts his phone away.

“Liam asks you all the time,” Louis replies, as he taps into a tweet mention referring to him as ‘Louis Styles’ and goes and blocks the twitter user. “No point in coming if you don’t want to be here.”

Harry watches him block three more of the Larry people, then get bored and tweet out great time tonight in Dublin !!! for no apparent reason. Then he starts to respond to a tweet asking him what he thinks of Harry’s hairline these days, and Harry decides that now might be as good a time as any to pull himself up by the balls.

He slides his hand under the blanket and onto Louis’ thigh.

Louis turns abruptly, frowning at him. “What…” he begins, but instead of answering, Harry just slides his hand up, and in, right where the worn fabric of his trackies is soft and warm, right where his thighs meet. 

“All right?” Oli asks from across the room.

Louis turns away again, clears his throat and relaxes into the couch. “Yeah,” he says. “Fine.”

His thigh is still tense under Harry’s hand, muscles twitching when he squeezes. But Louis doesn’t push him off, not until Harry slides his hand up to cup his cock.

“Easy,” he whispers, then turns away from Harry, on his side.

The back of Louis neck looks hot, feels hot when Harry touches, soft hairs standing as Harry drags his knuckles down it. Harry adjust his own cock in his trousers, then lies down more, slips his hand under the blanket again. He finds warm skin under the hem of Louis’ – Harry’s – hoodie, low back muscles taut and hard until he rubs them into submission. When Louis sighs, just slightly shaky, and spreads his legs a little, Harry bites his lip and slips his hand down the back of Louis’ trackies.

He can hear Louis’ gasp get caught in his throat, can see his fingers scratch at the couch for purchase.

“Nice hanging out here, actually” Harry says, and feels Louis’ whole body jerk like a live wire. No one else seems to notice. “Should do it more often.”

Liam just grunts in approval, and Niall says, “yeah, you get used to the smell after a while, don’t ya”

“What smell?” Oli asks, and then that triggers a whole new debate about how many times a day one is meant to shower, and Harry doesn’t really care at all.

He’s too caught up in how the shell of Louis’ ear has gone bright red, how his back is lifting and dropping, lifting and dropping, faster and faster. When Harry finally rubs a finger over his arsehole, Louis tenses right up, muscle screwing up tight. It’s only through fabric, still, but it’s threadbare, and Harry is persistent, rubbing hard through it.

Finally, Louis groans and throws his arms over his face, pulling at his hoodie. It makes Harry’s hands slip out the back of his pants and Harry resists the urge to move against it, force himself. He pulls his hands back and creates a bit of distance.

“What’s going on with him?” Oli asks, almost accusatory, and looks straight at Harry.

“Nothing.” Harry lifts both palms in the air, “nothing, I don’t know. Louis, are you okay?” He pats Louis’ back and it goes rigid. He swears he feels Louis’ heart pounding into his hand, though he only touched him for a second.

“Fine,” Louis says, voice rough, then suddenly throws a small pillow to the ground and storms off. “Need some air.”

Harry waits just long enough to have plausible deniability, – or probably not – then follows him out.

“Prick,” Louis says, standing just outside the bus in the brisk night air. It hasn’t, as of yet, done anything to help the flush in his cheeks. “Fuck, why would you—” he’s fighting to light a cigarette, fingers failing him, and Harry steps closer, then closer again. “Don’t touch me. Harry, stay the fuck away, I mean it.”

Harry waits a second, counts flutters in Louis’ lashes. “No you don’t,” he says once he’s sure, “you want me to— you like that, don’t you?” He says it just as it finally makes sense. “Oh my god, you fucking perv, you actually— that’s so fucking hot,” he says, even as he’s laughing and Louis’ face has gone crimson up to his temples. He keeps shoving at Harry’s chest, still fumbling pathetically with his cig and his light, and it’s all just a little bit exhilarating, actually. “You liked it the other time, then— when the guy walked in, you like to be watched, don’t you? Louis. Lou. Look at me.”

Louis drops his light, and in the scramble to try and catch it he drops his cigarette too.

“Lou.” Harry pushes him before he can kneel down and pick his stuff up. He stumbles backwards until his back hits the side of the bus and Harry brace one arm against it too, just above Louis’ head. “Look at me.” Harry thinks about grabbing him by the cock just to make a point, but he’s too greedy; he needs to see the look in Louis’ eye. He grabs him by the jaw and forces the issue. Of course, Louis just closes his eyes. “You wanna be fucked in front of people?”

Louis shakes his head, once. “Not like—that’s too far,” he says through gritted teeth, “that’s—fuck, just get off me, this is fucking—”

“Yeah, it’s risky, innit?” Harry asks, leaning right into Louis’ neck, “anyone could walk up on us, and we’d be caught.”

At the same time as he pushes weakly at Harry’s chest, Louis tilts his neck, giving Harry more skin. “What if I turned you around right here and fucked you,” Harry asks, cock throbbing in his jeans as Louis huffs, sharp out through his teeth, “right up against the bus, what if I just—”

“Don’t—”

“What if I got on my knees—”

“—fucking shut up—”

“Or you got on yours, right there, and sucked me, right here and someone walked out—”

Louis shoves him, hard, and then turns, cheek and palms flat against the bus. “Okay.”

“Shit,” Harry says, a bit dumbstruck. There are cars all around them, there’s a guy smoking on a hotel balcony not too far above them, and the bus door isn’t even fully closed. Louis’ body is so hot against him, though, and he melts right into it, sneaks his hands up under the hoodie to feel warm skin. He smells good, sweatied and smokey, tastes like salt against Harry’s tongue when he licks up the side of his jaw. “Is it the—is it that you might be caught? Is it the fear?” He can’t stop asking now, because he didn’t know he’d find more bits of Louis tucked away in there, thought he’d already spread him open as far as he’d go, but this—this is new, and so fucking exciting. “You get off on being scared, then? You must do, the stakes are so high, your whole life would just be—”

“Shut up,” Louis snaps, slapping back at him, “just fucking—do something. Fuck me, I don’t know, do something.”

“Is it just me?” Harry asks, pressing it into Louis’ shoulder in case it sounds too pathetic to hear out loud. Louis is pushing back on him, frantically rubbing at his own crotch at the same time, and Harry gets hold of his hips so he can grind in and in and in, until he’s so hard he thinks for a second maybe he could, maybe he should just—“what, you’d let me, just pull your trousers down right here and spit—”

Louis moans, and Harry’s pretty sure he’s slipped a hand down into his trackies and started pulling himself off now.

“Yes—no, fuck, you’d kill me,” Louis grits out, “just fingers, just two, Harry, come on—”

Harry circles his hips to try and get further in between Louis’ cheeks. It’s not nearly enough when he knows what Louis feels like to fuck, but he thinks he could come like this, with Louis so breathless from wanting him. “Isn’t it just better if I fuck you,” he asks, and Louis groans, hunching further. Harry pulls his hips back in place, thrusting into him. “Just let me fuck you.”

“No, you prick, just—” Louis grinds back on him despite himself, and Harry tugs at the waistband on his trackies. “It’ll fucking hurt—”

“Yeah, just let me hurt you a little,” Harry groans, squeezing Louis’ whole body so close he’s having trouble wanking himself around it, “just, I just—just wanna have you, proper, can’t you just take it for me—”

“Okay, fuck, okay,” Louis finally relents, “fuck, fine, just fuck me.”

“Yeah, I will,” Harry grunts, and he thinks he might actually come now, “not here, though, don’t wanna hurt you.”

Louis lets out an exasperated noise, something caught between a groan and a disbelieving laugh. “Fuck you,” he exclaims, “fucking unbelievable, Harry.”

“I know… turn around, I’ll suck you off,” Harry says, but the last word collides with the sound of the bus door sliding open and Niall howling like a wolf into the night: “I love you, Ireland!”

Harry stumbles backwards, hands flailing out over his tented crotch, while Louis doubles over, trying to get his cock back in its fod. Some bloke on a balcony off in the distance yells back “I love you too!!”

Niall laughs, then finally notices them. “Fuck are you two doing?”

“Having a smoke,” Louis says, though he’s still got his back to Niall, and his cigarettes and light are lying on the asphalt a couple feet away.

“All right…” Niall says, gaze flicking over to Harry.

“Yeah, ehm…” Harry trails off because Niall’s eyes are narrowing now, his gaze flitting up and down from Harry’s crotch to his hotflushed face. “Nice out tonight. Love Ireland.”

“Yeah…” Harry picks up Louis’ stuff from the ground just for something to do, then takes to flicking the cigarette lid open and shut, open and shut.

Louis fake a cough, then leans sideways against the bus, trying and . “Harry was just leaving.”

“Oh, really? Your bunk’s free, though.”

Harry can feel Louis looking at him now, expectant. “Uhm…” he drags, and Niall starts to frown, mouth shaping up to ask them what the hell is going on again, or worse, so he finally makes a decision: “Yeah, actually, I think I’ll sleep here.”

“Oh, you are?” Louis asks flatly. “That’s bloody weird, innit, ‘cause you literally just said you were going back to your hotel.”

“Am I not allowed to change my mind?” Harry replies, and meets his eye, hopes he looks as firm as he means to. “I don’t want to go, so… I’m not going.”

Niall slaps his hands together. “Great, well, Paul’s just having a massive shit, but you can have the shower afterwards.”

*

2:59 AM

Louis - r u sleeping?

2:59 AM

Harry – soundly

3:00 AM

Louis – wtf do you want from me mate

3:03 AM

Harry – think its pretty evident mate

3:04 AM

Harry – my hoodie back

3:05 AM

Louis – not what I meant, you’re fucking flipflopping doing my head in

3:10 AM

Harry – pot kettle

3:11 AM

Louis – not really, you’re the one who said you couldn’t do this w me right now, I backed off then you screamed at me on stage, then came here to have a grope or take the piss idfk ?? wtf do you want

*

It’s past four in the morning before everyone’s left for their respective hotels or gone quiet in their bunks. Harry spent a good five minutes trying to come up with an adequate response to Louis’ last message, – something honest enough to catch him off guard, but simultaneously not so honest as to kill any chance of getting his dick sucked ever again – then fell asleep instead. It’s a delicate balancing act, with Louis, and lately Harry’s been struggling to find his equilibrium.

Like clockwork, though, he emerges from his doze once the bus has gone quiet.

That’s got to be some sort of sign, he decides, and leaves his phone in the bunk before he sneaks into Louis’.

Louis grunts unhappily as Harry crawls in over him, excessive limbs poking into walls and out through the curtain. He knees his way around Louis, ending up on the inner side of the bunk against the window, and Louis grunts again and turns away from him, pulling the whole duvet up over his head.

Harry fights to get the damned duvet out from where it’s been tightly tucked around Louis’ body. It takes a while because Louis keeps rolling against him and trying to tuck it back in, but eventually he gives up, and Harry slides into the cave of heat underneath it, thinks home. He plasters his front to Louis’ back and snakes an arm around his middle, presses his nose into the nape of his neck and just breathes.

“Consistency, I think,” he whispers, and Louis makes a cut-off noise, like he isn’t sure what to make of that. “S’what I want,” Harry murmurs, limbs heavy now, tucked in between and around Louis’, “control, a bit. Just some,” he babbles, “I get dizzy, otherwise, like... I fall and stuff. Hurt myself…”

He feels Louis’ back untense a little, hears a faint chuckle. “Can’t have that, can we,” he whispers, voice sleep-hoarse and soft, “it goes both ways, though, that sort of thing.”

Harry nods into Louis’ hair. “Mhm. M’sorry… m’not a good boyfriend.”

“You’re not one,” Louis says, quiet, “can’t help the stuff we’re made of...”

It might be a question, it might not, but Harry’s head is half-drunk on sleep now, so he can’t make it out properly, probably wouldn’t know how to answer if he could. “You’re a pretty shit girlfriend too, actually,” he slurs out, “been cheating on me pretty consistently for, like… going on six years.”

Louis laughs at that. “Goodnight, Harry.”

“Sleep well,” Harry says, and they do.

*

It’s noon when Harry wakes and glances at the wristwatch he never took off the night before. He must’ve taken his shirt off sometime during the night because the sun coming through the little bunk window behind him is warming his naked back. There’s commotion outside the bus; cars and golf carts driving around, men yelling back and forth, people laughing. He can hear the kettle brewing in the kitchenette, the telly on in the back room, and someone’s Bluetooth speaker playing anonymous pop music in another bunk. There’s a low vibration of voice rumbling in the kitchen, too, one of them Paul’s, Harry thinks, and maybe Steve. Someone’s in the loo, the shower on. Someone else walks up and knocks the door, asks how long they’ll be; it’s Liam, sounding sleep-gruff and impatient.

Louis isn’t sleeping, Harry can tell by the sound of his breathing, the way his body reacts when Harry presses into him a little closer. Harry doesn’t ask how long he’s been lying awake, wrapped in Harry’s clutch, contemplating how the hell they’re going to get out of this bunk without exposing them both. 

His knees are tucked nicely in the soft space behind Louis’ knees, and when he stretches his feet out, their toes align, back to front. He presses his nose into the side of Louis’ neck, feels heat, a pounding pulse, and twitches his hips forward. Louis doesn’t push back on him, but his arse doesn’t jolt forward either, stays firm against Harry in a way it only can if he’s keeping himself in place, wanting.

Someone walks right past beneath the bunk – Liam, Harry thinks, and then settles in the one below.

Louis takes Harry’s hand out from underneath his bunched up hoodie and moves it down. He’s hard through his boxers, material straining, and throbs against Harry’s hand as he starts to palm him. Louis doesn’t moan, but Harry hears the soft click of his lips parting, feels the muscles of his back flex.

He squeezes and kneads at Louis’ cock, buries his mouth in his shoulder and ruts against his arse. “Good morning,” he whispers, and finally Louis grinds back on him a little.

“Good morning,” Louis rasps back, something like a laugh trapped in there. “Should probably reign this in,” he adds, just as he lets Harry tug his pants down and fit his cock in between his cheeks.

“Mhm,” Harry says, stomach clenching with arousal as Louis takes his free hand to spit and licks into his palm, get is sloppy wet before Harry wraps it around Louis’ cock again and pumps, slow. “We’re stuck in here, aren’t we, though,” he says, “might as well take advantage.”

Louis goes quiet, and Harry imagines him biting his lip or the insides of his cheeks. He’s fucking up into Harry’s hand, faster, making it harder for Harry to fuck against his arse at the same time, but it might be good enough still.

Just as he thinks Louis’ getting close and starts to fists over the head of his cock like he needs it, Louis grips his wrist. “Harry,” he whisper-hisses, “Harry.”

“What? What, anything. Anything.”

“Just put it in, just— come on, just fuck me.”

Harry stops all movement, trying to think straight as his cock throbs in protest. “Shit,” he groans, dropping his sweat-hot forehead to Louis’ shoulder, “is it cause you might get caught or is it cause you want—”

“Both,” Louis insists, then shifts abruptly and throws an arm over Harry, grabbing the pouch behind him. He drops a condom packet and the lube down between them and shifts back in place, facing the curtain. It’s not even pulled properly, there’s a sliver of halfway peeking through at the corner by Louis’ head. Fuck, Niall’s up too now, he just bellowed the end part to a Taylor Swift song somewhere way, way too close. “Lou, we—you know I can’t say no.”

“You can say no,” Louis snaps, “don’t pull that cutesy shit with me, I know you.” He slides his thigh up a little, granting a better view, better access, and Harry can’t not touch, has to thumb over that tight little arsehole, feel it screw up at the slightest pressure. “You just don’t want to say no.”

“No,” Harry agrees, voice having dropped so low it sounds foreign even to himself. He fumbles for the stuff, a familiar sense of urgency buzzing in his fingers now that he’s let himself believe he’s going to get it; even now, with Louis asking for it, there’s a boyish voice in the back of his head saying don’t fuck this up now, don’t miss the window of opportunity. “Be quiet.”

Harry doesn’t bother with fingers once he’s got the condom and lubed, just digs his fingers into Louis’ hip, thumb pulling him open and presses, presses, until the head pops past the first ring of muscle and Louis makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. He’s doing a fair job at muffling the noise, straining so hard Harry can feel it rumble through his whole back, desperate to find a way out if not through Louis’ mouth.

Louis is tight, no fingering in days-tight, and Harry should go slower, but he doesn’t, he forces the issue until he’s buried, panting against Louis’ shoulder, says, “you have the be quiet or they’ll hear you.”

“I fucking know that,” Louis hisses, and Harry pulls halfway out and squeezes back in, testing. “Fuck.” 

“Shit, you’re tight,” Harry groans, snaking both arms around Louis’ body to keep him flush, feel every twitch of reaction as he grinds, slowly, “fuck, you’re like… such a slag, asking for my cock when you’re too fucking—” he tries to circle his hips a little, make room for himself in there, “tight to take it.”

Instead of squeezing the sheet for dear life, Louis slides his hand back and grips Harry’s hip, pulling him deeper. “Fucking not,” he grits out, “I’ve taken bigger.”

Liar, Harry thinks, but he’s still a teenage boy at heart around Louis, so he falls right into the trap, fucking harder to prove himself. It makes Louis stop talking, stop pulling on his hip and instead scrabbling at the mattress for purchase as he pants through his teeth. Harry should calm down, pace himself a little, because Louis is so tight he’s fighting against the pressure in his balls to just release into him, but he can’t, won’t. Spoonfucking doesn’t make for a particularly rigorous rhythm, but Harry can’t give Louis in speed, he thinks he makes up for in depth.

“That’s it, fuck, there you go, thank you,” he pants, and takes both Louis’ wrists and pins them to his own chest, locks his arms around Louis’ in a bear hug so he can fuck up into him, hard. “Take it like that… d’you want—d’you want me bare, can I take the condom off?”

Finally, Louis manages half a voice: “Fuck no,” he laughs out.

It’s too loud, and they both realise it instantaneously.

For a good ten seconds they’re just lying there, holding their breaths, and waiting.

“Do you want them to hear?” Harry asks once he’s sure they aren’t going to be addressed, “hm?” He starts moving again, pushing deep enough that he knows Louis won’t be able to speak. “Or do you just want—”

“Want to come,” Louis somehow manages, arms straining to move under Harry’s, “I need—need my fucking hand, Harry—”

Harry lets Louis get an arm free to touch himself. It leaves Harry with a free hand too and, feeling a wild surge of adrenaline at the way Louis is rolling back on him for more and more of him, he decides to up the stakes. He leans over and pulls on the curtain.

“Fuck—” Louis exclaims, slapping at his arm, but Harry just grabs him by the wrist and pins it back against his chest.

He’s only managed to pull the curtain another couple inches, but it’s enough that, if someone where to walk by and look up, they’d see both their faces, look them straight in the eye and see.

“Gonna give you your hand back,” Harry says, pressing his mouth right up against Louis’ ear, “but if you make a sound—”

“No—”

“—if you make a sound, I’m gonna make one twice as loud,” Harry finishes, and Louis has already wrestles his arm back out, now fisting over the head of his cock furiously. Harry grabs onto his hip, presses in deep and stays there, grinding at Louis’ spot and probably way further than that. If Louis wasn’t two seconds from busting, he’d be telling Harry to shallow it the fuck out a little before he starts poking through Louis’ stomach, but right now, he’s just panting and wanking, so Harry slides his hand onto his lower belly and imagines that he feels himself there. The second Louis goes from almost coming to just coming, Harry can tell he isn’t going to be able to keep his noise in.

“Shit,” he exclaims, grabbing Louis by the mouth and clamping down as hard as he can. He throws his weight into it, Louis rolling onto his stomach with Harry on top as he squirms through his orgasm. Harry hitches himself up more, puts his sfree hand around Louis’ throat and holds, tight without squeezing. “Fucking—ah—quiet,” he gets out, picking up his pace, Louis clams up tight at the tail-end of his orgasm and Harry fucks right into it. “Ah, I’m gonna come, just take it a little bit longer, just---”

He bites down on Louis’ shoulder to keep from groaning as he comes, Louis’ hands twisted back and fisted tight in his hair. It’s one of those orgasms where he whites out and his mind goes blank, body riding it out on instinct, and has no idea how much time he’s lost when he’s nudged off by a sharp elbow to the ribs.

His fingers shake a little as he slides the condom off and ties a knot in it, eyes closed so he can see all the little specks of stardust in the universe behind his lids. Louis grunts and crawls around him, pushing and kneeing at Harry until they’ve switched sides on the mattress, Harry’s left arse-cheek halfway out of the bunk. When he finally opens his eyes and looks, Louis has pulled his boxers up and the hoodie back on, hood over his head, and is curled up with his back to Harry.

“Oh,” Harry mumbles, brain a bit hazy still, “did I go too hard on you?”

“No, jesus,” Louis scoffs, and goes with it surprisingly easy when Harry pulls him back over. He ends up with one leg over Harry’s thighs and his head on his shoulder. His cheeks are mottled pink, a slight sheen of sweat over top of his cheekbones, and his eyes are a little puffy. “Fucking cried for a bit at the end there,” he snort-laughs.

“Good cry or?”

“Yeah,” Louis pats Harry’s cheek and smiles, so close-up and sweet that Harry’s stomach does that flippy thing he thought he’d left behind in teenhood, “fishing for compliments now.”

“Am not,” Harry protests, pursing his lips and frowning.

Louis’ smile widens, just like he’d hoped, and he strains up to peck Harry’s lips. “All right, but you can’t hold it against me,” Louis says, cutting his eyes away.

“Hold what against you?” Harry asks, Britney Spears anno 2011 starting to filter in between his thoughts.

“What I’m gonna say,” Louis says, poking at Harry’s chest, “that was, like… top five best orgasms I’ve ever— no, no, not that face, rid that face, I take it back, fuck it.” 

Harry, grin spread so wide is cheeks are aching, squeezes out a high-pitched bit of voice: “What faaace?”

“Piss off,” Louis exclaims, laughing exasperatedly, “what face, that face—” he pinches Harry’s cheeks, trying to pull the smile into something a bit less gleeful, but it’s pretty hard when Harry feels like he’s just won a Grammy and the Nobel prize and Best Actor, all whilst bringing home the FIFA World Cup in his right hand. “Get that smile—that fucking shit-eating—”

Louis is laughing between his words as he fights Harry’s cheek muscles, all made worse by the fact that his head is being violently jostled around from Harry’s chest shaking from laughing through his shit-eating grin.

“Best you’ve ever—”

“I said top five—”

“—you’ve ever, ever—”

“No!”

Harry stops taunting him, instead laying back with a long, happy sigh. He folds his arms behind his head and smiles wistfully at the bunk ceiling. “Life’s a funny thing, isn’t it,” he says, ignoring Louis’ hand when it slaps at his mouth, “one day you’re just a regular old twat, working a stadium gig here and there, and the next, well, what do you know it—you’ve given Louis Tomlinson the best gut-rearranging of his life,” Harry finishes, somewhat muffled under two of Louis’ hands. “Inexplicable.”

Louis slides his hands down from Harry’s mouth to his throat and gives him a good two-second choke before he stops and kisses him instead. Hard, like shut the fuck up.

Then he turns to face the bunk wall again. “I need a kip.”

“Yeah, you would do after that, wouldn’t you,” Harry continues, giddy, and wraps himself around Louis despite the resistance, “should put you on bed rest for a good week with one of those IV drips in your arm.”

“Pack it in,” Louis laughs, sounding exhausted. Harry does, nuzzling the back of Louis’ – his – hoodie instead. He likes the way the smell of his own detergent and leftover cologne mixes in with Louis’ smell, like a strangely satisfying clusterfuck of lemon, sweat, moss and nicotine breath. “Never say anything again…”

“Well.” Harry stretches until his joints crack, toes and knuckles against the cold bunk walls. “As long as you don’t say no.”

He receives a snorty noise in response to that, as well as a light slap to the stomach. It means turn around and squeeze me, Harry thinks, or at least he thinks it does.

“So, now that we’ve established, you know,” he starts, mouth drowning in the back of Louis’ hair, “that you’re a pervert—no, it’s okay—that you’re an exhibitionist pervert and that.”

He waits for Louis to object, but instead he gets a sigh and swears he feels the back of Louis’ neck rise in heat. “Right, okay,” Louis says eventually, “whatever, now that we’ve established that, then what?”

“Then… like, I’ve got something on you,” Harry tries, and Louis just laughs, “and if I want to fuck or something, then… maybe you’ll be more compliant. You know? Cause otherwise I might, I don’t know…” he squeezes tighter when Louis’ body starts showing signs of wanting to wriggle out. “Like, use it against you?”

“Right, what, you’re threatening me now?” Louis scoffs, “you’ll tweet it to the masses?”

Harry presses his mouth into the side of Louis’ neck, just to feel his pulse jump when he says, “would that get you off?”

“Harry.”

“Mhm,” Harry agrees, “so if you’re open, again, like now, like... if you’re accessible to me, like this. You’re proper accessible. No back-and-forth, no fucking—like it used to be.” He hears his own voice go a little hoarser, more boyish, as he says it, and Louis’ breath stutter at it. But he’s pulled himself up by the balls now. “If you start with that shit again, with the yes and then no and then yes, then—”

“You’ll fuck it off, yeah, I get it,” Louis says, a little drier than before. “I get it, Harry, just leave it.”

“No, I won’t, that’s my point,” Harry replies, feeling like he’s got something to defend suddenly, “unless you actually tell me to, properly. Or at least… until we’re like, not up and down each other all the time.”

The sigh Louis gives is long, and earned. It’s been a crazy five years.

“But otherwise,” Harry finishes, and pushes his forehead against the back of Louis’ neck as he does so, just in case Louis get any good ideas and start turning around to try and call him out in a look, “I’m not gonna take no for an answer. It’s either yes or I didn’t hear you.”

Louis laughs faintly. “Think there’s a word for that.”

“Not with me,” Harry snaps, “with you. When I know how much of a sick fuck you actually are. How much you want it, even when you say you don’t.”

Louis just hums. “Stop talking.”

“That’s the spirit,” Harry replies, and gets an elbow in the side for it. “Sleep well. You’re gonna need your rest.”

“Fuck off, Harry,” Louis says, laughing and half-heartedly trying to wriggle away from him.

Harry just pulls him back in and relaxes with a sigh. “Nope.”

Chapter Text

This time around is different. Not because of Louis; in a lot of ways, he thinks the more Harry changes, the more Louis becomes ingrained in his own inertia, stubbornly incapable of moving up or in or ever, ever, moving on. Early on, he might’ve thought this thing too would pass, a product of proximity and the effect Harry has on people, all people, everywhere. But Louis hasn’t changed, hasn’t built up any real immunity, not to Harry.

If anything, his systems are failing now, flaring up with so many error messages that the alarm fatigue makes it impossible to  do anything but just—stop. Let the walls come crashing down and push clearing off the rubble off until tomorrow.  

If Zayn was the drop that put bucket at maximum capacity, – and he wasn’t really, if Louis is honest with himself – the hiatus, as Harry’s team called it in that meeting, caused the overflow. Losing Eleanor was water gushing onto the floors, and Louis slipped, kept slipping, still is.

Slipping and sliding around now, on stage at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, soaked in water – courtesy of Liam, and himself --  and yet, Harry.

Harry is different. Taller now, of course, and the hair is longer too. Sometimes Louis wants to cut it all off when he sleeps, just to see those bouncy boyish curls again, just to see him as that boy Louis knew where he had, back when everything was new and exciting and us-against-the-world.

“I’ve extended my suite so we can relax for a bit,” Harry told him three days ago, after their last gig in Dublin. “Stay with me?”

It hadn’t sounded like a question, though it was, upturned at the end and all. Louis is so used to Harry’s questions sounding pleading, pathetic almost, that the lack of that desperate edge makes it translate into a command in his brain. They spent three days in the Plaza hotel suite, ordering room service and fucking and bathing together and Louis demoing songs for the fifth album while Harry sat in a corner, scribbling lyrics for songs that won’t be going on there. We’re not who we used to be, we’re not who we used to be, Louis caught over his shoulder by accident one time.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it.

This is a last hurrah. A final fuck you to all the years spent wanting, but never getting, terrified of causing the loss of something that was never truly his to begin with. Soon, they’ll be free of the time constraints, the gruelling schedules and the external pressure holding them together.

Harry will be onto a new chapter, singing those songs he’s kept to himself, and Louis will be somewhere, sorting through rubble.

Until then, though, as everything comes crashing down, Louis might as well have fun with the carnage.

“Party? Lads? Anyone?”

They’re on the bus, half an hour after the show, and Louis has just exited the shower, towel wrapped around his waist and a bounce in his step. He could party, right now. They haven’t got any important meetings or interviews before the show tomorrow night, and Harry went off to make some phone calls after the gig, so Louis has the night off all to himself.

Party usually means laying on the floor of a hotel room nearby, with booze and smoke and Oli and Liam and whoever else tags along, maybe a bit of blow if they’re feeling particularly inspired.  

“Niall’s got a bunch of people in his hotel room already, said we could join,” Liam says from the couch, “should I text him?”

Louis snaps his fingers at him. “Yes. That. Yes.” He whips around, pinning Oli down at the other end of the bus. He’s trouser-less and eating a slice of plane toast without butter. “Put some clothes on, Wright, we’re partying Irish style tonight.” 

“All right,” Oli says, but he drags the vowel and then looks up at Louis, brows drawing together a little. “Missus give you the night off, then?”

Louis makes wide eyes, nodding backwards to remind him that Liam is like, right there. Oli just rolls his eyes in response because Liam is as wilfully ignorant about the Harry thing as wilfully ignorant comes. Louis used to think it was just stupidity, and maybe a misguided belief in the good, straight, normalcy of his friends, but lately he’s begun to think that Liam just doesn’t need to know what he doesn’t want to know. It makes Louis feel like a bit of a joke, even if no one is laughing.

“I’ve got the whole night out!” he yells, and laughs for effect. Liam laughs with him, just because. “Liam, I love you!”

“What?”

“Come on! Put your party clothes on, people!”

*

2:50 AM

Harry – Only steve on the bus? Where r u, I’m done with calls and stuff

Louis is lying on the carpet of Niall’s hotel floor, with a cigarette pinched between the fingers of his right hand and a half-empty vodka-spiked redbull can in his right. His head is comfortable, resting on the rather bulky arm of a fit guy that would definitely fuck him if he asked. When they first arrived, the room was so full up they considered walking right out again to avoid a claustrophobic panic attack on the part of Liam, but soon after half the crowd thinned out to go clubbing. Niall seems to have left with them, Liam is sleeping peacefully on the velvet couch in a corner and Oli is making out with a fellow ginger on Niall’s hotel bed. There are still about ten other people in here; Niall’s mates or mates of his mates or just party-crashers, Louis can’t be sure, but they’re adding to the atmosphere and playing a steady stream of psychedelic indie rock so that’s all that matters.

Louis did a line off the fit guy’s collarbone earlier, but other than that he’s just been “writing”, flirting, chatting shit until his voice went hoarse and now, smoking. Cuddling a bit. It’s perfect.

He picks up his phone, drops it straight onto his nose and groans.

Fit guy laughs. He smells like that Paco Rabanne perfume that Harry damn near staged an intervention to get Liam to stop drenching himself in a couple years back. “How drunk are you?”

“Not that drunk, mate,” Louis replies dryly, and picks his phone back up.

2:52

Louis – Niall’s room, party, sry thought you’d be out for the night

He puts his phone away and tries to concentrate on smoking while fit guy nibbles at his neck. People glance his way here and there, but their eyes are glazed-over and the music is deafening, and Louis isn’t as terrified of being caught out as he used to be. Maybe it’s bravery, maybe he’s just given up. At some point the music switched to one of Zayn’s solo songs and the endless riffing just fits Louis’ vibe right now, goddamnit, and if he was drunker maybe he’d be tweeting about it, but he isn’t that drunk so he just settles for laughing quietly at himself.

What even is life.

It seems like he closes his eyes for one second, just feeling the moment, and the next he opens them again and Harry is sitting on the floor across the room. Louis doesn’t know when he came in, but he hasn’t been over to say hi, that Louis remembers, which means nothing because Louis is still being nibbled on by Fit Guy so why would he?

“Fucking knew you were into guys,” fit guy mumbles against his ear, “you’re too fucking hot to be straight.”

His hand is squeezing Louis’ thigh, up close to his crotch, and across the room Harry is flipping his hair back and forth, entertaining some girl in a mini dress. She’s got a hand on his lap too, and Harry has an arm over the backrest of the couch. Their faces are close enough that if someone just gave them a little nudge, just the tiniest whack to the back of the head, they’d be snogging. She wants to, clearly. Harry looks like he wants to, but that’s sometimes just how his face falls.

Every few minutes, he glances over, pointed, and he and Louis lock eyes.

“D’you want to go somewhere?” fit guy asks Louis, hot and wet against his ear. Louis doesn’t want to go anywhere. This just got interesting, for the first time all night.

“No, just— kiss my neck,” he mumbles, and fit guy is nothing if not accommodating.

His lips are chapped and he’s a bit too soft and loose with it, gets the wrong kind of goosebumps going, but Harry takes note and that has Louis’ cock filling hot.

“Want to get my hands on your arse,” the guy says, “I’d fuck you so well, you’d be walking funny on stage tomorrow.”

Louis bites back a laugh, but it dies on its own when Harry leans into his girls’ ear and slides his hand right up her thigh, under the hem of her dress. Then they snog, and suddenly there’s a hand on Louis’ crotch too, massaging gently, and he closes his eyes and tries to keep from going dizzy.

Fit guys’ whispers blur into each other, his hand roaming from Louis’ crotch down to his thigh and up again, and then not at all. Eventually, Louis opens his eyes, and he’s lying alone on the carpet, staring at the ceiling. Someone kicks at his hip, maybe on accident, maybe not, and then they groan like an old man as they manoeuvre themselves onto the floor beside him. There are no people on the couch where Harry sat anymore.

It makes sense because Louis is inhaling the scent of Gucci Guilty and vanilla-caramel tequila and watermelon-flavoured chewing gum now.

Harry’s hair tickles him as he leans into Louis’ cheek, lips soft against his ear. “Hey, Lou,” he whispers, “taste.”

“Wha—” he gets two slick fingers pushed into his mouth then, and licks reflexively. The salt and slight tanginess is unmistakable. He spits them out and stares at Harry, briefly sober. “What the fuck was that?”

“Dunno,” Harry replies, smiling slowly, and wipes his fingers on Louis’ t-shirt. The room is spinning around him, but Harry’s face is in focus, eyes dark, keenly fixed on Louis’ face. “What do you think that was?”

“I think—” Louis pushes up to sit, closing his eyes for a second to stave off the dizziness, “I think you’re fucking disgusting.”

“What, you don’t like the taste?” Harry asks, voice sweet, and licks his fingers performatively, “poor Eleanor, then.”

Louis groans. “Where’s that bloke?”

“Left,” Harry says, shrugging, “got bored when you fell asleep on him.”

Louis looks around the room. Oli and his girl have left, Liam and everyone else left in the room are sleeping or floating in their own worlds. “And your girl?” he turns back to Harry, who just shrugs again, smiling wider. His mouth is wet, shiny. “What, you just stuck your fingers in her, then left?”

“Got her off, didn’t I?” Harry says, fingers wriggling into the beltloop on Louis’ jeans. “A little generosity goes a long way, you know, Lewis.”

Louis rolls his eyes and flops back down. It’s a mistake because the second he does, Harry rolls on top of him. “No, not—”

“Oh, come on, you’ve still got half a chub on,” Harry says, laughing when Louis twists his face away from an incoming kiss, “be generous with me.”

With his head turned sideways into the carpet, Louis is staring directly at Liam, who’s snoring up at the ceiling. “Been generous non-stop for the last four days.”

“Not yesterday,” Harry says stubbornly, and Louis just catches a glimpse of the martyred expression he’s put on before he closes his eyes and laughs. “Remember? You fell asleep.”

They’d both fallen asleep, actually, but that doesn’t fit into Harry’s bit, and Louis can’t help but buck up into Harry’s touch for more when he grabs him by the bulge in his jeans. Fuck, outside of Liam, he doesn’t know any of the people in here. One of them could be filming on the sly behind him for all he knows.

Harry leans into his ear, whispers, “blow me?”

“Will I taste her on you if I do?”

“Only one way to find out,” Harry replies, after biting Louis’ collarbone, “or I could just hold you down and fuck you.”

The thought has Louis lifting his thighs up around Harry, rutting up for a second before he gets too tired and just lets himself be used. It sparks a reaction in his cock, if not his swimming head, just flopping out here pissed and half-asleep, for Harry to have his way.

That’s not good enough, though, apparently, because Harry gets up and hauls him into the empty bed, under the duvet. Louis wriggles around, grunting discontentedly in his jeans until he’s got them off, then starfishes back out again and pulls Harry half-way on top. “Just do whatever, I’ll just lie here,” he murmurs, “just lie here, you’d like that.”

Harry makes a noise that sounds like agreement, and then kisses Louis, right by the ear, “you’re really out of it.”

“Mhm, can’t blow you, just do your worst, I love it,” Louis slurs, woozy from fighting the heavy pull of sleep. “Just flip me, go slow, you know, just… wear a condom.”

Harry laughs against him, and it tickles his ear. He grunts unhappily.

“Imagine me,” Harry sighs after a moment has passed, “fucking you non-stop for the last four days almost, and then, like… I turn away for half an hour and come back to you having found someone else to do the job already.”

Louis can’t find the point, it isn’t sharp enough. “What? When?”

“Tonight,” Harry murmurs, “you know I know you’d have fucked him if I hadn’t walked in.”

Louis grunts. “Does sound like something I’d do… or you’d.”

“’xactly, takes one to know one, why’d you think I ran up here so fast?”

Louis laughs, then turns over on his side, because Harry’s breath is tickling so much it’s getting bothersome. Harry folds around him, just like he’s meant to. “Wouldn’t have,” Louis slurs, “fucked him.”

“Okay,” Harry replies, “but he’d have fucked you, when you got like this. Or he might have.”

“Sure.”

Harry sighs again, and it’s one of those long, attention-seeking ones now. “Not very self-preservative, is it, though... and you just laugh it off… pisses me off a bit, actually.”

Louis reaches back and fumbles around until he finds Harry’s cheek so he can pat it. “Sorry about that, love. Sleep it off.”

“Can’t,” Harry says, but he’s snoring against the back of Louis’ shoulder not long after.

*

When he wakes the following morning, – or rather noon, probably – he thinks it’s from the sun stabbing him in the eyes. The heavy floor-to-ceiling curtains are pulled, but whoever did it forgot to hook them at the end so they’ve slipped back just a little, just enough to let a sliver of sunshine abuse Louis’ hungover face.

He means to turn away, but then he realises what might’ve actually woken him; Niall’s voice grumbling behind.

Right. He’s in Niall’s hotel bed, with what he suspects to be Harry lying behind him, and now apparently Niall over there on the other side of Harry. It’s a king-sized bed, but still, it’s been a while since Louis’ been Eiffeltowered well enough to justify sleeping a full night alongside two other fullgrown men.

As far as he remembers, though, nothing so exciting went down last night. Niall wishes.

“… but how’d you end up here?” Niall is asking, voice sleep-gruff and slurry.

Harry’s is worse, low and scratchy, stirs Louis’ cock right awake. “Dunno, someone said you were having a party and then… dunno, fell asleep.” Louis knows the dopey face he’s making in lieu of giving a real answer.

It works, as per usual. “Well, fuckin’ hell, should’ve told me, I’d have come back if I knew. Been a while since you’ve joined.”

Harry replies with an awkward laugh that ends in a cough. “You didn’t miss anything.”

“Except Louis dying over there.”

“Yeah,” Harry mumbles, “yeah, no, he got pissed and nodded off early on. I mean, after Liam, obviously, but—”

Niall laughs. “Obviously. Look at him over there, he’ll get a full fifteen hours, then watch him complain about sleep deprivation at sound checks later.”

“Cute, though, in’he, when he’s sleeping.”

“Yeah, it’s nice an quiet for once, isn’t it, with them two out cold.” 

Louis resists the urge to pipe up right then. The reward isn’t worth the risk of awkwardness, or worse, catching a whiff of Niall’s morning breath.

“Can hear my own thoughts for once,” Harry says, laugh clear in his voice and Louis attempts to twist a hand back to pinch him, but it’s too much work. “Tranquil, like…”

“That’s a new word, innit? Tranquil, what the fuck does that mean.”

“Means, like… peaceful and stuff, like…” Harry rumbles on, “think the dictionary says it’s like, you know, when there’s a distinct sense in the air that Liam and Louis are out of commission.”

Niall laughs. He’s always been too generous in that regard, Louis thinks, as he bites his own laugh back.

“You know, this reminds me of back in the day, you know, when they’d cram us in tiny hotel rooms and shit, or we’d be stuck in someone’s bedroom all five of us,” Niall goes on, sounding amused. “Remember at your stepdad’s bungalow? Or the fucking—the camping trip, with the pissing rain and Zayn damn near strangling Louis—”

“Yes, oh my god, remember Zayn out in the fucking middle of the night with the—that thing, walking off like a fucking vagabond—”

“I’ll fuckin’ walk back to Bradford, I don’t give a fuck, m’not dealin’ wiv this, I’ll make my own fuckin’ band,” Niall imitates, and Harry is laughing silently in his throat, shaking the bed a little.

“Should’ve just left then, shouldn’t he?”

“He said he would, remember? So fucking sure of himself, ‘I’ll fuckin’ leave you lot, I don’t give a fuck’.”

“Yeah, fuckin’ hell,” Harry sighs, laughter dying off slowly, “took him long enough to make good on the promise.”

Niall is quiet for a beat before he speaks again, and Louis wishes he could see his face. “Nah, I don’t blame him,” is what he says once he finally does speak. There’s movement again, sounds of Niall shifting around. “Could’ve given a head’s up or whatnot, but you know… look at the state of us.”

“I think we’re all right,” Harry replies, quiet. “You going back to sleep?”

“Yep,” Niall says, sounding farther away now. “Don’t try anything while I’m out.”

Harry slaps the duvet or something. “Well, what the fuck am I here for, then?”

Niall laughs at that, then doesn’t say anything more. A moment later, Harry is shifting around again, and Louis can feel him breathing at the back of his neck. Another moment, and Niall is snoring. Then Harry relaxes, finally, and melts in around Louis. There’s a newish bloke Louis recognises from the security team lying straight across from him, under the curtain, sleeping. If he strains his chin down, he can catch the blurry silhouette of Liam’s foot slung over the armrest of the couch in the corner. And Niall is, like, two feet away.

Louis can’t pinpoint exactly when he picked up this affliction of his. Maybe it was always there, lying dormant under his skin, but somewhere between Zayn leaving and splitting with Eleanor, it decided to finally assert itself and it’s fucking impossible to fight down. His cock stirs up, goes fat and blood-heavy, just lying here with Harry’s hand settling low on his belly, knowing they could—they could, if Harry would.

His mouth is dry, though, tastes like soured vodka-red bull and Harry’s cunt-slick fingers in his mouth.

“Need—” he grunts, stretching over to pick a can of coke off the nightstand. The second the lukewarm, flat liquid hits his tongue, he recoils and spits it out again. “Fucking rum in that,” he groans when Harry makes a questioning noise and pets his hip.

“Shit.” Harry reaches over him, between cans and bottles, and finds a sprite can. “This one’s okay, had a sip before.”

His gruff morning-voice goes straight to Louis’ belly, muscles clenching tight, and he can feel Harry watching the muscles in his throat work as he drinks. Out of the two of them, Harry was always more prone to horniness in the mornings. Something about the smell of skin rubbing sheets all night, he said once.

Something about your cock waking up before your head does, Louis had scoffed, before sucking him off.

When he lies back down, Harry wraps in closer, and there it is, right up against his arse, the most familiar good-morning. Lips find Louis’ shoulder and the side of his neck, kisses gentle, the hand still there low on his belly to keep him in place. Harry nips at the shell of Louis’ ear and then sighs and starts to rut against him, almost unthinking.

Louis lets it go on for a bit, breathing quiet as he palms himself through his pants.

Then Harry pulls him around by the shoulder, until he’s on his back and Harry can climb on top, wriggle in between his thighs and kiss him. His lips are soft, if a little chapped, his hands firm around Louis’ face as he fucks his tongue in, deepening. Someone shifts over near the window, but then nothing more, and Louis’ cock jumps in tandem with his stomach.

Harry has to feel it, must do, because he sighs softly and slides his hands down to get a good handful of arse in each, starts riding down against Louis again.

His mouth finds Louis’ ear, and Louis braces himself for the incoming tease, because Harry loves nothing more than to know when he’s got Louis cornered, but instead what he gets whispered in his ear is, “been hard for fucking ages waiting on you to sober up, grinding that fat arse back on me in your sleep, you—”  

“Yeah, sorry, okay,” Louis whispers quickly, cutting him off at the end.

But Harry starts tugging at their pants, getting them down until he can push Louis’ thighs up around him. It’s a lot of movement, even under the duvet, and Niall is still snoring, but Louis feels an urgent need to make sure he’s still facing away from them. “Wait, I just need to be able to see—”

“No, don’t move,” Harry whispers, and kisses him quiet, “just lie there,” he grunts, shifting down until his cock fits in between Louis’ arse-cheeks, gasps, “you said you’d just lie there for me, you said that.”

Louis closes his eyes and humps up against Harry’s stomach, gets his fingers in his tangled morning-hair and faintly registers Harry throwing an arm out and rustling the nightstand. When he feels the slick slap of Harry’s hand between them, he opens his eyes again, trying to look down.

Harry dips down and kisses him, quick, like placation. 

It’s Vaseline he’s gotten hold of, Louis realises, now slicking it over his cock. There’s no condom in sight. His reasonable brain tells him to object, but it’s weak when he does, a muttered “hang on, wait,” that drowns in a kiss and then another, and then Harry is sliding into place and Louis tilts into it, helping him.

“Push out,” Harry grunts, face in Louis’ neck now, and they both moan gutturally when Harry’s cockhead finally breaches inside.

Harry continues in, sure and insistent, and Louis squeezes handfuls of his hair, trying not to groan out loud at the stretch. The makeshift lubricant is thicker, grittier, and the lack of a condom makes everything hotter, the drag and the pulse of Harry’s cock inside so intimate that Louis almost forgets where they are for a second.

He must’ve made noise because Harry finds his ear and shushes him, quick and choppy like for a fussing baby, all the while beginning to ride into him.

“Easy,” Louis gasps, holding on tight. He can’t really take it this deep so quick, but the way Harry groans and gasps a little every time he squeezes in deeper has him blurting pre-come up his stomach, thinking he might come untouched. “Too big to just— ah—”

“It’s not,” Harry pants in his ear, cheek feverish and sweaty against Louis’, “it’s not, s’your arse, always so fucking tight, no matter how hard I try to stretch that shit out, it’s— ah, fuck, you’re good bare.” 

“Yeah, fuck, come on, give it,” Louis gasps, then hears someone moving and grunting across the room. Liam, he thinks. “Shit, wait—” and Niall shifts too, albeit still snoring, and Louis thinks he means to tell Harry to slow down or quiet down, but what he says instead is, “I’m gonna come.”

He does, up between their stomachs, and Harry fastens his pace, balls slapping soundlessly against Louis’ arse under the duvet. His head is in the crook of Louis’ neck, hips snapping on instinct, and Louis desperately gripping the duvet up around them, watching it bop. The feathers of the bed are creaking, mattress bouncing a little, and Niall isn’t snoring anymore.

“Harry—”

“No, don’t move, I— almost there,” Harry grits out, hips stuttering into him, “ah, relax, I’m gonna come in it,” he chokes out, squeezing in as far as he’ll go and finally pulsing hot up inside.

It’s been a while since Louis’ had someone come inside. Years since he’s let Harry. The mess just isn’t worth the moment’s satisfaction, usually, and Louis cringes as Harry pulls out, the sloshy mix of Vaseline and cum squelching and soaking onto the sheet. “Bloody mess, that.”

“Fuck, sorry, I’ve just been wanting that,” Harry whispers sheepishly, and drops a kiss to Louis’ temple, “sorry, you all right?”

Louis laughs exasperatedly and nods, then closes his eyes and pulls the duvet up to his neck while Harry gets up and pads off. The second he’s closed the door to the loo behind him, Louis feels Niall whip around to look at him.

He squeezes his eyes further shut and sinks chin-deep into the duvet.

A moment passes, Niall just panting at him, still not saying anything. Then the mattress suddenly bounces, and Niall is off. The door to the loo gets ripped open, then slammed shut, and then there are frantic voices going back and forth in there, but Louis can’t make out the words.

Liam sits up over on the couch, rubbing his eyes. “Who’s slamming doors?” he murmurs. “Slept terribly on here, gonna be so sleep-deprived tonight, god,” and Louis rolls his eyes and curls further in on himself, “Time s’it?”

“Quarter past one,” Harry replies, walking back in.

A second later, the bed dips and he’s slapping a cold wet cloth onto Louis’ chest. The shower goes off in the loo.

“Just got an earful off Niall,” Harry mutters, smiling at Louis.

Louis wipes himself off as best he can, then hands Harry back the cum-cloth when he doesn’t know where to put it. “Fuck, why’d we do that.”

“Do what?” Liam asks from across the room, but receives no response.

Harry sits back against the headboard, picking at a knot in a strand of his own hair. “He knew anyway,” he mutters.

Yeah, sure, Louis thinks. Everyone probably knows bits and pieces, more or less, whether they want to or not. It’s the active acknowledgement that’s new.

“Why’d he go after you and not me?”

Harry shrugs, eyes fixed on the stupid strand of hair. “Thinks I’m a creep, I think,” he says, “and you’re more of a, like… vulnerable thing, I guess.”

That has Louis prickly. “Vulnerable thing,” he scoffs.

“Small bean,” Harry says, grinning through the cringe, and gets a pillow to the face for it. “Sweet little, like… creature thing.”

Louis pulls the duvet up to his neck and curls away from him.

“He was mostly pissed about the whole, like, doing it with him in the bed thing, though.”

Liam stands up. “Guys, I feel like I’m out of the loop here,” he says, “anyone care to clue me in?”

“Harry tried to grope Niall under the duvet and took it too far,” Louis replies dryly.

The cringe twists at Liam’s mouth, and he frowns. “Why, though, mate? Why do you do stuff like that? Like, why? Why? For the love of god, whyy?” he exclaims, almost pleading.

Niall comes out of the loo, just in time to respond: “Cause he’s a fuckin’ creep, that’s why.”

“I’m sooorry,” Harry replies, smiling saccharinely, “I just have so much love to give, you know—”

“You’re weird, Styles,” Liam interrupts, and heads toward the loo. “You’re a very weird man.”

Niall ignores everyone, sitting down with his phone by the window.

“Thank you, Liam, that actually means a lot coming from you,” Harry plays on. “In case you missed that, Louis just said he agrees, and he thinks it’s part of what makes me beautiful!”

Niall scoffs. “Bet he does.”

Louis pulls the duvet up over his head.

*

4:33 PM

Niall to ‘five guys one bus’ -- *image*

4:34 PM

Liam – you look horrified in that

4:34 PM

Louis – your pores look big close up mate

4:35 PM

Niall – this is an image of my face taken during one of the most traumatic moments of my life

4:35 PM

Niall – otherwise known as earlier this morning

4:36 PM

Niall – when I lay down, I can still feel the mattress bouncing

4:36 PM

Liam – lol what are you on about ?

4:36 PM

Niall – when I close my eyes, I can still hear the sounds

4:37 PM

Niall – god, the sounds

4:37 PM

Louis – gonna be a good gig tonight, I can feel it ! you lads excited??

4:38 PM

Niall – I saw my life as I knew it flash before my eyes

4:38 PM

Louis – oh you’re still not done then

4:38 PM

Niall – thank god it only lasted a minute

4:40 PM

Harry – hey

4:40 PM

Harry – at least a minute and a half

4:41 PM

Niall – creep

4:44 PM

Liam – by radiohead ?

4:45 PM

Louis – no, TLC

4:45 PM

Liam – don’t think I’ve heard that one, I’ll look it up

4:46 PM

Louis – you do that, it’s good

4:47 PM

Liam – thanks mate ! love a good rec

5:11 PM

Zayn – should probably leave this gc but it’s too fucking entertaining

5:12 PM

Harry – who are you?

Niall refuses to look either of them in the eye for the next two days they’re performing in Belfast, but that doesn’t stop the death spiral of exhibitionist antics. It’s like Harry’s realised that Louis’ seatbelt’s come undone and ripped his own off accordingly, joining Louis in the most exhilarating, terrifying free fall of their lives. If Louis closes his eyes as they hurdle toward the ground, he can’t even see terrain ahead, he can just pretend he’s flying, with Harry’s hand in his.

When they do fly – back to London from Belfast, that is – they end up crammed in the loo of a tiny private jet, kissing and wanking each other until a sudden burst of turbulence forces them to do a very unstable walk of shame back to their seats, both still tenting in their joggers. Once they land at Heathrow, Harry shoves Louis into the nearest free toilet stall, barely closing the door behind them, and drops to his knees.

In kind, Louis blows him while he drives them back to Harry’s house. 

They’ve got one day off home before they head up to Newcastle and they spend it fucking on Harry’s balcony, then in his garden, up against the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the open street and, finally, in the back of the car that picks them up for Newcastle in the morning. There’s a privacy partition up, but it’s thin enough that Louis hears the driver clearing his throat several times, whilst Louis himself has got a throatful of Harry. They tip him generously and rush off once they arrive in Newcastle, then check in to two separate hotels because their fans are insane.

Still, after each of the three shows in Newcastle, they both end up in Harry’s hotel room. Not much happens there, though, because before they make it back they’ve already fucked it out somewhere semi-public. One time, Paul walks up on them behind a bunch of sound equipment backstage, and they almost end up calling 999, thinking he’s had a stroke. Another, three stage workers find them dry humping in the trap space under the stage, and they end up coughing up about two thousand pounds in total to try and keep them from telling. It still pops up on one of the gossip sites that same evening, but without proof or anyone willing to put their name to it, it doesn’t gain any real traction, outside the most incessant dark corners of Twitter.

Harry just laughs it off. Louis should too, seeing as the folie a deux originated in him, but mostly he just smokes and tries not to think.

It’s when they’ve just finished up their first of three gigs in Sheffield, that the incoming ground impact starts to become difficult to ignore.

“Whose room are we going back to?” Louis asks.

It’s only when Harry replies “oh, I actually can’t tonight,” that Louis realises he’d asked without thinking, like that’s just what they do now. It hits him like a slap round the back of the head, Louis, you stupid idiot and haven’t you been here before? 

“Oh, right, yeah, okay,” Louis says, turning around and then turning back again, directionless. Oh, the tragic irony of it all. “Yeah, okay,” he mutters, pulling out his phone. There’s a room with his name on it somewhere nearby, but he can’t for the life of him remember the hotel, and who is he kidding anyway? He’ll sleep on the bus. “Well, I’ll just—”

“No, it’s just, I’ve got to go to Kirsten’s afterparty thing, you can come with if you want, of course,” Harry blabbers, “but there’s gonna be, like, a lot of people you don’t know.”

Louis has no idea who Kirsten is, but it doesn’t matter anyway. There are a lot of people in Harry’s life that Louis doesn’t know; so many it dizzies him a bit, sometimes. “Cheers, I think I’ll stay in, though,” he says, patting Harry’s arm. “Sort of head-achey, actually.”

“Oh.” Harry tilts his head, and Louis knows if he looks him in the eye, he’ll be looked straight through, so he doesn’t. “Well, I think that lady with the red hair has some painkillers if—”

Louis waves him off. “No need, just needs sleeping off. See you.” He pushes open the door to the hall, echoing chatter and noise streaming in, “have a good time!”

“You too. Or— sleep well—”

“Thanks!”

The door slams loudly behind Louis. About fifteen seconds later, it gets reopened and Harry heads toward the same exit as Louis, ten feet behind and silent.

*

3:51 AM

Harry – what’s your hotel?

3:55 AM

Louis – crowne plaza, why?

3:56 AM

Harry – leaving party, wanted to come sleep

3:56 AM

Harry – how’s your head?

3:59 AM

Louis – shit sorry, I’m out with the lads, we’re at the Leadmill

4:00 AM

Harry – oh all right, glad you’re feeling better xx see you tomorrow

*

The second to last gig of tour sees Liam unintentionally confirming about seven fanspiracy theories while reading fan signs between songs, Niall accidentally smashing a two-thousand pound electric guitar while attempting to Irish stepdance and play it at the same time, Louis offending half the crowd with a bit of impromptu stand-up comedy and Harry losing his voice three songs in.

As soon as they come backstage, there’s a hoard of people waiting to swoop Harry up and carry him away, like an impenetrable tidal wave of Italian silk and oddball haircuts. He’d mentioned something earlier about Nick popping by tonight, and Louis shouldn’t be surprised anymore, that Nick translates to Nick and an entourage of arthouse chic Londoners and L.A. it-girls. For his part, Louis gathers the lads and gets fucked-up in someone’s hotel suite.

The same thing happens on their last night of tour. The show itself goes off well, and it’s quite sentimental, especially group hugging at the end, but Louis can’t handle the looks in people’s eyes as they’re greeted by flowers and speeches backstage, the way it might as well be written on a banner across the wall: THE END OF 1D, WHAT A RIDE IT’S BEEN. No one says it, though, and maybe that’s the worst part.

At one point, he overhears Harry being interrogated by some woman about it, and the way he glances nervously at Louis before half-laughing out some vague response about ‘you never know, but obviously, we love the band, but you never know, hiatus does just mean break, though, so, how are your kids anyway?’ has Louis on the verge of screaming.

Just say it.

Just fucking say it already, be both know it, we all know it, just fucking say it and be done. You owe me that, at least.

But of course, that isn’t entirely fair, considering that Louis’ been jumping through hoops to avoid that confrontation for the entire last year of his life. Probably more.

He slips out without saying goodbye, and ends up at some club on his own, nasty drunk and off his head on something someone gave him that he took without asking what. Oli was meant to be here, but he isn’t, and Louis is alone anyway, pushed about by dancing bodies and then pushed into some VIP booth, flanked by beautiful strangers and so, so alone.

*

3:02 AM

Louis – where r u

3:02 AM

Louis – fucking y too pissd

3:03 AM

Louis – pcik up

3:08 AM

Louis – stop called me

3:08 AM

Louis – im fine strop called

3:09 AM

Louis – calling

3:11 AM

Louis – turig off phone nowq

*

He wakes at the turn of his own stomach. Slapping his sweaty palms against the walls for balance, he just so makes it in time to put his head in a toilet before he pukes. It’s pure liquid, stale alcohol gushing out into the bowl until it starts to turn acidic and he makes himself stop trying. He’s in a hotel room he doesn’t recognise, and he’s naked, sore and bruised at the hips. There’s a blinding head ache sitting right behind his eyes, made worse by the light flittering through the blinds when he waggles back into the bedroom. There’s a naked guy in the bed, stomach down and snoring.

Louis doesn’t remember him, but he’s long, strong and covered in tattoos, so he surmises that they probably had sex.

Also, there’s a used condom on the floor.

He groans as he stumbles around, finding and pulling his clothes back on.

There’s no life in his phone, and a crack in the corner of the screen that wasn’t there before. Louis could look for an iPhone charger and sit here and wait, but the risk of last night’s mistake waking up to offer small talk just isn’t worth it. For the life of him, he can’t find anything to cover himself with but the threadbare white t-shirt vest he wore yesterday, so he ends up nicking the stranger’s zip-up and leaving a sorry about the theft-note and some cash on the nightstand before he books it out of the room.

The halls look like those of a cheaper hotel – than what he’s grown accustomed to. It fits Louis quite well, he thinks as he’s forced to look at the sorry state of himself in the lift mirror. Really getting a head start on the whole washed-up ex boy bander thing, Oli would tell him. Heroin chic, actually, Louis would retort. Or something a bit less prophetically depressing, maybe.

God, he needs a cig and a coffee.

The zip-up hoodie is way too big, and reeks of weed and Axe body spray. Louis’ pretty sure there’s a cum-stain on left sleeve.

“Oh my god, it is, come on,” a girl whispers to her friend as they pass right by Louis while the lift doors slide open.

They’re headed toward some small congregation of people in the lounge area of the hotel lobby. Probably some other celebrity who doesn’t look, feel and smell like they’ve just been chewed up and spat out by halitosis-ridded camel.

Louis pulls his hood up over his head, stuffs his hands in his pockets and speed walks toward the exits.

“Hey, wait—sorry, wait, Louis!”

And, fuck.

Louis screws his eyes shut, stopping still in the middle of the lobby, because that’s got to be a fucking joke.

“Just hang on a minute,” Harry continues, and nope, that’s no joke, Harry – Harry Styles of Larry fucking pain-in-the-neck Stylinson – is calling his name across this massive, cavernous, sound-reverberant hotel lobby. He’s wearing the same thing he wore last night, and his hair is pulled up, but falling out in frazzled strands and his face. His face is pale, dark underneath the eyes, and—what the hell is he doing in this shithole hotel?

Louis feels a terrible sense of dread stir up in his bloodstream, and an skin-tingling impulse to get check his phone. This is why blackouts are stupid. This is why some professional mediatrainer that  he was too busy kicking Harry under the table to listen to at eighteen told them all that blackouts are one of the pleasures in life you give up in the name of celebrity.

Six or seven women, as well as one half-embarrassed looking husband or boyfriend dragging along behind, run fast on the heels of Harry.

“Louis, oh my god!”

“Louis Tomlinson, guys, it’s Louis, Louis’ here, oh my god, they’re both here!”

“Camilla, I told you, no—oh my god, this isn’t real—”

Harry sort of frowns as he catches up to Louis. The expression is apologetic at first glance, but there’s a simmering resentment not well hidden underneath it. “Hey.”

“What the fuck,” Louis says, just before the cavalry encircle them.

Harry steps back a little, crossing his arms over his chest, and lets Louis drown in unwarranted adulation and trauma dumping for a full five minutes.

“All right, we’ve gotta go, nice to meet you all,” he says, grabbing Louis’ by the arm. Someone else is hanging on Harry’s free arm. A woman, about fifteen years his senior, sobbing about how he saved her life. At what point they went from barely in-sync boy banders to first responders, Louis doesn’t know, but it happened overnight about five years ago and it still scares the living shit out of him.

“Thank you so much, so lovely meeting you, have a good day, have a really good day,” Harry rattles off as he slowly backs himself and Louis up toward the lifts. He’s better at this than Louis, but even still, his voice is wearing thin and by the time the lift doors close, he’s panting with impatience.

“Got a car downstairs,” he says, slapping at the wall until his finger catches the button. “Fucking hell, Louis.”

“Fucking hell, you,” Louis replies, turning around, “what are you doing here?”

Harry’s brows twitch closer, eyes narrowing a little. “You called me.”

“What? No, my phone’s dead.”

“No, you— this morning, you called me,” Harry sighs, frustrated, and closes his eyes for a good two seconds. “Or last night, whatever. You called, pissed off your head, and then, like, you hung up really abruptly.”

Louis groans, dropping his head back against the wall. “Shit, sorry.” He digs his fingers into his temples, really rubbing the shame in. “I don’t know why I would’ve done that.”

“Okay.”

“How’d you—so, what, you just sat here waiting?”

Harry nods when Louis looks at him. Just one quick, tight-lipped nod, and Louis closes his eyes again.

The lift doors slide open and their steps echo as they scrape their shoes across the asphalt floors of the cool parking cellar, looking for whatever car Harry’s got waiting.

They end up standing outside it while waiting for the driver, who’s up in a hotel room, sleeping until further notice, courtesy of Harry.

“How many hours did you sit there?” Louis asks, crouched by the backseat door with his aching head in his hands.

“Dunno,” Harry replies, “since whenever I got there.”

“You really shouldn’t have.”

“Well, what else, like…” Harry nudges him with his foot, then gives him a hand to help him up as the driver arrives.

It’s a big SUV with sliding backseat doors and tinted windows, and the driver rolls the partition up for them without prompting as soon as they’re in the back. Louis sits in a corner, sticks his phone in a charger and gets a bottle of vitamin c water shoved in his hand.

“God, it tastes like old piss, that,” he splutters, handing it back.

Harry just hums and drums his fingers on the bottle. “I like it.”

“I’m so fucking sorry, really,” Louis slumps into the window as the car pulls out, closing the stinky zip up tighter around himself. “I’ll be— just need a cig and a coffee to wake me up, I’ll be more, like… apologise better when I’m more coherent.”

“Fancy a mac?”

“What?”

“McDonald’s,” Harry clarifies, but he’s already leaning forward and knocking the partition. “Stephen, sorry, would you mind pulling into a McDonald’s or something? Just drive-through.”

“Yeah, ‘course, mate, no problem,” Stephen says diligently, and pulls into one not two minutes later.

Louis tells them to order a coffee and a small coke, then gets out to smoke and check his barely-charged phone while they finish the drive around.

His own texts are cringeworthy, but not nearly as bad as they could’ve been. In fact, they’re way less revelatory than need be.

Then Harry’s ones from after he turned his phone off start buzzing in.

3:22 AM

Harry – premier inn angel street right ?

3:37 AM

Harry – am in the lobby they wont tell me what room you’re in

3:40 AM

Harry – hotel girl said you went up with some roided bloke…

3:44 AM

Harry – are you ok ?

4:12M

Harry – fucking unbelievable, now im stuck here cause I don’t know what the fuck your doing, if your ok

4:13 AM

Harry – you’re*

5:01 AM

Harry – sat here twiddling my fucking thumbs while your fucking some twat and idgaf, but you make me out like a fucking mug and it pisses me off when you know

5:01 AM

Harry – you’re*

5:32 AM

Harry – if you’re not down before six im leaving

7:20 AM

Harry – on the blue sofa in the lobby

Fucking hell.

Louis considers making a run for it, but his legs are too wobbly and his arse feels like it’s been grated down with sandpaper -- did the bloke even use lube? – so he slips back into the beside Harry when the car comes around. Against his will, a McChicken Sandwich and a Big Mac have been added to his order.

“Chicken one I’d like you to eat,” Harry says around a mouthful of his grilled chicken wrap. “Big Mac’s a failsafe in case you refuse.”

Louis feels his ears heat up and starts to unwrap one of the burgers just for something to do. His hands are shaking a little. Karma has it that he’s gotten hold of the chicken one, but he can’t be arsed with Harry’s huff if he switches it up now, so he grins and bears it. It’s decent anyway.

“All right, innit?” Harry asks, still watching him eat.

“Yeah, but don’t get car sick watching me eat,” Louis mutters, staring stubbornly out the window as Sheffield passes them by, “look out the window.”

Harry sighs. “Your phone came back on,” he notes, a hint of wariness in his tone.

“M-hm.”

“I was kind of drunk when I first got there,” Harry adds, and finally stops looking at the side of Louis’ face, “like, I got a bit nasty, probably, making assumptions and stuff. I’m sorry.”

Louis waves him off. “No, you were right to make… you know. You were right.”  

He can hear deflate in his seat. “Yeah?”

Louis grunts his agreement. The bread and chicken feels like it keeps swelling up in Louis’ mouth, and it hurts when he swallows.

“Okay,” Harry sighs, and then hands Louis his coke. “Have a drink.”

The fizz has his eyes stinging momentarily, – at least he thinks it’s that – but it helps bring down the lump in his throat. He rubs the back of his wrist over his eyelids and shakes his head.

The second he feels the tips of Harry’s fingers brush up his arm, he flinches away.

“Sorry.”

“No, sorry.” Louis shakes his head, his mouth dry again already. “I just— bit fucked still, m’not… you shouldn’t have, like— fuck, I feel like a piece of shit, just sitting here right now. I’m like, I’m crawling out of my fucking skin and I stink and you’re sat there, like, basically looking after me, I mean, fucking hell,” Louis finally musters the courage to look Harry in the eye, and as soon as he does, he can feel that stupid lump in his throat again. He’s just there, wide-eyed and chewing on his bottom lip, listening. “Why’d you even stay, knowing?”

There’s a moment where Harry just looks at him, and Louis can’t for the life of him break away, not even when he says: “Well, Lou, I love you.”  

There’s nothing spectacular or new in the sentiment – they’ve said it across oceans and continents, in boyhood bedrooms and bus bunks and backstage stadium concerts on the cusp of adulthood, they’ve said it a million times over –  but there’s something about the way he says it now; almost wistful, that knocks the wind right out of Louis’ chest.

“Shit,” he says, dropping his head into his clammy hands so he can dig his thumbs into the bridge of his nose, “not very fair, though, is it, if I’m putting you in that situation.”

Harry just hm’s and then starts shifting around until he’s up against Louis’ side, warm and safe, and Louis melts into him despite himself. “I don’t know, I guess, like, in my mind…” Harry murmurs, hand cradling the back of Louis’ head, fingers gently scratching. “I don’t think any of that matters, really, in the grand scheme of things. If I’m not sure if you’re okay. Or you’re gonna be.”

“Without you, you mean?”

Harry sighs. “With you, I mean,” he says, lips ghosting over Louis’ temple, “I don’t like it when you’re reckless with yourself. You’re too, like, irreplaceable.”

Louis snorts, because what else has he got? Really, he’s just here, in Harry’s neck.

“Besides,” Harry says around a yawn as he relaxes around Louis, “if you last until thirty, the rate on my life insurance policy doubles, so. I’d like to cash in, you know? In case the whole, like… musical thing doesn’t pan out.”

Louis rolls his eyes, and is pretty sure his lashes tickle Harry’s throat because he twitches at it, but he doesn’t move away. Harry swipes is knuckles over his cheek, and that’s Louis done for, he says it on a sigh, “love you too, you know.”

“I know.”

*

The calm only lasts for a little more than a day. Harry’s never been one for letting things slide, even if he bides his time.

He’s sweet and subdued that initial night, though, slow-kisses in the shower and doesn’t spend too long worrying at the thumbprints on Louis’ hips or his wrists, even if he does scrunch his nose a little and mouth out ‘slag’ in the mirror around his toothbrush before bed. They end up watching telly all day, swaddled in blankets with teas and painkillers and bowls of spaghetti Bolognese that Harry finds the energy to cook up. There’s no talk of yesterday, or tomorrow, or what they’re doing right now, stretching out the final seconds before their skulls hit the ground.   

The following day, Harry has a fashion line launch thing he can’t get out of. It jars Louis a little, not because there are plans and people and an entire outside world out there, not fully anyway, but just the way he chooses to say it; curled up on the couch in his sweats, feet resting on Louis’ bum while he lets Louis slag off Netflix’s selection for going on half an hour now.

It’s past five in the afternoon, is the thing. Maybe Louis got old, here at twenty-three, but if you haven’t announced your evening plans to your guest, who’d otherwise expect to stay the night, before five PM, you’ve silently agreed to forego those plans. It’s just basic manners.

But, there it is, between a thriller Louis’ already seen and a true crime doc Harry won’t want to watch: “I have, like, a thing tonight I have to go to.”

Louis turns, expecting to get a big grin and the end of the joke, but finds Harry scrolling on his phone, slack-faced. “Oh.”

He turns back to the telly the second Harry starts to lift his head, tilts his chin up. “Yeah, sorry, I’d forgotten and then Sophia just texted me an hour ago and I’ve been trying to see if I could get out of it or something, but…”

“All right, yeah.” Louis does one long, performative stretch for an excuse to groan the catchiness out of his voice, and then pushes himself up to sit. “Yeah, I should probably get going, actually, I keep putting off—”

“What? No,” Harry cuts in, “I didn’t mean—I wasn’t thinking you’d go, that wasn’t… what I was thinking you’d do.”

Louis raises his brows, empowered by the way Harry’s been startled enough to drop his phone.

“I thought you’d, like— I mean, if you have to go you have to go, but I’d be home by eleven or something,” Harry says, nudging Louis’ thigh with his foot, “if you were there, you’d like… get fucked really well. By me, I mean,” he adds, as if that needed clarification.

Maybe it does, considering Louis fucked someone else not two nights go.

“If you’re not too sore still,” Harry adds, like reading Louis’ thoughts.

Louis reaches over and slaps him on the thigh. “Go get showered and make yourself up, then,” he says, deciding he’ll stay, at least for a bit. The couch is comfy anyway, and he’ll get to put on that documentary without Harry here to get on his soapbox about irresponsible journalism and trauma exploitation. “Go on, you’ve got to do something with your hair, it’s all limp.”

Harry makes a huffy noise, but does get up. “Heey,” Harry whines, and puts on a pout, “you love my hair right now.”

“I said I like that it’s easy to grip and yank when it’s long, and don’t use sex talk against me, I’ve told you I can’t be held accountable for what—”

“You never shut the fuck up, do you?” Harry says, light, like it’s something he’s just realised, and ruffles Louis’ hair as he walks around the couch.

“I do,” Louis mutters, “why has your remote done that, then, what the fuck is that, mate, it’s put on some random fucking game show now and it won’t just—”

“I’ll shut you up later, though,” Harry says, farther away, “if you’re still here when I get back.”

“We’ll see,” Louis mutters, though he can already hear Harry’s footfalls on their way up the stairs and knows, as well as he knows himself at this point, that he will be. On offer.

*

Around nine PM, Oli starts calling incessantly until Louis picks up.

“MAAAAATE!” he screams, the sound of booming rap music and all his mates talking over each other filling up the background. “Lou, where the fuck are you!”

“I’m in, what’s up? Why’ve you called me seven times in a row?”

There’s soft suction-pop noise of the sliding glass door to Oli’s balcony being opened, and then the background noise muffles out. “Well,” Oli says, sounding like he’s puffing smoke out his teeth as he speaks, “you didn’t up the first six times.”

“Fair enough,” Louis sighs, rolling his eyes, “how’s your knob anyway?”

“Oh yeah, fine, wasn’t broken after all, just a sprain, I guess.”

“That’s nice, did they give you anything for it?”

“Yeah, a fuckload of nasty looks, I don’t get it. Anyway, everyone’s at mine, Stan’s here—”

“—Stan’s there?” Stan never comes out anymore. A couple years ago he fell prey to a bad case of domestic bliss and ever since then it’s been nothing but day-time birthday ‘parties’ and double dates with the missus.  “Oh, mate…”

“Yeah, I know, get your arse over here.”

Louis stalls, glancing at the digital clock above Harry’s telly. 11:04 PM, it tells him. “Ehm, god, I’d love to, it’s just…”

“Mate, I can hear the telly on, you just can’t be fucked to get off the couch, pull it together!”

Any other day, Oli would have him pegged. “No, it’s just, I’m sort of with someone right now, so…”

“Bring them!”

Fucking hell. “No, it’s not… you know, it’s, eh… well, you know,” he says, sighing, “you know.”

“Ah.” Oli pauses for dramatic effect. That, or he’s having a drag of his smoke. “That still going on, then?”

“I don’t… know,” Louis groans. He hates this. They always talk about it and they never talk about it, and somehow, over the years, that’s amounted to Oli knowing more than Louis does, sometimes. “I’m just, you know. So. But give Stan a whack round the head for not coming to my Halloween party, would you?”

Oli drags out another pause and Louis wants to strangle him. “All right, yeah, will do,” Oli says, finally, “just, you know, be careful.”

That’s all he adds, and then he’s gone, and Louis wishes that left him unsure as to the point. 

He doesn’t have a moment to spiral on it, though, because thirty seconds later, a message ticks in:

11:06 PM

Harry – sorry have to pop into afterparty, but shouldn’t be more than an hour or so

And fuck, if that doesn’t just hit the nail on the head and proceed to jackhammer it in, Louis doesn’t know what does. He flops back on the couch with a sigh and doesn’t laugh at himself. 

*

12:48 AM

Louis – everything all right?

1:13 AM

Louis – ?

2:00 AM

Louis – …

*

It’s pitch black dotted in blurry star-like dots of windows still lit outside Harry’s bay windows when Louis is awoken. The digital clock says 2:52 AM and Louis’ neck complains about having been squished up against the armrest of the couch until he stretches and cracks it. The telly is still on, the science fictiony murder show he gave a shot in a bout of desperation now several episodes ahead of him and well off the rails.

Out in the hall, Harry’s boot heels are clacking the tile and he’s talking on the phone, incomprehensible, but a bit too animated for him, almost regular speed.

“Lou!” he calls a minute later, louder than he would if he were sober, “Louis!”

Louis rests his chin on the backrest of the couch and debates dropping back down to pretend to be asleep in his head until it’s too late and Harry is standing across the living room, looking at him.

The blazer he had on when he left is gone and his tattoos show through the sheer black material of the shirt that hangs off him,  buttoned down to the last ruffle at his sternum. He throws a hand through his hair, comes closer, lips bloodred and sore looking, like they do when he’s been used well and thorough.

And his eyes, black and bright, and notes, “you’re coked off your head.”

“I’m all right,” he says, and he looks it— he looks electric, and Louis already feels little shocks going off under his skin. “I’ve got some, if you want.” He fishes a baggy from his trouser pocket, dangling it with a manic, Cheshire-cat smile. “Catch.”

The coke lands somewhere behind Louis, but he doesn’t turn to see. “Feel asleep waiting on you.”

It sounds more longsuffering than intended, but it needed pointing out, so.

“Come up to bed,” Harry says, walking backwards now, pulling at his rings as if he’s so close to getting laid he might as well get a head start on removing the obstacles, “come on, thought you’d be in there already.”

“Right, just waiting up with my legs in the air?” Louis snorts, and gets off the couch. He grabs his phone, rights his t-shirt and turns, only to find Harry way too close. He smells like women’s perfume, mixing in and poisoning his own one. There’s a lovebite at the juncture of his jaw, just this faint shapeless little purple dab. Probably someone pretty, with a pretty mouth, all glitzy and posh. “Move off, I’ve got a car on the way.”

He hasn’t, yet, but that’s neither here nor there.

Harry lets himself be moved off, and Louis makes it halfway across the living room, and only that.

“Liar,” Harry spits, and he’s laughing when Louis turns around, this vicious, beautiful thing. Harry is fucked up, but not enough, and that has Louis so fucked he steadies himself back against the dining table. “You’d have been gone, then,” Harry says, and if his stare is a lot when sober, it’s fucking all-consuming when his pupils are coin-sized, “if you didn’t want to.”

“Have a glass of water, love, you look twatted,” Louis says, forcing himself to look away. He picks his phone up and fumbles for the driver app.

Clack. Clack. Two bootsteps, one beat between, and then Harry is there, prying Louis’ phone from his hand.

“Piss off with that,” he says, and slides it up the table behind Louis. His breath smells like champagne, and Louis is arching backwards over the table to keep that bloodred spit-slick obscenity of a mouth at bay.

Harry grabs him by the waist. “You haven’t blown me in a week,” he mumbles, pressing it into Louis’ throat when he can’t catch his mouth, “please, wanna see you on your knees, feel your throat, just—”

“Nah, I’m all right, thanks,” Louis grits out, both palms flat on the meshy material of Harry’s shirt now.

“You’re not,” Harry snaps, scowling a little, and Louis tries to bite back a laugh, “you think it’s funny? Yeah, it is funny, actually, maybe,” Harry rambles, eyes wild, “that I’ve gone through my clean laundry earlier and found your bloke’s hoodie in there, all nice and warm and bloody lavender-scented.”

And there it is; there’s that spoilt brat Louis knows, thank fucking finally.

“I’ve sat down there a whole night while you were giving it to some random prick and then I’ve taken you home and then I’ve done his fucking laundry for him,” Harry says, eyes wide, and Louis’ laugh jumps right out through his teeth before he can stop it, “how much of a fucking first class mug am I? Right? That’s fucking rip-off-my-balls and feed them to me-funny, innit?”

He’s laughing a little, but it’s coming out sharp, frustrated, and his eyes are ablaze with incredulity.

“Aw bless,” Louis coos, chuckling a little as he cradles his hot-flushed face. “There you are.”

Harry shakes out of it, and slides his hands right around Louis and pulls him close. “Fuck off, Louis.”

“I would, but you’ve sort of got me trap— mhm—” Louis’ word drowns in between their mouths as Harry just grabs him by the back of the neck and shuts him up that way. It’s hard, frantic, the way he digs his fingers in and shoves his tongue at Louis’ gritted teeth. The second Louis lets up and pulls on his hair, lets him in, he pulls back, like he’d just needed to prove a point. 

“Taste like lipstick,” Louis pants, leaning in to nip at Harry’s nip, “cheap one as well.”

“Lou-is,” Harry whines, chasing Louis’ mouth until he’s arching backwards over the table when he strains against another kiss, “want.” 

Louis groans, stretching his neck back, Harry’s mouth on his chin. “Did you, though?” he digs, feeling petulant with how long Harry kept him waiting for this, how much he still wants it, “did you get off and come back here for seconds?”

“No,” Harry says, “or yes, who cares, stop— fuck, I’ll have you on the fucking table if you don’t let up.” 

And god, Louis’ too hard to keep this up much longer. “M’not doing anything,” he insists, and feels the hot puff of Harry’s frustrated exhale against his throat.

“I wanna—fuck, I wanna bend you over and get you with the belt,” Harry says, and Louis is quite literally forced to turn around to keep Harry from seeing the way that zings right through his whole system. As soon as he’s turned against the table, now facing the mirror hanging at the far end of it, Harry manhandles him down until he’s pinned, chest flat against the surface.

“Feel that,” Harry breathes against the back of his neck, pushing his hard bulge into Louis’ arse, “feel that, that’s what you want, yeah?” 

Louis rolls back on him, swallows hard and tells him “no,” just to get ground into the table harder, adds “couple hours ago, maybe,” and Harry kicks at the insides of his feet, spreading him further. “Blew your chance, mate.”

“Yeah?” Harry pants, and shoves both hands up under Louis’ t-shirt, scraping his nails up his ribs while Louis grinds back on the hot, hard line of his cock, “where’s your car, then?”

“What car?”

Harry lifts off, only to grip the back of Louis’ neck, and Louis bites the insides of his cheeks to keep from gasping. “The one you had coming? Shouldn’t it be out there by now, shouldn’t your phone be going off? Should we just stay like this and wait for it, hm? Lou?”

Louis presses his cheek into the cold table surface. “Shut up.”

“Thought so.”

Louis grits his teeth at the smugness in Harry’s voice. It’s gone low, gravelly, and he’s started thrusting into Louis’ arse more so than grinding, like he’s fucking him already. Louis could wait until he’s lost his bearings a little more and then make his escape, retain some dignity, only he’s too busy digging his nails into his own thigh to keep from touching himself.

“Gonna hurt a lot less if you come upstairs so I can lube it,” Harry says, as though he isn’t the one keeping Louis pinned by the neck. He starts to fiddle with the clasp on his own belt and Louis’ heart is pounding into the table, lacking space. “Got poppers as well, up there.”

Louis makes a half-hearted attempt at wriggling out, and Harry’s hand just slides down and gets reapplied between his shoulder blades instead, more forceful. “Fucking poppers, you’re still on them?” 

“Some people can’t take it otherwise, up the arse,” Harry says, “and I can’t go without. You know that.”

Louis strains his head back, which means he’s staring right at himself in the mirror at the end if the table, and sees just how much of a fraud he is. God, he’s red up to his hairline, eyes glassy. “Not one of your tight-arsed girls, though, am I.”

Harry looks up, right into Louis’ eyes, and tilts his head. “Aren’t you?”

Face flaring up hot, Louis ducks his head to save it.

Harry laughs, then tugs Louis’ trackies and pants down to his thighs in one smooth move.

“Sure as fuck can’t hear the difference when you’re taking it sometimes,” he says, and then smacks Louis’ arse cheek so hard and out of the blue that Louis practically shrieks. “Case in point.”

“Fuck you,” Louis groans, and then gets swatted over the arse again for it.

He hears the belt come undone behind him, hears it sliding through the loops on Harry’s trousers, sees Harry watch him in the mirror while he does it, slow. Just the idea of it has his cock throbbing, leaking over the head, the fact that Harry wants to, that’s he’s done it before, maybe. But Harry’s pupils are also planet-sized, his judgement off, and Louis doesn’t fancy an accidental lashing to the balls. “Not the belt,” he says, and drops his face to the table again, panting, “just hands.”  

The belt and trousers hit the floor with a thud, and then Harry slides a hand right up into the back of Louis’ hair and yanks his head back. “Look at me, then,” he says, meeting Louis’ eye in the mirror just as he smacks his arse again, “look, keep looking.” His swats aren’t gentle, in fact he’s never hit this hard when they’ve done this before, and Louis finally gives into himself, grabbing his own aching cock.

“You’re so fucking hot, look,” Harry says, and smacks him again. “Look.” Another, table-legs screeching against the floor. “Fucking look, Louis.”

And a third, right over the arsehole, that has Louis shouting at his own reflection, spilling into his hand.

Harry’s grip loosens in his hair as Louis gasps through his orgasm. He swipes his hand over the numb fat of Louis’ arse, then steps back a little, spreading him open. Louis peeks an eye in the mirror, just watching Harry’s jaw go slack as he thumbs over Louis’ arsehole, pressing and seeing. His cockhead is wet, smears against the back of Louis’ thigh and his blotchy flush has crawled all the way down his chest.

“You made him wear a condom, yeah?” he mutters, low, still watching himself play with Louis’ arse. Louis nods frantically, because it’s all he can offer in terms of consolation, and it’s the prize Harry’s asking for, he can tell. “But you’re not gonna make me, right?”

Louis shakes his head and tries to speak, but his words stick in his throat when Harry rolls his tongue back, purses his lips and then spits, hard, right onto his hole. He presses two fingers at him, and Louis goes up on his toes to help ease the way until they’re buried to the cold metal of Harry’s ring, stretch just shy of painful.

“No, I need to get lube,” Harry mutters, watching himself fuck his fingers in and out, “you’ve never taken it for anyone with just spit before, have you? If you have, you’re gonna take it for me too, but otherwise I think it’s better if—”

“I haven’t,” Louis says, because he’s got something better at hand; his own cum, that is. He shoves his sticky hand back and fumbles for Harry’s cock. “Use this, come on.”

“Shit, are you sure?” Harry asks, but he’s already helping, pumping it over himself.

“Yeah, come on, done it before,” Louis lies.

“No, you haven’t,” Harry snaps, and hunches over Louis to force himself inside.

The head pops inside and they both curse, Harry pushing on. Louis grips the edge of the table and looks to the mirror, watches Harry lean back watch the rest of his cock squeeze inside, mouth dropping open.

“Oh fuck yes,” he gasps, grabbing Louis’ hip and placing a palm down on the small of his back to keep him in place, “fuck, there it goes, straight home, look at that.”

Louis’ biting down on his lip to take it, and he starts tasting metal when Harry leans over and rounds his throat. He’s got hold of Louis’ hip, fucking in way too hard and deep already, the whole table rustling under them, and Louis’ toes are losing touch with the floor.

“Harder,” he manages to say, “hard as you want, come on.”

“Yeah,” Harry gasps, tightening his grip on Louis’ throat and beginning to pound into him. He lands another whack over Louis’ arse, and Louis’ cock aches at it starts to fill back up again. “So—unh—too fucking good—"

“Yeah, ah—” Louis gasps, smacked again.

“So good for me, just—  shit, ah, I’m gonna come…” he starts to, gasping as he thrusts hard through it, like his cum needs slamming in, and Louis doesn’t know what he’s doing or saying, can feel tears streaking down his cheeks and over Harry’s shaking hand on still on his throat. “Nngh… love it, love you…” Harry babbles deliriously, planting sloppy kisses all over the back of Louis’ shoulder. “Love fucking you...”

“Yeah… yeah,” Louis pants, toes dangling off the floor, floating.

He closes his eyes and feels just lets Harry’s hand curl off his throat and up to his face, swiping the tears. When he finally pulls out, he’s gone soft inside Louis, and he pulls out carefully, then falls to his knees and swipes his tongue over him where he’s sorest. Louis twitches away, wincing, but relaxes when Harry’s hands smooth up and down the sides of his thighs. He laps at Louis gently, just his tongue and his quiet swallows, until Louis is cleaner, then nudges him to straighten up and turn around  and does his front too.

Louis’ refractory period isn’t long enough for Harry’s tongue on his cock and balls already, his cock fills right up in Harry’s mouth. Harry just keeps stroking his thighs, slow and sweet, and takes care of him with his mouth until he comes with a sigh.

“Thank you.”

Harry swallows, looks up at Louis and smiles, small and soft, and Louis’ heart clenches. “Thank you,” he says, and lets Louis haul him up off the floor. Just climbing the stairs feels like a treacherous mountain expedition, and by the time Louis’ head hits the pillow, he’s already gone.

*

There’s a strange quiet in the air the following day. Harry does a fry-up with smoothies that they eat on his terrace, wrapped in duvet’s while the brisk November air slaps them awake. He walks around, clearing up while Louis smokes and scrolls through messages he’s been neglecting, wondering how many important things and people Harry is neglecting with every second Louis lingers.

But Harry doesn’t mention it, and Louis blames his emotional paralysis on soreness. It’s not really a lie if he winces every time he tries to walk.

They stay in the next couple days, cocooned. Harry’s housekeeper, Jeanette, comes round, and she greets Louis like he’s part of the furniture she dusts, like it’s no surprise at all. Louis puts it down to Harry’s tendency to get stuck on a person, move them into his life until they feel like a stable of it and then, eventually, flee when he’s too guilty to say he’s realised they don’t quite fit.

Eleanor calls Louis one day. He takes the phone to the garden, walks around in circles in the rain while they talk about her mum, her flat search and how much she misses the safety of a twosome. Louis doesn’t tell her he’s found refuge in a temporary one, or that he thinks about calling all the time, just to see that she’s okay, hear about her dog, anything normal.

“How is she?” Harry asks him when he’s let it slip between boxes of Chinese take-out and reruns of Lost.

“Good.” Louis’ feet are in Harry’s lap, his thumbs on the arches, digging just right. He’s finished his food and he’s looking at the telly, but his eyes are glazed over, far away. “Looking for a place, still.”

“Mhm.” Harry sucks grease off his bottom lip and chews on it for a moment. “She still staying at your flat?”

Louis nods, but Harry isn’t looking at him. “Yes,” he makes himself say. “It’s hers too, really.”

“Do you miss her?”

Louis waits, just a second. Until Harry looks at him. “Yes.”

“You don’t talk about it,” Harry says, eyes wide, earnest. “I kind of miss her too, weirdly,” he adds, laughing at himself a little. “Like, as a part of… I don’t know. Just a part of everything, you know?”

And that’s exactly it, Louis thinks. “She’s part of everything I’m used to.”

“And you’re not good with change,” Harry agrees, pointing a finger at him. He’s smiling, eyes twinkling, and he’s making Louis’ chest ache.

“Nope,” Louis says, and watches Harry’s smile fade into something more pensive.

He strokes a hand up Louis’ ankle and sighs. “What’ll you do, do you think,” he asks, and Louis’ fight or flight starts tingle up under his skin, “now.”

This is where they don’t go. This is uncharted territory for a reason, this is what are we and what have we ever been and what are you, Louis Tomlinson, if not one fifth of a fivesome?

“Now?” Louis asks, just to buy himself time.

Harry watches his finger brush up the faint blonde hairs on Louis’ shin. “You know,” he says, quiet, “everything’s up in the air now.”

“Hit the ground, I suppose,” Louis says, stretching back so he can move his line of sight to the ceiling, “everything that goes up…”

“You could try flying,” Harry says, and then he’s shifting around, sitting up. “Like…” he stretches both arms out, and smiles, “stretch your wings and see.”

Louis takes the out, laughing. “You’ve got longer wings than me, though, pet,” he says, “think I’d flail around near sea level, at best.”

Harry gets up, grabbing take out boxes off the coffee table. “What, like a sea gull?” he says, belated, “I like sea gulls. They pipe up all the time, and bite off more than they can chew.”

“Sounds pretty annoying to me.”

“So what?” Harry nips Louis’ China box from his lap and walks around the couch. “They don’t care. I think that’s pretty cool. I’d keep one.”

“What, a sea gull?”

“Yeah, I’d keep one. As a pet or something. But in a, like… large area or something. Not in captivity.”

Louis closes his eyes, listening to him rustle about in the kitchen. “Don’t think they want you to keep them. They’re meant to fend for themselves.”

“Yeah, well,” he replies, sounding farther away, “sometimes they need a little push.”

The episode on the telly ends and Netflix starts threatening to roll right into the next episode unless he moves in the next five seconds. Louis glances at at the remote, right within reach, but he can’t bring himself to end the cycle just yet.

*

Despite everything, the stir-craziness gets to Louis first.

“All right, that’s it,” he snaps one evening mid-November, and flings the remote across the room. It’s seven PM on a Saturday, they’ve had three meals plus snacks, gotten each other off twice today already and Louis’ been wearing the same pair of tracksuit bottoms for a week straight. “We’ve watched everything.”

Harry hums, not even glancing up from the book he’s reading in his purple suede lounge chair. He’s squeezed into a pair of Louis’ boxers; it started as a joke, Louis thinks, but he’s grown comfortable in them now, it’s all he’s worn since yesterday. “Nothing good left?” he asks when Louis keeps staring at him.

“Good? Love, we passed good about two weeks ago,” Louis says, slapping the couch until his palm makes contact with his phone. “Now—now we’ve literally watched everything. Literally, we’ve scraped the barrel, then gone back with our tongues just to lick the taste out the bottom.”

Harry folds the corner on his page. “Okay,” he says, looking up finally, “that’s probably because we haven’t left my house since tour ended.” 

“I…” There’s a sharpness in Harry’s eyes, like he’s been waiting for this, for Louis to crack, finally, so he can—what? Convince Louis to fuck off without feeling like it’s his doing? Force him into a conversation that’ll inevitably end in him fucking off just to save face anyway? “I need a shower.”

“Okay.”

“I might go after, see what the lads are doing.”

“Hm.”

When he gets out, he pulls on some of his clothes; the ones that are fresh and clean and smell like Harry’s lavender detergent. He almost accidentally pulls on the stupid hook-up-hoodie that somehow hasn’t been binned or burnt yet.

Harry is dressed when he gets down, sitting by his dining table, scrolling on his phone. “Hey,” he says, looking up, “find anything?”

Louis looks down himself, gesturing. “I’m dressed, am I not?”

“No, I meant the, uhm… like, a party or something.”

“Oh.” Louis swipes a hand over his mouth, eyes darting around the room as he tries to think. He left his stupid phone upstairs. “No, I— I will in a bit.”

Harry nods. “If you’re going, I’ll probably go out too. Been sort of… you know, people are pestering. You know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Louis sighs, though he hates to hear it. Suddenly, he’s overwhelmed by regret, panicking, because it feels so final, if he walks out that door, like he’s closing it on something more than just whatever the hell these last couple weeks have been. He knew it was coming, but he’ll slap himself for being the one who finally pulled the trigger; it should’ve been Harry. It was always meant to be Harry, in the end.

Harry clears his throat, calling him back to reality. “It’s just, would you come back, later on, or?”

“Back?”

Harry nods, looking mopey suddenly, dragging his finger around on the table. “Like, or could you check in at some point or something?” he mutters, “I know it isn’t fair, I just… don’t want you to get so fucked up, you know? Cause I can’t relax, it’s not—it’s not just about other guys, it’s like, it’s about you, you know. If you’re well.” He peers up at Louis, and Louis could swear his cheeks have reddened a little, “it’s also a bit about other guys. Like, just a little.” He smiles sheepishly, holding up two fingers to show how little. “Tiny bit.”

God help him, if the cutesy shtick never ceases to work exactly as intended.

Louis laughs, walking closer until he can gather Harry’s blushing cheeks in his hands. “Come out with me, then.”

Harry’s eyes widen, and Louis wonders if that never even occurred to him as a possibility. “What, like—”

“Like, to a low-key place, I don’t know. Something.”

“Yeah.” Harry loops his hands around Louis’ wrists and stands, and suddenly they’re holding hands, face to face. “Yeah, we can go low-key together. I know a place.”

*

They get dropped at the back entrance to the building, then escorted in by the owner himself, whom Harry knows personally. Inside, the lighting is minimal, the furniture is rustic and wooden, and the patrons are a mix of posh trying to look middle-class and middle-class trying to look posh, as well as one group of Filipinas having the time of their lives. The atmosphere is subdued, but comfortably chatty, somewhat pub-like, save for the crown jewel; the karaoke set up.

“You know, I said low-key, not off-key, love,” Louis says, taking the Jack and Coke Harry’s just arrived with. They’re sat in a booth near the back, trying to look inconspicuous. Harry was gone at the bar far longer than need be, and looks a little flustered coming back, so Louis surmises he’s been recognised already.

“I like it,” Harry replies, clumsily trying to capture the straw on his bright red cocktail with his mouth. “Look, Ian’s here.”

A beer-gutted man in his mid to late sixties has taken the stage, performing a rather passionate rendition of ‘Teach me Tiger’. “That’s… fuck me, his hips do not lie.”

Harry laughs, straw tapping his teeth. “They do not. Pelvis of truth, ilium of candour.”

“Bloody hell,” Louis barks out laughing, and Harry’s eyes dart to him, twinkling with pride. “You been here a lot, then, getting your little strawberry daiquiris and singing your heart out?”

“Mhm,” Harry hums around his straw. He’s hunched over into his drink, elbows up on the table, and looking up at Louis through his lashes like that. It’s a sight for sore eyes, and people are looking, here and there, at them both, but there seems to be an unspoken etiquette for discretion in here. Maybe it’s another one of those secret hidden lounge spots for celebrities that Louis missed the memo on. “Woo woo,” Harry says.

“Pardon?”

“Woo woo,” he says again, smiling so widely that Louis has to pinch his hand in his lap to keep from reaching over and pinching his cheek. “My drink. It’s not strawberry daiquiri, you uncultured swine.”

Louis blinks, then slowly frowns. “Woo Woo?” he screeches, “surely, it’s not called that.”

“Surely it is,” Harry replies, and has a performatively long sip before he unhunches himself. “Like Woo, but twice.”

“Oh, twice,” Louis mocks.

 “Yes, not once,” Harry says, affecting gravitas, “like Woo,” he adds, and then suddenly pumps a fist into the air and roars like a lion, “WOO!”

Most of the room turns to look at him, and Louis stares apologetically back at them. Up at the karaoke-mike, Ian the honest pelvis-thruster has cut himself off mid-moan.

“Hiiii,” Harry says coquettishly, and turns his fist into a wave.

“Harold, you fuckin’ attentionwhore!” Ian shouts from the mike. “Come up here, give us a show, then!”

People start cheering it on, clapping, and Louis gets swept up, shouting, “show, show, show!”

Finally, Harry stands from his seat, almost knocking his Woo Woo over. Louis saves it last second, then has a sip while Harry saunters up to the stage, stopping to greet people at tables as he goes. It tastes like cranberry juice and has a surprising sting to it. Louis keeps drinking.

Up at the stage, Harry is rifling through the digital songbook and scratching his chin. People keep watching him, and Louis doesn’t blame them.

“Something fun!” Louis hoots, slapping the table. “Come on, we haven’t got all night, mate, you’re stalling!”

Harry looks up at him across the room, eyes bright, and laughs. Louis doesn’t know what to do with the swoop in his stomach, so he blames it on the Woo Woo and puts on an impatient expression, motioning for Harry to get a move on.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it!” he screams, clicks something and picks up the mike.

The lyrics come up on the screen and Harry stands there, feet apart, laughing and pointing at something someone at a table is doing. He misses the first three words, then realises and shouts himself back in: “—as a waitress in a cocktail bar! When I met you.”

Through the first verse, he’s all feigned sheepishness and exaggeration, but slowly he comes into himself, natural. Louis watches, straw between his lips and stars in his eyes, along with the rest of the room.

Harry jump-dances about, all wide arm gestures and hair-flipping and the odd pirouette. “The five years we have had have been such good fun. I still love you!” he sings, and Louis gulps down the last of the Woo Woo. “But now, I think it’s time I live my life on my—”

Someone taps Louis on the shoulder.

He sighs, oddly relieved, and finds two women in their late twenties twisting their hands and jittering. “We’re so—”

“We’re so sorry—”

“Yeah, we’re just such big fa—”

“Massive fans, could—”

“Could we just have a picture, if it’s not too much—”

“Katie, you can’t just ask like that, tell him the thing about—”

“Oh yeah, I love your voice and your face and your—sorry, that came out a lot, I’m such a—”

“We’re both such—”

“All right, all right, steady, love,” Louis cuts in, laughing exhaustedly. He moves back in his booth, patting the seat. “Go on, it’s all right, but as you can see my tablemates’ sort of preoccupied at the minute.”

They exchange looks, eyes bulging, then shove each other until one falls into the seat beside Louis, followed by the other. They’re good with selfies with Louis alone, which is probably for the best, considering the dark side of Twitter and whatnot. The girls are cousins from Leeds, both staying the weekend at their aunt’s in Essex for a 1975 concert. The short-haired one, Tillie, turns out to go to uni with one of Louis’ mates, and the one with the septum ring, Yasmin, turns out to have an incredible party trick up her sleeve.

“Oh my god, that is sick, do that again, wait—” Louis looks around. Harry is still hogging the karaoke set up, now surrounded by admirers, and currently roped into a rather painful performance on ‘My Heart Will Go On’. “All right, no, just do it again!”

Yasmin sticks fetches Harry’s drink straw again and loops it all the way through her septum ring and back, only using her tongue.

Louis claps, amazed. “That’s fuckin’ incredible! Have you got that on film, you’ve got to have that on film in case you can’t do it anymore, for proof, you know—”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve got it, what’ve you got?”

Louis attempts to roll a coin across his knuckles without dropping it, then fails to convince them that he’s managed every single other time he tried it alone at home. The uni girl, Tillie, touches the bottom of her nose with her tongue and then claims to have an even cooler trick she can’t show without a deck of cards handy.

“Oh, that’s a load of bullshit, innit, you’d be out of there the second I pulled a deck of--- hang on—” Louis pretends to fish for something in his pocket, “— I think I’ve got a spare deck right here in my pocket—”

Yasmin bursts out laughing, clapping her hands.

“A-ha!” Louis shouts, pulling his hand back out of his empty pocket to point a finger at Tillie. “There it is, look how scared she got, we’ve called her on it, haven’t we, that’s—”

“She tried to do it at mine, she can’t—”

“I know, she nearly pissed her pants before—”

“Hey, you’re the one who can’t get a fiver past your pointer knuckle without dropping it, you bloody hypocrite!”

Across the room, Louis catches a glimpse of Harry, now hanging over at the bar, chatting to the owner. They lock eyes, because Harry is already looking his way, smiling.

Later on, the girls go off and like clockwork, Harry comes back, sliding right into the booth behind Louis with two strawberry daiquiris in hurricane glasses.

“Nice girls,” he says, ignoring the quirked eyebrow Louis aims at the drinks, “lot of tongue action going on over here.”

Louis picks the complementary strawberry off the side of his drink glass and pops it in his mouth. It’s tasteless, like it’s been lying in a freezer for months. “Yeah, very, should’ve seen the thing this one girl with her nose thing, it was sick—”

“I saw it,” Harry replies, smiling strangely. His cheeks are pink, eyes fuzzy, soft, “you literally made their evening.”

“No no, they were chill, just—”

Harry nods, waving him off. “Yeah, I just meant, like,” he shrugs and has a sip through his straw, “you’re so, like—  I don’t know. Just, to watch.”

Louis cuts his gaze down, face hot. “Well,” he says, sloshing his straw around the pouree in his glass, “you put on quite the show yourself.”

“Mhm, did you like it?”

“What, the Celine Dion impersonation, or?”

Harry smiles, slow. “I like it when I think you’re watching me,” he says, and Louis doesn’t have a chance to process it before he tucks his hair behind an ear and bats his lashes coquettishly, “I’m an OG Louis girl too, you know.”

“Oh, I know you are,” Louis says, drink-brave and fond. He reaches over and pinches Harry’s cheek. “Were you jealous there, for a second?”

Harry shakes his head, inadvertently nuzzling into Louis’ hand. His eyes are bottle green in this light, glimmering. “I like just watching you, too.”

The noise in the background buzzes out, Louis’ whole face tingling, until there’s nothing left but the look in Harry’s eyes.

“Hey,” someone says, after an indefinite amount of time. A hand lands on Louis’ shoulder, and he feels a bit like he’s being ripped backwards out of a whirlpool by the scruff of his neck. “Just wanted to say hi.”

It’s Harry’s friend, the owner, and his wife, coming to introduce themselves properly to Louis. They end up sitting for a while, and it’s surprisingly nice and easy. Apparently, Harry started coming here with a girlfriend about two years ago, then kept coming around once the girlfriend faded out. The rest is history. The owner is nice, his wife is funny, and they’ve got no shortage of entertaining stories about Harry’s karaoke faux pas.

By the end of the night, drunk and giggly, Louis shoves Harry up against the brick wall behind the bar and snogs his face off. They could wait a minute until their car pulls up , offering the privacy of tinted windows, but they can’t really, Louis can’t wait at all, it’s as urgent as his next breath of air. Harry seems to get it, the way his hands scrabble and grip at Louis’ shirt, the way he gasps like he’s been suffocating for it all night too.

*

Between Louis trying not to neglect his mates and fitting in a pop up to Doncaster for a couple days, and Harry getting roped into helping a friend with a house re-decorating project, November slips out between their fingers. They spend December first and second in Harry’s house, and then Harry flies to L.A. for a friend’s birthday party.

On the sixth, while he’s sitting on the floor of Lottie’s flat, trying to make her new surround sound system sound surroundingly, Louis receives a flurry of texts.

10:04 PM

Harry – Just landed 

10:04 PM

Harry – Gatwick

10:04 PM

Harry – pmu?

Louis looks around the mess of cables and wire spools and the rageripped-and-then-taped-back-up paper manual that surrounds him. “Lots!”

“Yeah?” Lottie yells from the kitchen, where she’s been busying herself avoiding Louis’ intermittent temper tantrums for the last hour. “Got it working yet?”

“More or less!” Louis shouts.

10:05 PM

Louis – “pmu” ?

“What do you need, d’you need a hand?” Lottie yells back, in that tone that means I’m only offering to offer, but don’t you dare take me up on it.

“No, just, eh— one last step!” Louis shouts, scratching the back of his head.

Harry’s response ticks in.

10:06 PM

Harry – pick me up? got Swiss choc and a present for you :D

Louis chews on his nail, contemplating.

10:07 PM

Harry – the present is my cock, gonna take you up that tight arse until you cry, then pull out and cum on your tears

Louis pushes off the floor and begins his walk of shame toward the kitchen. 

“So, about that last step,” Louis says, stepping into the kitchen doorway. “You’ve still got your receipt, right?”

Lottie, who’s sitting on the counter, feet dangling, looks up from her phone. “Yeah, why?”

“Yeah, so for that last step, you’d need to, ehm—like, just pop down to the shop and get a replacement and have a professional set it up.” He pastes on a smile. “No biggie.”

“Oh, fucking hell,” Lottie groans, picking her phone back up, “can’t trust you with bloody anything, why’d you even offer when you know you’ve got two left hands, you stupid—”

“I wanted to see my baby sister, and I’m jobless now, for fuck’s sake, I’ve got way too much time on my hands, you know that!” Louis whines, ducking and jumping to dodge the crumbled up pieces of tissue Lottie’s pelting at him. “You’re still paying me, right?”

“Piss off, Louis!”

Louis pretends not to hear the “say hi to Harry from me, then!” she throws after him as he scurries off like a red-handed rat.

*

The Harry that slides into Louis’ passenger seat is not the same Harry that sent the 10:07 text; can’t possibly be.

“Why do you look so cute?”

Harry dimples and shrugs and leans in and pulls on Louis’ collar until he’s close enough to kiss. “Mm… more… more… one more… more—”

“Yeah, let’s just—” Louis finds an ounce of restraint and pushes Harry and his soft, chocolate-tasting mouth back in it’s seat, then puts his blinker on. “Put your seatbelt on, love.”

“I am, I am,” Harry grumbles, “back to mine, yeah?”

The second the coast is clear, Louis swings out onto the road and Harry laughs, jostled in his seat. “Quick as I can manage, I promise.”

“God, I need a shower, I’m all airplaney,” Harry mumbles, “back hurts from those stupid hard seats they’ve got, you know, on American Airlines? They’ve got weirdly hard seats, even first class, compared to, like British or Emirats—”

Louis, half-hard and trying not to crash, rushes off: “Yeah, I know, I’ll give you a rub afterwards.”

“Afterwards of what?”

“Your shower,” Louis deadpans, and Harry cackles.

A hand slides onto the back of Louis’ neck, squeezing. “Oh, really...”

“Really,” Louis insists, gripping the steering wheel harder to keep from hitting the horn when the person in front of him doesn’t start driving at the yellow light. “Come on…”

“You seem agitated,” Harry notes, voice thick with amusement.

“Well, you oversold yourself, didn’t you,” Louis mumbles, screeching off in first as soon as the twat finally moves, “text had me thinking I’d be getting a wild animal dicking, instead I got this achey old man who’ll need a hip replacement if he so much as—”

“No, I meant what I said,” Harry snaps, digging his nails into Louis’ neck. “But you haven’t been fucked in a couple days, I don’t honestly think you’ll be able to keep up.” 

Louis readjusts his grip on the wheel, squeezing his thighs together. “Who says I haven’t?”

“Okay,” Harry says, and Louis’ cock had gone from half-hard to throbbing so fast he feels lightheaded, unable to read the tone in his voice. “Pull over and let me check.”

Louis coughs. “Check?”

“Yeah, like… I can tell,” Harry says, fingers scratching up into the back of Louis’ hair, “if you’ve been fucked in the last day or so. I know your arse in and out, quite literally. It… speaks to me.”

“Yeah, I’m not pulling over so you can have a horse-whispering session with my bumhole.”

Harry barks laughing. “All right, never mind it,” he says, and then mutters on: “Might just doze off anyway when we get in, but you can blow me to sleep if you want.”

Louis yanks the car up to the curb. He stops the car and points a finger at Harry. “Do not ever come for my blowjobs. My blowjobs could raise a dead man from the grave, my blowjobs are sound.”

“Hm, they’re all right,” Harry says, shrugging.

Louis pokes the finger into his cheek whilst unclasping his seatbelt. “They’re better than sound, they’re fucking… mm…” he’s in Harry’s lap now, handing out kisses between words, “fucking…”

“Music,” Harry suggests, sliding both hands down to pat Louis’ bum.

Louis groans and kisses him again, because he looks like he needs it, all red-mouthed and beautiful. He concentrates on kissing while Harry fits both hands down the back of his trousers and squeezes, pulls him into a grind. His cock rubs up against Harry’s and he chases the feeling, just taking Harry’s mouth and his smell and his whole body against his own again and fuck, he’s missed it more than he’ll ever let on. It’s way too much, the way his it thrums under his skin, need building up in his chest until it expands, goes tight and he wants to explode it into Harry.

“You’ve not,” Harry mumbles, voice hoarse already. He presses the finger he’s snuck inbetween Louis’ cheeks up against his arsehole harder for emphasis, “since me, you’ve not, you’d twitch away at first, when I touch you there.”

“Don’t spill all your secrets, you’ll regret it in the morning,” Louis replies, too strung up to say anything else. “Fuck, I wanna suck you.” 

Harry gives a half-choked laugh, squeezing his arse harder. “I’ll come too fast,” he says, rushed, pressing it up against Louis’ chin, “meant to pull myself off before, in the loos, but people were stopping me for pictures, I—”

“Why would you pull yourself off?”

“So I can last,” Harry whines, “so I can fuck you well,” he says, “riled myself up too much thinking about it, so I knew this would happen.”

“Oh, the Minute Man’s back in action! I’ve missed that stuttery dope,” Louis exclaims, laughing as he remembers. Harry smiles, but his cheeks are red, and there’s something so sweetly embarrassed about the look in his eyes, “jesus, Harry, I couldn’t’ve taken it more than a minute back then. Would’ve had to tap out if you hadn’t been so…”

“Considerate?”

Louis swipes his thumb over Harry’s sweet vulnerable mouth. “Sure,” he murmurs, “you were.”

After they’ve shuffled around awkwardly and managed to suck each other off, – well, Harry sucks Louis off while Louis barely manages to wrap his lips around Harry’s cockhead and give it a quick suckle before he’s got a mouthful of spunk – Harry pulls him back into his lap and clings. They’re parked illegally, Louis’ pretty sure, but the windows are tinted and so the fuck what anyway. Harry smells good, is warm, right.

“You know, I never told you how much it meant to me, back then,” he says, with Louis’ chin hooked over his shoulder and a hand in running from the bottom of Louis’ spine to the top of his hair, up and down and up again. “It, like… meant a lot.”

Louis’, who’s been preoccupied squeezing his hands up under the back of Harry’s sweater so he can dig his fingers into the place Harry’s back usually kills him the worst, – right over the hips, bit toward the middle – hm’s in response.

“How old were you again? I’d just turned eighteen, so that would’ve made you…”

“Twenty-ish.”

“Yeah.” Harry sighs, his hands clinging a bit at Louis’ shoulder blades, “I’d just turned eighteen, cause it was for my birthday. Remember? Well, the day after, really, past twelve.”

“How have you got all that memorised?”

“Don’t you?”

Louis stills, tucking his face further into Harry’s neck. “No.”

“Liar,” Harry whispers, and Louis doesn’t object because, well.

“You’d been begging for ages,” Louis points out, “and I’d forgot to get you a present, I was shit out of luck.”

Harry just hums. “You were quite nervous, really,” Harry says, “I’d never seen you like that.”

“Wasn’t—”

“No, you weren’t fussy,” Harry cuts through, “you said, remember? You said, ‘just get it over with, it’s your one chance, I might hate it’, that’s what you said.” Their chests are pressed so closely that Louis can’t tell whose heart started picking up pace first, but they’re beating into each other now. “And you wanted to be on top, remember? Because you said you could be in control, but you couldn’t make it work.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me.”

Harry laughs softly. “So you let me, and you said to bring your legs up and I did… and you weren’t asking me to go slow or be nice, but you were quiet. You were so quiet and you were just looking up at me and I remember this moment—it’s like I play it back. You were just looking up at me, and you kind of gripped my arm, like— you suddenly held onto my arm, and I realised your hands were shaking. I’d never seen you like that. Ever.”

Louis doesn’t know what to say, or how to, so instead he just presses his cheek into Harry’s and aches a little.

“And looking back on that moment, I don’t think I told you, ever, but it’s like… I think, for me, that moment— that was the first time I really thought, this is what it’s like to be a man. Not a boy, you know? Trusted with something so real and… kind of precarious. Because I realised I was holding a moment you’d remember, and you gave me that responsibility not to mess it up.” He sighs again, breath stuttering. “I just think about it still, sometimes. How much it meant that you trusted me with that. And that you thought I did all right with it.”

He says the last part quieter, and Louis just aches all over, the way he strains not to make it sound like a question.

“You did perfect,” he whispers, and pulls back to meet Harry’s dampened eyes, so wide and sweet with trepidation, just like they were that first time, “I really couldn’t have, you know...” he says, closing his eyes and pressing their foreheads together so he can say it, just say it, simple and true; “couldn’t’ve chosen better.”

*

One of Harry’s ex-girlfriend-turned-friend’s ends up being at his house when they get back, and he’s too nice to kick her out, which turns out all right because she’s quite interesting and rolls a nice fat blunt for each of them. As they near the final band gig they’ve got lined up at the X Factor finale on the thirteenth, Louis’ rules and restrictions start to fall apart. First, it’s kissing in front of people; on the second evening, when Harry’s lodger is still inhabiting the sectionals, Harry just pulls him in and kisses him. The girl doesn’t seem to care.

Then, while Louis is tagging along on one of Harry’s antique shop quests for a specific kind of lamp for his blue guest bedroom, Oli accidentally catches wind of their whereabouts and insist they pop into the pub Louis’ mates are all having lunch at right round the corner. Harry slots right in, despite Oli’s wary looks, and after twenty minutes, Louis catches himself looking over at Harry, pint in hand and all his best people around, and thinking hey, maybe this isn’t so bad. Maybe this could actually work.

Three nights before the final gig, Eleanor calls him in the middle of the night, drunkenly sobbing about her keys. Louis is high as a kite, courtesy of Harry’s lodger, so Harry ends up driving him back to his and Eleanor’s flat to let her in with his spare key. Afterwards, he helps Louis help her in, hold her hair back and tuck her in bed.

“You’re so sweet with each other, still” he tells Louis on the drive back, and reaches over and pets his cheek. “I really like that.”

Louis is chin-deep in drive-through take-out, and everything feels slow and fuzzy, Harry’s hand on his cheek like silk against satin, or something. “Don’t stop loving,” Louis mumbles, the whole of London smiling back at him in glittering blurs of light through the rain on Harry’s windscreen, “don’t ever stop loving, you just love and love and love forever, even if it’s two different kinds of love, it’s just there, it coexists, in the universe.”

“Yeah,” Harry replies, and he’s just smiling, petting Louis, perfect.

On the eleventh, when Harry’s lodger has left, weed in tow, Niall shows up at Harry’s house. “London flat’s being reno’d,” he says, dumping his backpack on the living room floor, “staying here through the last gig. Oh, hi, Lou.”

“Sup bro,” Louis replies from the couch, curled up in Harry’s duvet, naked underneath.

Harry laughs awkwardly as he tries to tie a knot on the blanket he just yanked up around his naked waist before letting Niall in. “Couldn’t cover the hotel bill or?”

“Nah, I’m investing in a golf field at the minute, my assets are tied up or whatever, maybe I’m lying— anyway, Louis, you’re either ill or well fucked out, can’t decide.”

“Bit poorl—”

“Latter,” Harry says at the same time, then meets Louis’ glare with indignation. “What? He knows.”

Louis drops himself backwards on the couch. “Whatever.”

“Give him a break every once in a while, mate,” Niall says, “aren’t you meant to switch it up, too? Gays, isn’t that the whole point of the spare cock?”

“Is what?”

“That you take turns and whatnot,” Niall replies, dropping into a chair, “so it’s not just one bloke getting his arsehole ripped to shreds every night.”

Louis groans loudly, laughter breaking out around him. “Fucking hell, what kind of porn are you watching?”

“Milf stuff, mostly,” Niall replies matter-of-factly, “sometimes hentai, you know, for the art.”

“Oh, mate—” Louis shoots back up in his seat, spotting Harry re-entering the room with a cup of tea. “Harry, did I tell you about that one time—”

“No—”

“— couple years ago, Niall and I were sharing a room, yeah? And he’s pulling one off while I’m in the showers, so I walk out and he’s just sitting there, like, watching it still.”

“Still? What, porn?”

Niall lifts a hand in the air and opens his mouth, but Louis is faster: “Yeah, but he’d finished, he’d zipped himself back up. Sick fuck watches on after he’s done.”

“That’s fucking normal!” Niall screams, and looks to Harry for help, “mate, tell him it’s normal!”

“What’s normal?”

“Watching till the end,” Niall exclaims, frantic, “if you start the video, you finish your business, then you watch till the end, that’s fucking normal, innit?”

Harry’s frown deepens. “What, like— porn? You watch porn till the end once you’re done? Porn? Pornographic cinematography? You—porn?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Louis shouts, “he’s fucked up!”

“How the fuck am I meant to gain resolution if I haven’t seen how it ends?”

Harry’s head must be spinning, the amount it’s snapping from Louis to Niall. “What, like, in a facial or a cream pie, you mean?”

“No, like… is it hinted that they’ll see each other again, is… stop looking at me like I’m a freak, the plot’s fucking there for a reason!”

“Nah, you’re fucked up.”

Harry frowns until it looks physically painful, then suddenly laughs at nothing, eyes glazing over. “Checkov’s knob…” 

“It’s normal,” Niall insists, face beet red. “It’s normal.”

Harry is still laughing into thin air. “A knob shown hard in the first act, must be shown to go off in the third…”

“Harry, sweetheart, you’re drooling again.”

Niall cracks his knuckles for attention. “It’s normal,” he grunts.

“I like homemade stuff,” Harry says, smiling, “like, real couples in love.”

“Bumming each other,” Louis supplies, just to wipe the sanctimonious look off Harry’s face, “literally all he watches, I’ve seen his history, s’just arse, arse, blowjob, arse, arse and arse again.”

Harry puts his hand down on the table. “Heey,” he whines, “one day I’ll break through the bloody national security armour you’ve got on your stuff and you’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Mine’s normal stuff,” Louis says, but drops back down, safely hidden behind the backrest of the couch.

“Sure it is, sure it is,” Harry replies, “fucking furry.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing, honey, lay back down.”

Niall laughs. “So, are you two proper together now? You seem ready to tie the knot at this stage.” 

There’s a beat of awkward silence. Then Harry says: “It’s funny you should mention knot, because I did have a peek at Louis’ phone reading history the other day and…”

“Shut up!”

*

They get a team briefing over video-call the night before the gig, and then meet for rehearsals at the studio around noon the next day. Liam shows up and announces that his new girlfriend will be at the show tonight, so they’d better not embarrass him. He doesn’t see the irony in making that statement whilst wearing an oversized pink hoodie with ‘I got a dig bick, you read that wrong’ printed on it in block letters, so Louis gets put in timeout for being snippy.

Timeout means standing out the back of the building and smoking with a few of this year’s finalists. 

It’s odd, seeing that look of fear and excitement in their eyes, the way they bounce on their feet, giddy, the way they all but pull out their notepads and scribble down any generic piece of half-baked advice he throws their way. How’d he get from that to this in five years? He can’t align himself with the switch, feels like it rounded on him behind his back while he was busy tying his shoelaces, and suddenly there’s a sense of finality in the air, now that he’s barely stood himself back up straight again.

But Harry is there, every time Louis thinks he isn’t going to be; every time he expects him to be off somewhere, floating away incrementally, he’s there. Pulling Louis into a dressing room to fret about his hair and ask if he looks nice in his suit (he does). Pulling Louis into the loo to tell him he looks stunning in his (he says thanks). Pulling Louis closer just before they take centre stage. 

The lights dim, they run toward their spots and Olly yells: “Please welcome, the incredible… ONE DIRECTION!”

It hits Louis right then, with the weight of as a thousand bright spotlights bursting onto his face, that he doesn’t know when he’ll ever hear those words again. He can’t see the judges or the audience over the lights, can barely hear them over his in-ears, all he hears it he music come on and Niall’s voice, somewhere behind the roar of his blood in his ears, beginning to sing. His vision narrows down to a roll of gaff tape left at the edge of the stage, and his body moves on muscle memory, sensation fading until all he is is the lump in his throat and the ache in his chest.

Suddenly, they’ve switched songs and positions, all in a blur, and Liam is to his right, they’re singing the chorus to History. Faintly, he senses the warm hues of Harry’s suit on his left, lots of movement, dancing, but he can’t look up or over or at anything but that one roll of tape, balancing precariously three feet before him.

Baby, don’t know you know?

Baby, don’t you know?

We can live forever

Then the music cuts off, the spots dim, and Louis can see again. He takes his in-ears out and emerges from underwater to the roars of a stadium full of screaming and cheering. The judging panel stands, a crew member runs a bit too frantically across the production pit below and there it goes, the roll of tape tips off into the abyss.

The X Factor tune comes on and unleashes a chaotic aftermath of hugging and crying and pulling on arms and sleeves and too many touches, too many people, too many lights. Somehow, someway, Louis manages to disentangle himself and get himself into a backstage loo so he can rip off his blazer and breathe. If he lets the tears fall now, he’s got no idea when they’ll stop, but if he speaks another word, he doesn’t think he can control them. He takes three quick, sharp breaths, presses his forehead against the cool tile wall and squeezes his eyes shut.

Then he digs his thumbs into the hollows of his eyes, rubs over and over and over again, swallows until the lump in his throat settles in his chest instead.

The door to the loo comes open, people laughing. He can hear Nick Grimshaw’s laugh, and another guy. The other guy goes into a stall.

“Louis, mate, are you all right?” Nick asks.

Louis exhales, once, and throws his head back to let gravity do away with the last of the tears. He swipes the backs of his wrists over his eyes and turns. “Yeah,” he says, and sees the flash of recognition in Nick’s eyes instantly, the way his shoulders soften.

“Bloody emotional, innit,” Nick says, offering a small smile, “you did incredible out there, though.”

“Yeah… thanks.” Louis doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he picks his blazer off the floor and holds onto it. “Yeah, thanks.”

Nick’s expression turns apologetic, like he knows he’s walked into something Louis would rather keep to himself. “Ehm— Harold’s looking for you, I think,” he says, gesturing slackly, “he’s out there, with—well, I’m not sure where he went, but he asked where you’d gone.”

“Thanks, yeah, I just…”

Nick’s friend comes out of the loo, congratulates Louis in passing and then they leave. “See you at the afterparty?” Nick asks when he’s halfway out the door.

Louis grunts noncommittally and does his best at a smile.

Then they’re gone and Louis is left with a sudden, urgent need to locate Oli.

The halls he came down has been left mostly empty, and he can hear the booming blur of the show about to continue on out where he came from. His dressing room is to his right and the backstage area he just left is to his left.

Before he manages to make a decision, someone comes running up. “Lou!”

“Oh.”

“There you are.”

Harry is giggling, blazer gone and hair in disarray, and he’s flanked by Jeff Azoff and a woman on his stylist’s. Ellie, that’s right. They’re all bright smiles and post-show exhilaration, and Louis tries to mirror it, but isn’t sure how well he does.

“You ran off, they wanted to get a little group picture thing, but you were gone,” Harry says, out of breath.

He comes a bit too close for comfort, so Louis backs up to remedy it, eyes flickering between Jeff and Ellie.

“Come on, everyone’s in Niall’s dresser, we’re having a little drink thing,” Harry says, and pulls Louis with them down the hall. “Oli’s there too, asking where the fuck you went.”

“All right, yeah,” Louis mutters, herded along in a daze.

Niall’s dressing room is cramped with people; mostly ones Louis knows, though. As soon as they enter, Harry gets pulled off to a corner by someone and Louis spots Oli by Liam on a couch. Lacking a seat, Louis plots himself down in Liam’s lap, knowing Oli would just shove him right off, and even if he didn’t, his knees are too sharp and pointy for comfort.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

“Louis, you should’ve seen—”

“Where the fuck have you been?” Oli insists.

“Went for a wee, jesus,” Louis exclaims, and reaches for a glass of champagne on a side table. He chugs half of it in one go and then makes eyes at Oli when he won’t stop staring. “What.”

“Nothing.” Oli pets his knee.

Louis shoves his hand off. “Come off it,” he mutters, downing the last of his drink.

“What’s that?” Liam yells, “so fucking loud in here, can’t hear you!”

“Said I went and had a massive shit, mate!” Louis shouts, and several heads turn, “need me to elaborate?!”

Liam shakes his head emphatically. “You missed Niall tripping Rita Ora before!” he shouts, and then launches into an overly detailed, fumbling retelling that Louis only catches every other word of.

Across the room, Harry is sitting on a makeup table, surrounding by friends and clinger’s on, all staring at him, touching on him. He’s looking at Louis, though, already, when Louis steels a glance. And he smiles, gentle, before someone pokes him in the chest to recapture his attention.

A moment later, Louis receives a text. 

8:33 PM

Harry – you did incredible

8:33 PM

Harry – wanna slip away for a sec?

When Louis looks up, Harry is already nearer to the door, slowly backing himself up whilst laughing and answering politely to three or four people who won’t let him go.  Every time he makes a gesture that Louis knows means he’s trying to wrap it up without being a dick, someone slaps him on the arm and restarts again or another person joins in, vying for his attention.

“Louis, for fuck’s sake, have you listened to a word I just said?” someone screams on the other side of Louis.

“Earth to Tomlinson!” Oli yells, and other people chime in. 

Louis waves them off, apologising, and pulls out his phone again.

8:34 PM

Louis – not sure it’s possible right now love

He turns and listens to the story that’s being shouted into his ear for a couple of minutes. Once he’s entertained the real world sufficiently to be inconspicuous, he lets himself look back at his phone.

8:36 PM

Harry – don’t care, spare a second

Louis looks up, and realises Harry has managed to make his escape. His phone buzzes again before he can start plotting out his own.

8:37 PM

Harry – rounded it off so well, deserve a kiss&cuddle

8:38 PM

Harry – am in loos down the hall, mirrors say I look good, you want me.

Louis laughs a little, helpless.

“Why are you grinning like an idiot?” Oli asks, staring at him.

Oh. “Nothing, I just—” Louis begins to straighten up, head spinning for an excuse. For one, he’s pretty sure Liam’s legs and head has fallen asleep underneath him so there’s one, right there.

“No offense, but what’s the matter with him?” Oli snaps, stalling Louis in his tracks.

“What do you mean?”

Oli throws a hand out and groans exasperatedly, looks at Louis like Louis’ supposed to know it already. Maybe he does, somewhere deep down, maybe that’s why his stomach still hurts, still. “Why the fuck can’t he just come and sit with you like a normal couple?”

“Who?” Liam asks behind Louis. Not asleep, then.

“Simon,” Louis replies, locked in on Oli still.

Oli doesn’t let up, eyes fiery. “Isn’t that what you are? Or right, let me guess,” Oli snaps his fingers and points, “you haven’t bothered to talk about that, have you? Just fucking, go with his flow until the bloody sewers wash you back up at mine and I’ve got to see you bloody miserable for months and I’m still not allowed to fucking fuss about it, let alone fucking mention it, I just have to sit there and see my best mate be fucking—”

“Stop.” Louis holds a hand up. “It’s nothing like that,” he says, and stands before Oli can catch his eye again. “We’re not stupid kids anymore.”

“Fucking act like adults, then,” Oli grumbles after him, but he’s already going.

The hall is mostly vacant and Louis marches straight down it, right up to the toilet door and stops.

There are voices on the other side. Harry’s, laughing, and someone else.

Before he has a chance to scurry off, the door gets pushed open. A young guy off the production crew rushes past him and inside, he catches a glimpse of Harry standing there, chatting to Jeff.

“Oh, hey!” Jeff smiles obliviously, beckoning Louis in. “Just caught Mr. Popstar out here staring himself blind in the mirrors,” he says, laughing.

Louis manages a dry chuckle and forces himself to walk inside. He catches Harry’s apologetic smile in the side of his vision.

“Yeah, he does… he does like a good mirror, this one,” Louis throws out.

Jeff laughs, and Harry goes heeey, albeit a beat too late, inflection off.

“Having a gossip out here, then, were you?” Louis asks, just to ward off an oncoming awkward silence.

He doesn’t know what it is about Jeff that’s always got had him on his backfoot. Probably more about what he represents than the man himself. It feels bitter, and petty, small, and Louis wants to like him, know him, make him into a person instead of a symbol of a change he couldn’t halt if he tried. 

“Oh, yeah, no, I just haven’t been able to get hold of this out-of-sight-out-of-mind arsehole for the last month,” Jeff says, laughing, and Louis leans back against the sink counter, relaxing a little. “Gonna be staying at mine in L.A. for the next six months so we can get that bloody album on the way, though, so I guess he’s busy tying up loose ends over here, eh?” He’s looking at Harry now, smiling, and gives his cheek a slap.

He slaps Louis on the back on his way out, telling him, “good to see you” or “have a good break” or “good show” or something, Louis isn’t sure, can’t hear it over the words spinning on loop in his head.

Gonna be staying at mine in L.A. for the next six months

The next six months

Get that bloody album on the way

Gonna be in L.A. for the next six months.

And there it is, right there, finally rounding on his unsuspecting skull. Ground impact.

Chapter Text

“C’mere,” Harry says the second the bathroom door closes behind Jeff. They haven’t had a second alone since they got off stage and, judging by the go find your boy, needs a cuddle text Nick sent him just before, Harry isn’t the only one who could do with a bit of aftercare. When Louis stays still by the door, just staring blankly at Harry, Harry stretches his arms out, beckoning and throws in a smile. “Just a hug, no funny business, I promise.”

But Louis doesn’t reciprocate the smile. Instead, he turns steelier, eyes boring into Harry, jarring his own grin away. Later, Harry will ask himself later why he didn’t notice Louis’ hands shaking.

“You all right?” Louis flinches at that, physically flinches, and moves backward like he’s been shoved in the chest. “Hey, what’s the matter?”

Finally, Louis speaks, his voice toneless, weak: “When exactly are you leaving, then?”

“Leav—oh, the…” Harry shakes his head, catching up. “Oh, that’s not till after New Year’s.” If that. With the amount of calls he’s waved off and texts he’s ignored lately, he’s surprised Jeff still thinks it’s on. It is, of course, can’t not be, – nor does Harry want to blow it off -- but thinking more than a week ahead is a luxury he hasn’t really afforded himself, lately. It’s too precarious, this thing, and too good to be true. It’s the longest he’s ever had Louis, consistently, accessibly, to himself. Ever, he thinks. Ever.

“All right,” Louis says, and Harry still can’t tell what he’s thinking.

It scares the living hell out of him; the last time Louis got like that was after the first meeting about the break. Harry will be fucked if he’s going to let himself be iced out again without a fight. “No, hey,” he fumbles, stepping in until he can wrap his arms around Louis. He hears Louis’ shoes shuffle backward on the floor, feels him be a bit further away than expected, but doesn’t really recognise, right then, that it’s because Louis tried to back away from him. His arms are around Louis now anyway, and Louis’ fingers are somewhere at the small of his back. It’s okay. “It’s okay.”

“When were you—” Louis pulls his face out from Harry’s neck, placing his palms on his chest. He still doesn’t look straight at Harry. “I’m just—”

“Me too,” Harry sighs, and leans down, rubs his face against Louis’ scruff. His jaw is clenched, and Harry squeezes him tighter, hoping to unwind him somehow. “I’m sorry, it’s all so emotional, everyone’s crying as well out there… I don’t even want to go party now, really, do you?”

We could just go home, he thinks. We could just go back to mine, where it’s safe, where the world can’t get to us.

“I just—sorry.” Louis pushes at his chest, harder this time, and when Harry catches a glimpse of the look on his face, he lets go, arms dropping slack.

“Please don’t shut me out now,” Harry says, heart pounding.

That makes Louis’ eyes shoot up to meet his, fiery. “I’m—” his voice cracks, and he turns the instant it does, before Harry gets to make sense of it or see his face. “Sorry, I don’t feel well.”

“Wait, hold on—”

Before Harry knows it, Louis has steered toward the door, pushed it open and is marching out. Stumbling after him, Harry tries to reach for his arm, but Louis yanks it in, crosses both over his chest and keeps walking. The hallway seems empty, echoing, and Harry doesn’t see anything but Louis’ rigid back, moving away from him.

It’s not until another voice slices through Harry’s tunnelled focus that he realises there are other people out here. Well, at least one. “Hey, you all right?” Oli calls out.

He’s standing just outside Niall’s dresser, hands in his pockets, frowning at Louis.

Louis makes some kind of hand movement, frantic, and Harry can’t see what his expression tells Oli, but it makes him press his lips together and roll his eyes. He reaches for Louis, nodding, and Louis walks right past him, keeps marching.

“Louis, wait!”

“Hey. Hey. Harry.” Oli grabs Harry by the arm and yanks him out of movement. “Mate, stop.”

Frustrated, Harry forces himself to stop and meet Oli’s frosty stare. “He’s just, I don’t know—” Harry pants, more out of breath than he should be, “he’s just walked off, he says he’s not well, I have to go after him—”

“You don’t,” Oli snaps. He takes a step backwards, raising his eyes at Harry. The exits at the end of the hall swing open and Louis disappear through them. Harry must’ve moved at that, because he receives a shove to the chest by Oli. “Just let me handle it. Think he needs a minute.”

Harry tries to come up with a counter-argument, but all that comes out is an exasperated groan and his hands, flailing at Oli.

Oli starts to step backwards, still holding a hand in the air like he’s ready to push Harry back again the second he moves. “Just go and collect yourself,” he says, slowly backing up, “wait and call him in the morning or something. Okay?”

Harry nods despite himself, chewing on his fingertips.

“Okay,” Oli says, shifting weight, “well, I’ve got your number so I’ll—”

The door to Niall’s dresser gets swung open right between them, noise and people spilling out. “Harry, there you are!” Ellie exclaims, jumping at him. Several other people follow and before he knows it, Oli is out of sight and Harry is back in Niall’s dresser with people damn near sitting on him and shoving champagne and truffles down his throat and party invites down his throat.

*

11:02 PM

Harry – you ok? Did you go home ? 

2:20 AM

Harry - going to nicks, hope u feel better xx

*

He wakes in one of Nick’s guest bedrooms with a raging hangover and someone’s phone smudgy phone number scribbled down his left arm. It takes a shower, a toast and a coffee before he’s conscious enough to start thinking thinkable thoughts. That’s when he checks his phone and sees no new messages from Louis. There’s one from an unknown number, though:

11:35 PM

*thumbs up* all good, no worries – Oli.

Harry codes the number in and goes about looking for Nick so he can say goodbye and slip out. Nick is in bed with some man that isn’t his boyfriend. Oh, well.

It’s chilly out, but Harry decides to walk the ten minutes back home. His house is empty when he gets to it; maybe part of him had hoped to find Louis up in bed or on the couch, having snuck his way back in overnight, but he shouldn’t be so lucky. He puts the kettle on, orders take-out and goes to the study to put his time alone to good use.

The problem with his team and all of the people surrounding it is that everything they ask of him aims to pin him down. On dates, places, bookings and artists, the full solo spin-off deal, packaged and ready, impossible to wriggle out of. It’s not that he doesn’t want it, he can’t remember a time that he didn’t.

But how the fuck is he meant to commit to himself when he can’t even keep the three pound lump in his skull he calls a brain under control?

Jeff sets up a video call between Harry and two of the guys he’s going to be writing with in New York. They’re nice guys, outside of being ridiculously talented and successful, – god knows Harry’s cyberstalked them enough to churn out a small library of personal memoirs in their honours – but Harry can’t stop checking his stupid phone. For nothing, literally nothing.

There was something wrong yesterday. More wrong than the last show, the end of an era, the melodrama, there was something off.

Every time another hour passes without a peep from Louis, and Harry plays back their last conversation, it becomes more glaringly obvious to him. He should’ve followed. Fuck Oli. No, actually, fuck Harry for not just following his instincts like he should have. That’s literally the only thing that’s ever gotten him more out of Louis; powering through the resistance, taking because he can, not because he’s offered.

He’s not that guy, really he isn’t, but Louis doesn’t leave him much option, does he?

7:09 PM

Harry – going home for Christmas on the twentieth, but will probably be here in London until then. Wbu? xx

*

He’s not that guy inherently. He’s not. He’s not the guy who drives to Louis and Eleanor’s flat, or Oli’s, or Lottie’s, or that pub Louis’ mates frequent.

Being the guy who can’t stop thinking about doing those things that a guy like him wouldn’t do, though, he ends up going out and getting fucked up three nights in a row just to drown it out. It doesn’t work, he accidentally sleeps with a recently married ex on the second night, it’s all a big mess, and by the fourth morning, Louis still hasn’t fucking answered him.

A year ago, this would’ve been normal. Harry wouldn’t have texted at all, Louis wouldn’t have texted back, and they’d be circling each other at work, pretending like that was a life worth living.

It’s a bit fucking unfair to expect him now, after two months of unfettered access, to cold-turkey it back to normal. There should be some sort of obligatory weaning off period; give me a little, then a little less, then— no that sounds like water torture, actually.

Fuck, even the spare toothbrush Louis uses is starting to look rather lickable. 

The evening of the twentieth, he receives his first spot of contact from Louis since the final show. If Harry were a cup-half empty sort of person, he might theorise that Louis waited until he knew Harry would be home for Christmas and thus unable to ask him right over in person.

Even so, it’s like a lightning bolt of euphoria shoots straight through him when he sees the name on the display. He’s in his childhood bedroom, sharing an air mattress with his smelly cousin Keith while his even smellier cousin Ian is stinking up Harry’s single bed, having won it through very unfair strategy of rock-rock-rock-rock-rock-ro—haHA! scissors.

Keith is snoring, but Harry still tilts his screen away from view.

11:41 PM

Louis – hey, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, but all good here. Just think we were getting a bit too in over our heads. You know as well as I it just leads to an eventual clash, and I’d rather nip it before it gets to that. We’re not kids anymore. Anyway, hope you’re well and merry Christmas xx (to the fam as well)

Harry stares at it until his eyes sting. He blinks, rubs them, then stares again. For a wild second, he considers firing back with a ‘did your team write that for you?’.

Because what the hell is he meant to do with that? It’s so un-Louis that it feels like a goddamned bait-and-switch, like being offered a fix of the good stuff, only to have a vial full of saline solution stuck in his hand.

It just leads to an eventual clash.

Sure. Thinking back over the years, that is traditionally where it’s ended, before it picked back up again. It always picks back up again.

Harry decides to leave it over Christmas, at least in action, and see if it picks back up around new year’s. If not, he’ll just have to fall to his knees and confess that he’d really rather enjoy that clash if the alternative means nothing at all.

It snows Christmas eve, like a birthday present for Louis. Harry could text him that, but he settles for happy 24^th (on the 24^th)! and leaves it at that. We’re not kids anymore, after all. Whatever.

*

He drives back home on the 29^th, one day early, because if he doesn’t, then the last of the extended family will have left and then his mum and Gemma will have him to themselves. Gemma hasn’t said anything, but Harry knows mum tells her everything, if not in words then in a look, and mum’s been hovering over him all Christmas. He hasn’t told her anything; doesn’t think he ever has, directly, but she always knows, and her fussing instincts won’t allow for leaving it alone.

It’s in the air that she’s going to ask the second she has him one-on-one, and he won’t answer, but she won’t need him to, she’ll see it in his face. He won’t deal with the oh, Harry-sigh and head-kisses, not now, not again.

He’s not oh, Harry, he’s almost twenty-two and he’s Harry fucking Styles, actually.

*

True to form, Harry F. Styles rings in the new year in Mayfair at a rented-out space with a guest list boasting anyone who’s anyone in the music industry, and enough models to feed a seventies rock band through at least three tours. By ten, he’s networked himself through half the crowd and snorted coke off someone’s tits in the loo, and by eleven he’s accidentally agreed to go cave diving with Chris Martin in Belize and spilt Château Latour on at least two people wearing white. At midnight, he snogs Dua Lipa’s face off, and two hours later, he’s locked in a bathroom stall, sitting on the filthy floor with his phone to his ear, nostrils stinging and the last round of shots threatening to make its way back up.

Louis doesn’t pick up the phone. He stopped doing funny voicemail greetings when changing his number became too regular of an occurrence, so Harry doesn’t even get to hear his voice. He hasn’t heard his voice in weeks.

“So, happy new year’s,” Harry tells the voicemail. “Don’t know what party you’re at right now, or who you’re with or if… I don’t know ‘cause you haven’t been in touch, and I’m just… I’ve just, I’m...” He’s slurring, and keeps having to stop to spit out tiny shreds of foil and from the confetti bombs that went off at midnight, but fuck it, just fuck it all. “I’m sorry, but I just think that that text you sent me was a bit fucking, like— bit much, after everything. Or not enough, I mean… I mean, you say it ends in a clash, but you would’ve known that three months ago, before you went and hooked me in again, you would’ve known so why’d you do that? Honestly.”

Someone knocks on the stall door. Harry waits them out until he hears them walk away.

“I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re being a dick, right now, you’re really just— if it’s about the song writing stuff, then… I don’t even get why that’s, like— why is that something we can’t talk about? Why can’t we talk about stuff like that, cause you know it already, and I know you do, but we can’t talk about it, we can’t talk about anything real, because you’ll just— I just… I just want to talk to you, basically. I just think we should have the fucking row, actually, I think—” He spits up in his mouth and swallows it back down. “I think I’ve got some words for you too, at this point, so let’s just have it out. Let’s just have it out instead of acting like kids, like this, so we can figure something out, so it’s not like… I mean, fuck, Louis I’m not asking for much, am I? After everything. I don’t think I’m asking for too much, I just want to see you. I just want to know that I’ll see you, sometimes. Just sometimes, and you can do whatever you want, but if I don’t even know when I’ll hear your voice again, if it’s gonna be months and months, it’s just really messing me up and I’m…”

God, he’s such a fucking cliché, crying on the stall floor into the void.

He sniffs the snot back, rubs the blur from his eyes with the back of his wrist and tries again. “Just please get in touch when you can, you’re being such a dick. And happy new year’s.”

Needing to vomit, he cuts off the call finally.

Afterwards, he texts for a car and slips out without saying goodbye to anyone, and the next day he can almost pretend that he didn’t leave that voicemail, because there’s no response from Louis.

*

January goes by in a haze of anxiety, in which Harry continuously flails for excuses as to why he isn’t ready to hop on a plane just yet, needs just one more day to tie up some loose ends in London, just one more day, and one more, and another.

There are legitimate things; lunches with friends, meeting his baby niece for the first time, signing off on the renovation on his rental property in Manchester, events that Louis no-shows, events that Harry no-shows and then sees pictures of Louis having attended. There’s a dinner with his ex-girlfriend that almost ends a shag for old times’ sake, as is customary for their annual catchups, but when the car stops outside her hotel and she asks him to come up, he— can’t. Not enough wine in his bloodstream, too much familiarity in her eyes, and this whole thing, the way she knows him, who it makes him feel like he is, he just can’t.

He excuses himself with a sudden queasy stomach and goes home alone, pops the cork on another bottle and orders in an escort. It’s easier that way; no fuss, no questions, just release and then the privacy to deal with the shame that comes after on his own. The first time he ever went with one, he’d been nineteen, alone in a hotel room in Tokyo, and Louis had been three doors away, but miles out of reach.

Niall’s a big proponent, says to have a trusted one in every major city, high-end only, in-the-know referrals only. Louis will claim to his dying breath that he’s never had one, but Louis is a fucking liar, and a male escort in L.A. let it slip that he’d now crossed off two out of five on his One Direction bingo card, so Harry made him wear Louis’ cologne and hired him obsessively until he felt so disgusted with himself he had to do a four month abstinence cleanse just to be catch a whiff of Louis walking by without flinching.

In truth, he always feels a bit disgusted with himself after, but if the alternative means running the risk of having his post-coital sleep face blasted all over the tabloids by a random one-nighter, well, paying upfront is just a lot less of a mess.

There are texts from his mum piling up on his phone. Gemma too. He tries to answer, but it’s difficult when he keeps having to weave around a minefield of one-on-one lunch- or dinner entrapments.

“No, it’s just this girl,” he tells Gemma one time on the phone, mid-January. She caught him just back from a run, when the endorphins were at their peak and now she won’t let him leave until she gets to the crux of his ‘listless cadence’. “Uhm, just a bit, you know… don’t know.”

There’s a sigh on the other end. “Thought it might be something like that,” she says, “is it mendable at all?”

“I… yeah, I’d think so,” Harry mutters, somehow caught off guard, and let’s himself flop down on his toilet seat. “I mean, it always— it’s nothing I’ve not been able to come back from before, I don’t think. It shouldn’t be.”

“Well, what’s keeping you from mending it, then?”

“I can’t, like, he— she won’t let me,” Harry says, taking off his sports watch so he can watch his thumb flap the rubber straps back and forth. “Like, they won’t even answer my texts.” 

“For how long?”

Exactly twenty-seven days. “Dunno, like a month?”

“Oof.”

“Is that bad?”

She’s quiet for a bit. “Depends what you did.”

“That’s it, I don’t feel like I did anything,” Harry says, and tries not to sound too much like he’s spent twenty nights in a row going over it in his own head. “Nothing specifically, like… nothing I can pinpoint, in that moment that was so bad, this bad, you know? Just maybe an accumulation of things that pushed onto other things and then, like… one little thing that tipped it over the edge, but I… I can’t know exactly what they all are because he—she keeps it bottled, like, and if I ever try to pick at it, I get shut out so quickly, I’m always just— fucking terrified of getting cut off when I’ve said the wrong thing or been too much or… you know.”

“Oh, Harry.” And there it is, like a gut punch from the past, six years in the making and still just as impossible to dodge. “Just give it a bit of time, yeah? It’ll sort itself, it always does, doesn’t it?”

He clears his throat, hot-faced with embarrassment and so angry with himself he could cry. He can’t cry. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I’ve gotta run,” he rushes off, “I’ve got a guy coming to fix the, uhm— but I’ll call you.”

“Call me, yeah? Harry?”

“Yeah, I will, good to talk to you, love you, bye—”

“Call me, though, and call mum too, she says you haven’t—”

“—I will, sorry I have to, uhm… sorry, bye.”

He shuts the phone off and gets in the shower before it’s too late to pretend his eyes weren’t already wet.

*

January thirtieth marks the longest he’s gone without hearing Louis’ voice since he met him. Forty-seven days. Well, there’s the one on the songs; the one on the interview videos he looks up when his head won’t let him sleep. There are voice notes, if he scrolls back far enough in their chat history.

But that’s not something he lets himself do, anymore. Not since yesterday. 

He calls his team and asks for a flight to New York., texts Jeff that he’s ready to get stuck in and busies himself packing up. If one of Louis’ left-behind t-shirts makes it into the bottom of his suitcase, well, finder’s keeper’s. It’s Harry’s now, even if it still smells like Louis when he presses his nose deep enough into it.

New York is exhilarating and a welcome distraction at first. There are so many people to meet, so many Harry’s been dying to meet, grateful to get to, and there are plans, so many plans, just for him. So many choices suddenly, that all come down to him and him alone. It’s fucking terrifying and everything he’s ever wanted, if he’s honest about it, which he can be for once, wholly and without bounds. Every person in every room wants this for him, genuinely, without the hand-wringing hesitancy of what does that mean for the band, though? or what does that mean for me? There’s not a single person in any room that he steps into who’s own hopes and dreams conflict with Harry’s independence.

There’s not a single line in any of the non-binnable scribbles Harry contributes to the process that don’t have Louis in them. 

Even the ones that aren’t about him somehow end up feeling like they are in a roundabout way. When he doesn’t feel like he’s letting down lyrical talents he’s fought tooth and nail to get to work with, he lets himself down by getting sloshed at night alone in Jeff’s guest bedroom.

There are women; beautiful women, models everywhere, incredible up-and-coming or established artists, and he can’t do it. He goes on one date, one time, with Dua Lipa, and by the end of it, he’s pretty sure she must be wondering whether she got a very true-to-life look-a-like because this disinterested wet cloth of a person can’t possibly be Harry Styles. He even apologises to the friend that set them up when he runs into her at a cocktail party, and she doesn’t ask him what for.

Jeff has enough a month in.

“I’m really worried about you,” he says, stepping into Harry’s room one evening. He’s been in L.A. half the time Harry’s been here, but whenever he’s here, Harry makes a concerted effort not to seem quite as despondent as he feels. This – him sitting in his bed at ten PM with a glass of red wine and a bowl of truffles, obsessively checking social media – this is a fucking performance.

Apparently, a terrible one at that. Good thing he isn’t planning to make a living off the trade, or anything.

“You look miserable, man.”

“You’re the one who said not to be out drinking every night when I’ve got writing sessions in the morning,” Harry notes, and puts his wine glass down on the nightstand to purify the point. “I’m just trying to focus, stay in the zone while I’ve got those guys.”

Jeff, of course, just rolls his eyes. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.” He pulls a chair from the corner and Harry almost expects him to spin it around and sit on it backwards like an overzealous arts teacher, but thankfully he doesn’t take it that far. “Someone literally asked me the other day if you’re doing method acting at the moment.”

Harry laughs, and closes his lap top. “I’m fine,” he says, sighing, “really. I’m just not, like… used to writing with guys of that calibre, you know, all on my own. Bit of imposter syndrome or something, it’s getting to my head, I think.”

Jeff tilts his. “Sure?”

“Yeah, I mean… yeah, you know.” Harry snaps the hair tie on his wrist, then wrings it around a finger. “I am really trying, though.”

“I can tell you are,” Jeff replies, and Harry doesn’t look up. As much as he struggles with being thought to be known by people he doesn’t know the first thing about, being properly known is worse when it’s bad, so much harder to wriggle out of. Leads to questions like: “You sure it’s not about… you know?”

You know it’s always about you know. “No,” Harry says, and then drops his head back against the pillows and closes his eyes. “I can’t do anything about it anyway, it’s not up to me. There’s literally nothing I can do, but just… hope it sorts itself, somehow. With time, I don’t know.”

“You know what I think?”

Harry groans when Jeff deliberately pauses and waits for Harry to ask him what before elaborating. “What.”

“I think you need to go back for a day or two, confront the problem head on and then come back. It’s the only way you’re gonna move on. You need closure.”

“Great idea, I guess I’ll just show up at one of the fifteen different places he could be staying and sit on his doorstep until he calls the cops on me,” Harry snaps, “that’ll really help the public image thing as well, won’t it?”

Jeff laughs, and it sets Harry off too a little, because christ. Just… Jesus fuck, he hates feeling like this.

“Is there a restraining order out there with your name on it?” Jeff asks, still laughing a little.

“Not since last I checked.”

Jeff smiles, wide and maniacal, and points a finger at Harry. “So there’s still a chance.”

“I really don’t think so.”

“Who the fuck are you, where’s Harry? Where’s the guy who’ll chase a girl for seven months only to lose interest the second she gives in, where’s that guy? Come on, Harry.” Harry laughs, shaking his head. “No, come on,” Jeff insists, clapping just to top it off, “show some of that trademark tenacity, come on. I’m booking you a plane if you don’t come up with something yourself, I mean it. This pouty boy thing just isn’t gonna cut it if you’re planning on raising the median age of your fans above eleven.”
“Heey.”

Jeff stands. “Don’t hey me, I fucking own your ass,” he snaps, and Harry laughs, then groans and throws his head back, “and it wasn’t cheap either, so stop making me look like I make bad investments, all right? They’re picking on me at ratchet ball and shit.”

Harry hurls a pillow at him, but he ducks. “Yeah, yeah,” he sighs, and pulls at his fingers, “… yeah, all right.”

“Good.” Jeff slams the door on the conversation. “Goddamn creatives,” Harry hears him lamenting as he walks off down the hall. “Always something…”

*

The show is already in full flourish when Harry is let in through a side door. Tables have been filled to capacity from the looks of things, the massive venue booming with the hum of fifteen to twenty thousand voices and clinking glasses. Wait staff elegantly manoeuvring between tables to fill and refill champagne buckets and bright blue and red strobe lights sweep over the crowds in slow, methodical patterns. From the balcony he’s comes out on, Harry can make out the silhouettes of Ant and Declan down on stage, their practiced banter carrying through speakers in every corner.

Harry ducks his head as he makes his way toward the nearest staircase.

Steadicams are zooming around tables on the main floor, crane cameras flying overhead, and Harry is far, far too sober for this.

What the fuck was he thinking?

The second he walks in between the back sets of tables, someone recognises him. From then on, he tumbles from table to table, pulled into hugs and onto laps and through past-faced coke-fuelled conversations he can’t hardly hear over the noise level in here. He gets stuck ad Ed’s table for a solid half hour, and then Little Mix’s after that, and then one full of people who want very desperately for him to remember some epic night out a year ago that he’s pretty sure he must’ve repressed because he doesn’t recognise a single face.

Making it to the middle of the venue, finally, he catches a glimpse of the back of Louis’ head. Right there, collared by a gray blazer, flanked by the rest of his table – Harry’s pretty sure that’s Liam beside him, actually – that’s Louis. If there ever comes a time when he can’t pin Louis down just by the shape of his head and the way he holds his shoulders, well, maybe that’ll be the day Harry’s heart doesn’t flip in his chest the second he does.

Okay. Okay. Harry extricates himself from the lap he’s currently sitting on and gets up, starts walking. Keeps walking, vision narrowing down to the shape of Louis’ hair.

His suit is too small, untailored, his tie is too tight, strangling him a bit, actually. He pulls on it, nearing Louis’ table, and his palms are sweating, heart beating too fast.

Then Liam stands up. Steps backwards, turns and looks directly into Harry’s eyes.

His mouth drops open.

Harry lifts his hands, aiming for some kind of gesture that conveys surprise, I’m here! and is just sheepish enough that Liam will respond with something like “you’re crazy, mate, never know with you. Come on, sit down.” Instead, his hands just flail in the air, face flushing hot and then icy cold, and Liam frowns.

When he reaches Harry and leans into his ear, his “hi” draws out too long, pitches upward, like a question, like whyyy?

“Hi,” Harry says, coughing and slapping Liam over the back. “Thought I’d, uhm… join you.” He throws in a sheepish smile, but Liam only looks him in the eye, and whatever he sees there makes him grab Harry by the arm and go, “come on, was headed to the loo!”

Liam drags him back through the maze he just came through. He’s a lot better at waving off attempts at conversation than Harry, which gets them out of the danger zone and into the toilets in a matter of thirty seconds. James Bay is standing by the mirrors when they get in there.

“Hi, mate,” Liam says, then shoves Harry into a stall and slams the door.

“What the fuck,” Harry exclaims, “he’s gonna think we’re doing coke in here.”

Liam shakes his head. “Who cares? We’re not under contract anymore.”

“Right,” Harry says, the realisation striking him out, “no. Okay.”

“Well, have you got any?” Liam asks, and Harry starts to shuffle through his pockets, but gets slapped over the arm for it. “Kidding, for fuck’s sake. Harry, what the hell are you doing here?”

Harry yanks his empty hands out, the inside fabric of his trouser pockets coming right with. “I don’t know,” he exclaims, mimicking Liam’s wide-eyed expression, “what’s the bloody problem? I’m nominated too, aren’t I?”

“You didn’t fucking tell us you were coming, that’s what.”

“I’m sorry, it was a fucking last minute—”

“—no, that doesn’t make any sense, Harry, for Christ sake.” Liam turns halfway around, rubbing at his buzzed head.

Harry watches him, stomach sinking. “Would you have been like this if Niall had showed up?”

“Niall would’ve told us beforehand.”

“But if he hadn’t,” Harry insists, determined to pry something he won’t like to hear out of Liam now, “if he’d shown up like this, would you have—”

“No, okay? No,” Liam snaps, and meets Harry’s eye with such unfettered exasperation that Harry feels bad for pushing.

And yet he can’t help twisting the knife. “Why?”

“You know why.” Liam leans back against the stall door and drags his hands down his face. “Fuck.”

Harry drops down on the toilet seat, feeling heavy. “Is it that bad?”

“You know it is or you wouldn’t have snuck in unannounced, would you,” Liam says. He sounds more exhausted than anything, staring at the ceiling. “If you think you’re going to get something good out of pestering him, I think you’ve misunderstood.”

“Well, then fucking tell me what’s going on,” Harry exclaims, “he won’t speak to me, he’s just shut me off and I don’t know why.”  

Liam shakes his head. “He doesn’t fucking speak to me about it either,” he says, “it’s all bloody ‘oh, I can’t be at this thing’ and ‘oh, wait, he’s not there, I’ll be at that, then’ and fucking… I don’t know. He doesn’t want to see you. He just really, really does not want to talk about you or think about you or see you, right now.”

“Well,” Harry says, yanking at his tie. “That’s just not good enough.”

Liam kicks something. “Shit. Fuck. Okay.” He’s holding his hands out and sporting his trademark damage control-expression when Harry looks up again. “Okay, do me one simple favour, then. Stay here until after they’ve announced the video of the year award. We’ve got a whole little speech planned for if we win and it’s gonna completely fuck it up for him if you’re there.”

Harry nods. He can wait. “I can wait.”

“Okay.” Liam breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay. I’ll text you after, then.”

“Yep. Could you get me a snack or something, though? Kinda peckish.”

“No. Eat your pocket fluff.”

Liam leaves in a huff and Harry locks the stall door, then pulls his legs up and sits there on the toilet seat for over an hour. 

*

9:22 PM

Liam – you can come if you’re still sat in there, but I really think you should still consider leaving if you haven’t already

9:22 PM

Liam – we won best video btw

9:22 PM

Liam – but seriously, consider just leaving please love you but please

The thought has certainly occurred to Harry; about every other second in the last hour, it’s popped up. The thing is, though, that the point in which leaving still seemed like a real possibility passed around the third time an A-lister came and shat in the stall next to him, full vocal range of sound effects and all. The sunk-cost fallacy is in full effect and Harry is going to see Louis tonight.

His legs go into a cramp when he stretches them out. At that same moment, of course, someone walks in, so Harry has to bite his own arm and grip the edge of the toilet seat to keep from groaning in pain.

Then the person speaks: “Yeah, we did, we did, I’m buzzed, it’s… yeah…”

And fuck, he’s missed that voice something so fiercely. Worse now, hearing it again.

“No, I’m just in the loo, couldn’t hear you out there,” Louis says, and he’s stops pacing, cuts the sink faucet on and off. “No, it’s all right, I’ll probably go with Liam and the lads to James’—yeah, I’m fine. Mate, I’m fine, it’s not my first time— yeah, it’s different, but it’s just going to have to be, isn’t it, so stop going on about it—sorry, it’s… pardon?”

Harry stares at the stall door, teeth still dug into his own arm, and thinks Louis has to hear it, the way his heart is beating out of chest.

Panicking, he decides to pull his legs up, but they’re still buzzing a bit, uncoordinated, and before he knows it, he’s lost balance and knocked all his weight into the side of the stall. It bangs loudly, carries through all the other stalls down the line, and it’s all Harry can do to hope that the “shit!” that escapes him drowns underneath it.

Louis cuts himself off mid-sentence. “Hello?” Harry bites down on his fingers, pulse thrashing into his teeth. A second passes, zero footsteps. “Hang on, I eh— I’ll call you back later,” Louis mutters, almost inaudible.

He isn’t moving. No footsteps, no words, just one, two, three breaths, echoing through the room as Harry holds his breath.

Then a shaky exhale. “Harry?”

Slowly, Harry pushes off the seat. He gets a headrush when he stands, hands shaking when he unlocks the stall door. His vision goes blurry when he swings open the door, everything moving too fast, and then he sees Louis and it all just— stops. Focuses down to the look in his eyes.

Some kind of instrumental Bowie-medley is blaring through the walls, and Harry can hear Louis’ breath catch in his throat.

Louis’ looks frozen with shock, his knuckles white where he clutches his phone, and his eyes— his eyes are drilled into Harry. Right into Harry, right through him, he can feel where they touch him, burn over his skin, and fuck, nothing stings like that, nothing burns this good.

“I miss you,” Harry says, and it sounds like an apology, the way it comes out, maybe it is, but he won’t excuse his being here.

Louis stumbles backwards into the sink counter, then blinks several times, like he still can’t quite believe his eyes. Finally, finally, he speaks: “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I just really miss you,” Harry says again, because it’s all he’s got, it’s all there is, and it’s there in Louis too, he can see it. “You won’t pick up the phone.”

Louis is so stiff he’s almost vibrating, entire body tensed up. It looks violent, like he might explode. If you do, do it all over me, Harry thinks, do anything to me except nothing.

“When did you get here?” Louis asks through gritted teeth. “Why are— what the fuck, Harry.”

“I wanted to see you,” Harry says, and moves closer, but the look Louis gives him is so alarming, he backs right up again, “it’s the only way I could actually see you.”

Louis drops his head, snorting. “You could’ve fucking—”

“I tried that,” Harry snaps, emboldened now that Louis’ decided that even looking at Harry is too much to ask, “I tried calling, I tried texting, I tried asking people, showing up at things, driving by your fucking—”

“Did you think maybe that’s cause I didn’t want to see you?” Louis half-shouts, suddenly snapping to attention, “did you stop to think maybe I didn’t want you to fucking show up and just—what, for what? For what, Harry?” He throws his arms out, eyes manic, almost pleading. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

“Hm, I don’t know,” Harry replies, pretending to mull it over, “not fucking disappearing on me like I’m some piece of shit one night stand, maybe? What the fuck is that,” he says, angrier as he hears himself say it, “what the fuck is that, Louis? Honestly, what the fuck made you think you couldn’t just, I don’t know, talk to me?”

Louis scoffs, looking away again. “About what,” he mutters.

“Don’t do that,” Harry snaps, “I’m serious. I’m actually fucking livid with you, it’s—”

“Well, then, good for you, Harry, be fucking livid, but I can’t— I’m not,” Louis rants, too fast to be even remotely sincere, “I’m not gonna do this, with you, I can’t.”

“You are, though,” Harry replies, and crosses his arms over his chest, “you are, we’re doing this. Here, I guess.” Louis’ eyes fit toward the door and Harry jumps in his skin, digs his nails into his own arms to keep from moving. “Please.”

Instead of making a run for the door, Louis sighs, nodding his head back. It leaves the entire expanse of his throat exposed, right down to the dip between his collarbones, all warm, honey skin that Harry aches to kiss, touch. Oh, he’s so out of his depth. “I’m not angry with you, all right?” Louis says, sighing, “really, I’m not.”

It sounds sincere, and Harry sort of wishes it didn’t. “What, so… then what? Why can’t you pick up the phone, just, once in a while, just— I’m not asking for that much, am I? Just something, Lou,” Harry says, and knows how pitiful he sounds, sees it reflected in the look in Louis’ eyes. “Just picking up sometimes. I mean, we were— we were really close there, at the end. Weren’t we?”

Louis bites his lip. Cuts his eyes away. “Not close enough,” he says, quiet, “for you to factor me in more than a day ahead of time.”

It takes a moment for Harry to understand what he means.

Once he thinks he does, he has to blink, slowly, to quell down a flash of rage. “So, what… this is about the writing? In New York, thing?” He stops to check the look in Louis’ eyes, sees him flinch and loses it: “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me—” 

“Okay—” Louis starts to move, but Harry moves faster, placing himself between Louis and the door. Louis stops, breathing slowly. “Harry,” he warns.

“I’m sorry, but seriously?” Harry goes on, too fired up to stop, “seriously, it’s cause of the writing? It’s cause of the fucking solo stuff, is it? That’s what it comes down to, for you? Louis?” It hurts the way it cuts right into Louis, but at least it hits him, properly, the way it does Harry. “The fucking band?”

That makes Louis turn around, shaking his head. His mouth curls up in disgust and he walks away from Harry, tucks his hands behind his head and keeps walking until he reaches the far wall, then kicks at it. 

“It is, isn’t it?” Harry says, can’t help himself, “what, so, what—hang on—”

“Harry, please stop—”

“No, so, what, you want me to pull it back, then? Yeah?” Harry rants, feeling manic, “it’s either or for you, is it? I can’t have you unless I stay in the same job for the rest of my life, I can’t have you and—”

Louis screams, finally: “You don’t actually want to have me!”

It’s like the air’s been sucked out of the room, punched right into Harry’s chest. He loses his train of thought, whatever he was saying, it doesn’t matter, his back hits a wall and he stares at Louis’ lightning eyes.

“Fuck’s sake, Harry, you don’t even know how to have someone,” Louis says, hoarse with exhaustion.

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that. “I want you.”

“Yeah.” Louis laughs is dry, rueful. “Are you aware of how many times, over the years, that I’ve seen you want something or someone, like— like truly, genuinely want them,” Louis asks, “but the moment it gets difficult, or inconvenient, or god forbid, fucking real, that’s you gone, that’s—" 

“Not fair,” Harry cuts through. “The entire time that you’ve known me, I have known you too, Louis. So could it possibly be that my relationships have been a little bit fucking affected by having you right there—”

Louis waves him off. “Harry, I just can’t keep doing this. I can’t, I’m sorry, there’s just too much fucking water under that bridge, and— and it’s my fault too, I know that, but I’m… different than you. I can’t just jump into things headfirst and hope I land on my feet.”

“What, you think I can?”

Louis bites the side of his mouth, shrugging. “I think you’ve got the world at your fingertips.”

And yet you’re still out of reach. “I love you,” Harry says weakly, out of ammo, and moves the second he senses Louis is about to. Louis backs up against the wall, one hand out in warning, and Harry lets it curl against his beating heart, then shove at it when he moves closer yet. 

“I don’t want you to make grand gestures, Harry, or overpromise because I’ve got your adrenaline pumping, this is exactly what I don’t want, you’re twenty-one and I’m so fucking stupid—” 

“I’m not,” Harry says, and ends up steadying his elbows against the wall, arms caging Louis’ head in. “I won’t.”

Louis’ got two palms flat against is chest, and he’s looking at them, stubbornly refusing to look up at Harry. Harry closes his eyes, just breathing him again, the bite to his aftershave, the musk in his cologne, the heat on his skin. “I love you,” he whispers, and knows distantly that he’s being unfair, but when everything else fails, this is the only thing he has to grasp onto, and he can’t—he really can’t go without another second. “Please come home with me.”

“Harry.”

“Not for sex, just,” Harry feels Louis’ pulse in his lips when he brushes his own over them, strains to keep from taking more, “I can’t fucking go without you, Lou.”

That seems to trigger something in Louis, because he goes from pushing weakly at Harry’s chest to bunching the fabric of his shirt up in his hands and pulling. He still doesn’t lean up and bridge the gap between their mouths, but he’s so close that Harry’s lips are prickling, hot breath puffing into them when he whispers, “you can take me here if you want me, but you can’t take me home.”

Harry opens his eyes, and Louis does too, and he thinks about it, the vulnerable look in Louis’ eyes, resistance crumbling. Harry wants, so ferociously, he wants, and he could, but he realises then that it’s only because Louis can’t tell him no.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, and takes one chaste kiss from him, just the one, to keep. Then he makes himself walk away.

*

10:37 PM

Harry – I’m so sorry for ambushing you like that. I feel terrible and realise it was selfish of me. I’d like to be able to say I want us to be friends, but I don’t think I’m mature enough for it yet. Anyway, I’ll give you space from now on. Take care Lou xx 

He’s crawling into the early morning hours when he shuts his car engine off for the first time since he got in it outside the O2. The whole street is shrouded in darkness save for the wan light of the streetlamps. He steps onto out into the brisk night air, the only sounds around that of his feet against the gravel drive and the wind whooshing gently through treetops. Under the pot by the door, he finds the spare key, and lets himself in quietly.

To keep from creaking anyone awake, he opts out of using the stairs, and goes through the Dutch doors instead, into the living room. He pulls off his shoes, his blazer and shirt, and curls up on the sofa, pulling one of his nan’s blankets up over his head.

In the morning, his mum finds him like that, and when she strokes her hand through his hair and says oh, Harry, when she asks him haven’t we been here before?, he turns into her touch, lets the tears fall as they may, and tells her once again, yes, but this is the final time.

*

“So…” Eleanor says. “That’s that, then.”

“Yeah…” Louis sighs, and looks back up at the building they spent the majority of their relationship inhabiting. It’s barely past noon and the early April air is nice and mild, but there’s something about the way the sun is hides behind pillowy clouds and gives them this featherlight orangey hue that makes the sentimentality of the moment stick in Louis’ bones. They’ve just handed over the keys to the new owners, a couple their own age, just starting out – with a bit of help from old-money parents. 

“Pub lunch?”

Eleanor smiles. “Yeah, I could eat.”

They pick their usual spot, and they settle in their regular booth. They order their go-to’s – fish and chips with a pint of Fosters for him, veggie burger and Aspall for her. Last they sat here, one on one, they were four years into a dying relationship, grasping at straws to try and salvage what was left.

That feels like a lifetime ago, sitting here with his elbows on the table, chatting freely about Eleanor’s new flatmate, her hunt for a decent mattress, her granddad’s cancer scare and all the terrible dates she’s been on recently. It’s in the way people smile at them from across the pub, the envious look he gets off a bloke passing by, her easy laugh and razor-sharp mind, reminders of all the little things that he fell for. How he just to look at her, and her alongside him, and think we are good together. And they were. They really were, in their own way.

And it really is nice to sit here, with her, and see all of that, without having it be marred by the desperate wish to bridge the gap between comfort and craving.

“Oli says you’ve done a bit of writing recently,” Eleanor says at some point, and smiles at him gently. “Anything worth sharing?”

Louis shrugs and taps at his glass. “Not quite yet,” he says, and smiles, “but yeah, it’s nice to feel a bit productive again.”

“It looks good on you,” she says, nodding, “getting back in the swing of things.”

“Yeah, I’ve got to have something going on,” Louis replies. Even if it’s mostly incoherent scribbles, smoke-fuelled riff sessions with industry friends he’s picked up over the years and the odd e-mail back and forth with interesting artists, it’s something to do. And not all of it comes out terrible. Besides, he’s got one essential new luxury at his disposal now, which he’s slowly begun to appreciate; time. “Can’t just lie about.”

“Nope,” she agrees. They’re quiet for a moment while she sips her cider, and he watches a couple enter the pub hand in hand. People don’t smile at them the way they did Eleanor and Louis when they’d walked in, and one old guy does scrunch his nose and shoot the barmaid a knowing look. She doesn’t reciprocate it, though, and the young men are served and seated, slide right into each other in a booth and continue their chat, heads close. They look happy.

Eleanor must have seen Louis watching, because her next question is careful, but pointed, “so, what about you? Got yourself back out there yet?”

“Not really,” Louis says. There’s been a couple one-night-stand’s, sure, and he did get unwillingly papped snogging a guy he met at the club up against a car one time, but no repeat offenders, nothing to write home about. “Just trying to basically… be single, I guess.”

She laughs into her drink. “Yeah, me too, it’s a bloody mess.”

“You deserve someone really good, next time,” Louis says after another sip. He doesn’t quite know how to say sorry, and she’s never really asked him to either. “Don’t settle.”

“Oh, I won’t,” she says, winking, “I want him tall, straight and all to myself.”

Louis groans, though she doesn’t mean to make him feel bad. “God, I’ve set the bar in hell, haven’t I?”

“You’re not that short,” Eleanor says, eyes gleaming with all that’s left unsaid. Louis loves her so much. Right up until the point where she opens her mouth again and says: “You know, I ran into him the other day, actually.”

“Who?” Louis asks, and Eleanor smiles, lets him get away with it.

“My arch nemesis, of course,” she says, leaning back. “At Planet Organic, of all places.”

Louis can’t help but laugh, though he’d really rather not imagine Harry, wherever he is, doing anything. He’s come to terms with the fact that it might never stop stinging, even if it dulls out over the years, that this is just part of him he’ll have to carry with him, quietly in his chest. You aren’t meant to forget your first big love anyway, are you? Most people don’t.

“He actually stopped and spoke to me, can you believe it?” Eleanor goes on, “I’d expected him to spin around and make a run for it, but I guess hate doesn’t last forever.”

“He never hated you.”

Eleanor sighs, and stirs half-melted ice cubes around the bottom of her glass with her straw. “He apologised to me, actually,” she says after a beat, and Louis looks up, but he can’t quite read her expression, “for acting like he did. Hate me.”

The smart thing would be not to ask, but Louis’ self-destructive impulses die hard. “What did he say?”

“He said, and I’m quoting, ‘uhm, like, uhm… I used to obsess over your hands, I was quite jealous of them.’.”

Louis makes himself frown in confusion, though it sounds exactly like Harry. Enough that Louis can almost hear him, see him pull nervously on his own fingers and strain to be understood. The image and accompanying lump in his throat is exactly why smart people wouldn’t have asked. “That’s odd.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, and I told him as much.”

“And what’d he say?”

Eleanor’s smile is small, laden with contrition. “They got to hold yours out in public.”

There’s a quip somewhere floating around in the back of his mind that he could fish out and use to lighten the impact of that, but it feels like something that deserves to carry weight, however crushing.

Louis takes her hand, squeezes. Not long after, they finish their drinks and go their separate ways.

*

Oli’s house in Donny is one of those tip-top modern copy-paste bungalows, with all straight lines and square edges, shiny and disconcerting shadow gap skirting and cool ash-toned wood flooring. The kitchen is massive and open, all sleek black satin cupboarding and glossy granite counters. While it might be lacking in homeliness and feminine touch, it does make for a neat space to get your thoughts in order.

The last couple months here have been subdued; Oli fell arse over tits for an L.A. hair stylist while holidaying after New Year’s and spends most of his time here jetlagged from the back and forth. Though it has forced Louis to get back into a work out routine to rid some excess energy, the lack of constant buzz and noise does serve him well, he thinks. He hasn’t been online much, mostly for fear of seeing something he doesn’t need to be looking at, not yet.

But people come over, or Louis drives down, and there’s always someone to call and chat ideas with with when inspiration strikes.

Liam spent two weeks here after being dumped, and Niall’s been calling incessantly, pestering him about popping to Ireland for a golf venture. There’s a charity football match coming up soon and there are little plans in the works, popping up here and there.

It’s nice, in all. The freedom of it all. Even if it does occasionally leave a distraction gap just large enough for Harry to squeeze his way in through Louis’ mind-made barricades. It is what it is. 

Coming back up from an evening session in Oli’s BDSM dungeon-esque cellar gym, Louis’ night is already shaping up to be a fine, if uneventful, one. It’s late April, still light out at six in the evening, and Louis’ going to shower, eat, smoke and then meet with Stan and Georgia for drinks if he’s feeling up for it.

It sort of throws a spanner in the works when, as he walks through the kitchen with a sweat towel slung over his shoulder, his phone starts ringing. Well, the call itself isn’t the problem; it’s the private number on the display that bothering him. He changed his number only a week ago, when prank calls started flooding in overnight.

He stares at it for a moment, contemplating. Sure, it’s possible some tech savvy stalker’s had far too much time on their hands and managed to leak it again already, but— he’s not that bloody interesting, is he?

It could be someone real. He picks it up.  

“Who’s this?”

“Zayn, mate, did you see my message?”

Who? “What?”

“Who’s this? This is Louis, right? Louis?”

Louis flops onto a chair. “Hang on, who’s this?”

“This is Louis, right?”

“This is Louis,” Louis says, staring into thin air, “who’s this?”

“Zayn, for fuck’s sake, ‘ve you had an aneurysm or something, what the fuck’s off with you?”

Finally, it sinks in that this is, in fact, Zayn calling him. “Oh,” he says, blinking dazedly, “shit. What’s— wow. Hi. How are… things?”

“Good, my album dropped last month,” Zayn says.

That’s right. Oli’s been playing it non-stop. “I know, yeah. It’s… decent.”

“Thanks.”

Louis picks at his lip, staring at the digital clock on the oven across from him and counts. Thirteen months, gets up it to. This is the most they’ve spoken in thirteen months. “Been a minute,” Louis says.

Zayn laughs. “It has, yeah,” he says, “you gotten a life yet or?”

Louis bites his tongue over a smile. “Anywayyyyys—”

“Anyways,” Zayn cackles, “I’m calling you because that other bloke we used to tour with is losing his head online, have you seen it?”

Oh Christ, what’s Liam done now? “No, I’ve been sort of off socials lately.”

“So you didn’t see the stuff earlier today? The links I sent you?”

Louis puts his phone on speaker and taps around until he finds the old Signal thread that Zayn’s decided bring back from the dead. 

5:22 PM

bro

5:22 PM

bro ur boy is cmting social suicide

5:26 PM

what’ve u done mate he’s lost the plot: *link* *link*

Louis sighs and clicks the link. Leave it to Zayn to disappear for thirteen months only to pop back up like a crazed lunatic with a full beard and a spliff hanging out the side of his mouth, screaming about ‘the end is nigh’.

The first link leads Louis to an article in The Mirror, headlined not Liam Payne wears poor taste slogan tee inside out, then responds to critics with unfunny, mildly offensive joke or Louis Tomlinson’s bestie Oli Wright seen mooning paps as he leaves Pentatonix concert donning full merch or even Niall Horan drunkenly challenges Tiger Woods to a battle of the clubs – ‘fore, motherfucker!’ What it says is: Harry Styles has put a hold on negotiations for solo album contract, insiders say.

“Oh, I thought you meant Liam,” Louis mutters, as though his heart didn’t just leap up into his throat.

“No, I’d have just called him, then,” Zayn replies, but Louis doesn’t really register it, too busy thwarting pop-up adds on shaking fingers to try and get to the supposed inside scoop. The source claims to be aware of a three-album deal with a major record label that kept getting pushed off because the artist – Harry – became more and more difficult to get a hold of. In the end, his team and the label representative had to sit down and had a talk and basically said, well, he’s having second thoughts. So, it’s been sort of shelved indefinitely, right now, as Harry doesn’t seem keen to put in the work.

“What the fuck…” Louis mumbles, picking at his lip. He shakes his head and clicks out of it. “Since when did you start falling for random tabloid fodder?”

“Click on the second link and see for yourself!”

Louis does. It leads him to a place where only the lowliest of creatures venture, the darkest cesspool of shit.

“Thought you’d gone off Twitter,” Louis mutters.

“Just look at his fucking tweet already!”

The page fully loads, showing Harry’s Twitter page. With a tweet, from Harry, linking to the article. Underneath, he’s written:

Hi. I’ve seen a lot of speculation lately and just wanted to make something clear. The way we left things, going into this break, it might’ve seemed a bit unclear what was next for us, or for me, as an individual. But in the end, I think that when everything’s up in the air, you sort of look up and you realise that you only have time to catch one or two things before the rest hit the ground. So, you think about what’s most important. And I think what I’ve come to realise is that loyalty – true, lasting, unflinching loyalty – is integral to being the kind of person that good people keep around. We’ve got the most loyal fans in the world, and we’ve always said that that loyalty is reciprocated. Well, I just want to reiterate here, that that’s still true for me. Rumours of solo endeavours and the break stretching into a split are, for me, unfounded. Whenever the boys are ready to continue our journey as One Direction, I am too. Until then, I’ll be taking a nap and resting my voice. See you soon.

Love to all, H xx 

“What. The. Fuck.”

“I know!” Zayn screams, speaker-phoned voice screeching through the sound of Louis’ laboured breathing. “What did you do?!”

“What do you mean,” Louis hisses, staring himself blind on the words until his eyes start stinging from forgetting to blink. “I haven’t spoken to him in months.”

Zayn makes a loud, screeching horse-like sound. “Well then that’s what it is!” he exclaims, “did Niall say anything?”

“No,” Louis says, “well… I don’t think so. He hasn’t mentioned it.”

A beat of silence passes. The screen goes black from lack of action and Louis flops onto a barstool.

“Twat,” Zayn says eventually, “I’ve gone and left that stupid band early just to get a head start on his peacocking arse and then he pivots anyway, like what the fuck? Could’ve done without the villain arc.”

Louis laughs, though the dread thrumming up under his skin filters into it, makes it all high-pitched, shrill. “I can’t believe he’s gone and done that.”

“No, I know. S’why I called you, mate, it’s usually your fault when he goes off-script like this.”

Louis snorts. “This isn’t my doing,” he says, though claiming it aloud doesn’t do much in the way of convincing the knot in his stomach to untwist itself.

“Well,” Zayn says, sighing, “s’what you wanted, innit?”

For a good two seconds, Louis just gapes at the phone. Because— “fuck no.”

“Good on you,” Zayn replies, laughing, “scared there for a minute you’d changed at the core, but I guess not.”

“No.” Louis jumps off his chair, too strung up to sit, and starts pacing. “No, neither have you,” he says, breathless, “your album is sick, by the way. Really.”

“Thanks.” Zayn laughs. “Was wondering what you’d think of it.”

“No, it is, it— really, thank you. For calling. I’ll call you, too, if I can get hold of your number.”

Zayn laughs again. “We’ll see. Missed you, Lou.”

“Yeah, you too, I’m—sorry, I’ve got to—”

“I know. Do what you gotta do.”

The second Zayn is off the phone, Louis’ phone is left alone on the stupid tweet. He re-reads it once more, just to be sure he hasn’t entirely misunderstood. He hasn’t. “Fuck,” he spits, slamming the phone down on the table, “fuck no.”

*

Niall’s in the middle of a game of pool at his local pub when Louis gets through to him, and it’s a waste anyway because he hardly seems to remember his own name. Liam’s a lost cause before he’s even picked up the damn phone, Louis knows it, but gets it confirmed when Liam does answer, immediately going “hey, did you see the thing Harry posted? Wonder if he was hacked”. Calling the few friends of Harry’s whose numbers Louis actually has yields no results either; the majority of them haven’t even spoken to Harry in weeks.

Harry himself doesn’t pick up nor answer texts. Louis calls him three times, heart in his teeth, and gets fooled by Harry’s stupid ‘hi, this is harry…’ long pause “… can’t pick up the phone right now so leave a message’ voicemail every single time. Being that he thinks he’d otherwise start scratching the paint off Oli’s kitchen cabinets or resort to calling Harry’s family members, Louis gets in the car and decides to drive down. Whether he’ll actually find the nerve to drive right up to Harry’s London house and ring the doorbell, he isn’t sure, but for now, he’s just going to drive. At least he’s doing something.

He’s an hour and fifteen minutes in, almost out of Leicester, when Harry calls him back. The name flashes up brightly on the car computer screen while Louis is in the middle of overtaking a lorry.

“Fuck—” he decides it better not to crash and die for the sake of picking up and makes himself wait until he’s back in the left lane, lorry right up his arse. He stomps the accelerator and taps the screen. “Harry?”

“Louis?”

Oh, what the— “Anne?”

“Hi, Louis, I’m just calling you back cause I’ve noticed you’ve called a couple of times,” Anne says, in this soft-spoken hesitant tone of voice that makes Louis feel like he’s in for a grounding. Or that Harry is grounded. What’s she doing with his phone?

“Is Harry all right?”

“Oh, yeah, darling, he’s fine, he’s just gone for a run and I’ve got his phone here.”

Here. Where? “Hang on, he’s up— he’s staying with you at the minute?”

“Yes, but sweetheart, can you please tell me why you’ve called? Because, you know…” she sighs, and Louis would be going red with embarrassment if not for the fact that he’s concentrating on not crashing the car. “I just think it might be better if you’d just tell me what you’d like me to say to him and then I be the messenger. Rather than, you know… causing unnecessary dramas.”

“All right, yeah, cheers, Anne, good to hear from you, lots of love, bye,” Louis rattles off, before he cuts off the call, pulls off at the first junction and turns the car around.

It’s dark out and the street lamps are on, car clock reading 10:32 PM when Louis finally pulls down the right street. It’s been so long since he’s been, not to mention driven himself here, that it actually makes his chest twinge when he recognises the house across the street. Just the same as it was three, four, five, six years ago, frozen in time, as though teenaged Harry is going to walk out of the door any minute in his school uniform, his mum waving him off in the kitchen window. There’s a draw there that Louis understands, of stepping into a time capsule, a former, foreign reality, and just being somebody’s son, annoying brother, cute neighbour, random stranger.

Louis gets it. But the car that sits in the spare spot in the gravel front path is worth about a hundred thousand pounds and has black-out windows, just like the one Louis’ sitting in right now, and nothing is ever, ever going to be the same as it was. Not six years ago, not five, three, two… one.

Louis steps out of the car.

The second he rings the doorbell and actually hears it chiming melodically through the whole house, it’s like he breaks through a fog. He’s standing on Harry’s mum’s doorstep, at half past ten in the evening on a random Tuesday, with zero excuse and nothing in his hands but puddles of sweat.

Anne opens the door in her housecoat and slippers, cup of tea in her hand. Her eyes shoot out wide, mouth dropping open, and even in the face of all that, the only thing Louis can think is god, she looks like Harry when she does that. Or he looks like her. Whatever.

“I’m, erh, I’m sorry, I—”

She shakes her head frantically. “Louis, what are you doing here?” she whispers sharply.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know, I’m just, erhm…” Louis gestures sideways and up, turns half-way around and then back again, flailing for some of that steadfast determination that got him all the way here. Maybe he left it in the car. Fuck, maybe he shouldn’t have blasted Eminem in the car all the way here, pumping himself up like some sort of vigilante gangster. “I’m… fuck.”

“Don’t swear,” Anne says, still half-whispering, and takes one careful step back. “Harry is sleeping upstairs. What are you doing here? Come in, then. Louis, don’t stand out there, it’s dark out.”

Gingerly, Louis steps across the threshold, like a vampire who’s just been invited in the first time. There’s Harry’s coat and scarf, hanging on the rack. His favourite yellow canvas bag, crumbled on top of the shoe bench. 

“How long has he been staying here?” Louis asks, just as Anne begins to ask him if he wants a cup of tea. “No thanks, please, thank you, I—sorry, I know it’s late.”

Anne tightens the straps on her housecoat and nods. “I’d really like for you to tell me why you’re here,” she says, careful, searching Louis’ face, “because if you’re not here for good reason, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be here at all.”

Louis swallows thickly, pressing his lips together. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry, I hate to be so harsh with you, and—it’s really lovely to see you again, sweetheart, it’s just—” she quirks her shoulder and does the dreaded, all to familiar head tilt. “You know.”

“Yeah. Ah, fuck. Sorry, didn’t mean to swear, just—fucking hell.” Louis drops down on the shoe bench and steadies his elbows on his knees, then lets his face drop into his hands. “Fucking shit, fuck, bollocking cockshit. Sorry.” 

The cushion dips as Anne sits down by him with a sigh. A moment later, a hand strokes circles on his hunched back. The washer is on in the other room, whooshing gently, and she smells like that same almond-scented body lotion she used to stuff Harry’s suitcases with back in the day. Louis faintly remembers a day out between gigs on the first tour, blinding sun, and the tight heat in his face in the evening, Harry’s gentle hands over his burnt skin as he lathered him in the stuff. Louis was so terrified of him then, of making the first move, or of missing out, even just on a single touch, if Harry didn’t.

It's less of an overpowering itch and more of a barely scabbed-over wound, just waiting to be scratched raw again. And it could be, still; always can be, even now, which is a worse kind of terror, knowing.

“I should go,” Louis says, lifting his face from his hands. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I came here.”

“If it’s anything important, I’d love for you to tell me,” Anne says, tilting her head at him, “and if you really do need to speak to him, I’m not standing in your way, love. I just… you know. Harry’s been doing better, lately.”

Louis watches her face carefully, as she says that, tries to make sense of the shape of her voice. He hasn’t spent much time around Anne in years, but be it familial resemblance or her big open eyes, Louis feels like he knows her. And right then, he thinks he knows she isn’t being entirely honest with him. Or herself, maybe.

“You saw what he’s been tweeting?” Louis asks, and sees the instant flash of recognition in her eyes.

She presses her lips together, exhaling. “It’s a lot to take on so soon, I think,” she says, “I don’t blame him for needing a breather, he’s barely had a chance to unwind, I mean, you boys have been on the road non stop for five years. God knows, I’d need a break – a real break – before deciding to plunge head first into something new already.”

But she isn’t twenty-two. And she isn’t Harry. “I don’t know, I just got a bad feeling,” Louis begins to say.

Then a door creaks open upstairs.

Both their heads snap up.

“Muum?”

Louis bites his lip at the sleep-heavy rasp of a voice. Oh god, what’s he doing here without a plan. What’s he doing, honestly, existing in this spot. He’d get up and run, but he can’t even feel his legs.

“Yeah, darling?” Anne calls out, a little breathless.

“Mum?”

Footfalls near the landing. Louis squeezes his knees together and swallows a curse. 

“What’s the matter, darling, did I wake you?”

One heavy footstep lands on the first step of the stairs. Then another on the next, and then Louis can see a big foot as it lands on the third. “No, uhm, I don’t think so… I just thought I heard the door bell or something, but have you seen my—”

Harry swallows his last word as his face comes into view.

His hair’s still long, bun loose and coming down in wavy strands all around his face. He’s in a pair of plaid boxershorts and white football socks, and looks bleary-eyed, pillow-creases on his puffy face.

He locks eyes with Louis and then goes very, very still.

“… so, uhm, that’s that, really,” Anne’s voice filters in, “you all right, darling?”

Harry’s hand is clutching the railing, almost trembling, and Louis’ chest feels like it’s expanding toward inevitable rupture.

“I, uhm,” Harry starts. Then he steps off the bottom step of the stairs and collapses on it, arse landing with a thump. “Is— is, are you all right? Did anything happen, like, is your family—”

Oh. “Oh, no,” Louis stutters out, “no no, everyone’s fine, I’m fine, it’s all good, yeah.”

“Okay.” Harry’s shoulders drop half an inch, but his frown grows deeper. He keeps staring, gripping a bar in the railing and scraping at it with his thumbnail, and Louis can’t for the life of him tell what he’s thinking. “Well, what are you here for?”

“Did you see my texts? My—”

“Oh, I, eh, actually,” Anne cuts in, “I just, you know, eh… deleted those.” She offers Louis a tight smile. “Cause I didn’t know if you were in your right mind or what, so.”

“Oh. All right.”

Louis looks back at Harry, who hasn’t taken his eyes off him. Hasn’t even blinked, it looks like. He’s just sitting there, quiet, while, for some inexplicable reason, Louis expects him to speak first.

Finally, he turns his head just a little, eyes flicking over to Anne. Louis can see his whole throat move when he swallows and clears it. “Mum, would you mind giving us a minute?”

He says it so soft, careful, that it jars Louis when he looks back again, with that same guarded frown on his face. It’s not that it’s cold, per say, but it doesn’t offer Louis’ nerves even the slightest hint of reassurance.

Anne gets up and heads off toward the kitchen, and when the French doors click shut behind her, Louis knows it’s his cue to speak.

“Okay, ehm,” he starts, just to start. He gathers his palms, and they practically slip-slide together, “so. I saw your tweet.”

Harry blinks, slowly. “That’s why you’re here?”

“I’m—yeah. Yeah, I mean—” Louis’ head is spinning for that passionate rant he could’ve sworn he had brimming at his teeth all the way up here, but it sticks in his throat when Harry turns his face away and nods, mouth tight. “Do—should we go upstairs or something? To talk? Would you prefer that or?”

“If we go upstairs,” Harry says, and stops to purse his lips as he exhales, in deliberate fits, like he’s soothing himself, “then I’m going to kiss you.” He looks up, shrugging, as though he didn’t just set Louis’ whole spine alight. “And that’s no good, really… so, I guess we’re stuck down here.”

Louis nods, digging his nails into his own knees. “Harry.”

“It wasn’t to get a reaction out of you,” Harry says, and ducks his head, points his toes inward, “the thing with Twitter. I wasn’t trying to make you think that I was—to guilt trip you into coming around or anything. I’m past that stuff, I think. It was just for me.”

“Okay,” Louis replies, trying not to let that sting. This isn’t about him. “Well, I just don’t understand, basically. Why you’d backtrack on everything you’ve worked so hard for.” Louis throws his hands out, sighing. “I guess that’s why I’m here, in essence.”

Harry just nods again, head still bowed as he watches himself pick at a loose thread on his sock. “You could’ve given it a day or two,” he mutters, “until someone explained it to you. Someone would’ve, eventually.”

“Well, you know me,” Louis says, leaning back against the wall for support, “ever impatient.”

Harry doesn’t smile. “I just don’t like who I’d become, I think,” he says, “or who I’d be if I carried on like that.”

“Like what?” Louis exclaims, and hears himself sounding more exasperated, but he can’t help it, “Harry, honestly—”

“No, I mean,” Harry shakes his head sharply, “I mean, I’m not trying to be a martyr or anything. I feel like this conversation… I feel like you think I’ve done it all for you, or cause of you, or—”

“No, that doesn’t matter,” Louis cuts in, growing agitated, “that’s not the point, I’m worried about you, leave me out of it for a second.”

Harry lifts his head at that, finally. “In which case, you’d be right,” he says, and strikes Louis out in one wide-eyed look, “but not because I want anything from you. Or want you to feel guilty. That’s not— it’s not even a bad thing, like…  I just think I’ve realised some things, from everything… and that certain things matter most, in the end. And you can’t have, like… you can’t just jump at every chance you get and grab for everything, you know? You have to hold certain things and keep holding them because you’ve only got two hands. You can’t have everything all the time.”

He looks at Louis like he wants him desperately to get it, like he’s sure he’s so got the point right, and just needs Louis to grasp it, then he’ll understand.

But Louis does grasp it, and that, he just now remembers properly, is why he’s here. “No, you can,” Louis says, “you can, and you have it, right there, so don’t fucking squander it now.”

“Louis—”

“No.” Louis straightens up, finding the spark finally. “No, don’t you dare piss away everything you’ve wanted since you were sixteen years old based off some misguided notion of self-sacrifice, I’ll be fucking— I’ll burn this whole fucking house down with you in it before I let you do that, Harry, I mean it.” Harry stares at him, dumbstruck. Good. “You can— you can fuck it up by turning out a shit writer and making shit music and having shit shows and shit reviews and god knows what else, but you’re not gonna fuck it up because you didn’t even try. I’m not gonna let you. Okay?” Fired up, he sticks a hand into his jacket pocket and pulls out a light. “Look, I’ve got my lighter right here, I’ll set this house on fire, do you want that? I’ll fucking do it.”

He flicks the light and it doesn’t work, flicks again, no luck, flicks again, zero luck, and then, finally, he flicks and sparks a smile. Just a little one.

Harry rolls his eyes and bites at it, ducking his head. “The fuck are you doing here, Louis.”

“I’ve told you.”

“No, and you stink of sweat as well, I can smell it all the way over here.”

Oh. Louis tugs on his shirt, the same one he had on when he worked out earlier. “I rushed out the house, I’d just had a work out, didn’t have time to shower.”

“Oh, you work out now, do you?”

Louis stretches out a leg and flexes his calf muscle. “Can’t you tell?”

“Hm.” Harry looks, only for a second, then cuts his eyes away. He grabs the railing and pulls himself up. “Have a shower, okay? I just— I need a minute.”

It’s an internal struggle, watching Harry pull himself back up those stairs and out of view without following, but Louis does it. Anne shows in into the downstairs bathroom and puts a towel and a set of loungewear out for him on the top of the toilet seat. It’s Harry’s sweats, Louis can tell, though they only smell like cotton breeze. The sweatshirt is soft and worn, pilling on the inside, and the trackies bunch at his feet. It’s all very comforting, except for the fact that Harry has locked himself in his room.

“I’ve done up the guest bed for you,” Anne says, beckoning him toward the stairs, “come on, it’s late, you’re out of sorts, you can’t drive now.”

Every objection glides like off her, and in the end Louis is standing in the upstairs guest bedroom, plugging his phone into a spare charger.

“I’m really sorry about—”

“No more of that,” Anne says, “just have a sleep and we’ll talk in the morning.”

She closes the door with a sound click and Louis flops onto the freshly made bed. His phone is full up with messages, and he only answers enough of them to ward off a potential missing person’s report in his name, then flicks the screen off and puts his head to the pillow. It’s nice and cool, perfect to sleep on, but the moon shines in through the slanted window above him, right onto his face, and his pulse is pounding into the pillowcase.

There isn’t a sound to be heard in the next room over; if there was, Louis would’ve known it, because it’s all he’s doing. Lying here, listening for Harry.

When the clock on his phone rounds twelve, he gets up to try and walk off some of the adrenaline. His chest hurts, and the pacing only exacerbates his elevated pulse, he thinks his heart might beat out through it’s cavity and run away from him, it feels like it’s running about from him. He opens the bedroom door, steps one foot out and gasps in his throat when the floorboard creaks like a motherfucker. 

He jumps back in and shuts the door firmly. Paces until he ends up at the window. Does it open? It should open, it’s a bedroom window, but there’s some sort of child lock on it and Louis is childish with jitters, can’t wriggle it open no matter how frantically he pulls and pushes at it.

In his effort, he forgets to listen for Harry, of course, until the door behind him clicks open.

“I—oh.” Louis turns, staring at him.

Harry’s silhouette is unmistakable, but the moonlight doesn’t quite reach his face, not enough to make out the look in his eyes. “Sorry, I just thought I heard you leave.”

“Oh.” Louis shakes his head, stumped. “No, just— pacing.”

 “Okay. Well.”

Harry turns to leave again and only then does it sink in that Louis isn’t the only one who’s been listening.

“I won’t go,” he says, “I wouldn’t, without saying so. First.”

“Okay.” Harry stays hanging in the doorway, chewing on his lip. “I can’t sleep either,” he says, and takes one step forward, tentative.

Louis crosses his arms over his chest, hands buried in the sleeves of Harry’s sweatshirt, and holds onto himself. “Did you want to talk a bit?”

Harry grunts in response, then closes the door behind him and leans back against it. He cracks his knuckles, and Louis’ chest goes tighter, a bit frantic, the longer Harry stays there, eyes just out of reach from the light. But beckoning Harry closer doesn’t seem like a good idea either. If we go upstairs, he remembers, leaning back against the window. And I’d let you, he thinks, I’d let you every time, he thinks, and closes his eyes, remembering the cold tile against his back, Harry’s arms caging him in, the last bit of distance between their mouths that Harry didn’t close. Wonders if he’ll ever feel a fraction of that charge in the space between them, just barely an inch of shared breath and so much better, so much worse than kissing anyone else. Before, during, after. Ever.

“Maybe we should talk in the morning,” he makes himself say, and Harry nods, but takes one step closer. “Harry.”

“Yeah.” Harry stops dead in the middle of the room, the moonlight flashing over his face. It doesn’t do much in the way of helping the panicked crescendo in Louis’ chest. “Did you miss me at all?”

Louis almost laughs. “Harry.” 

“Don’t,” Harry says, more urgent, “don’t do that to me.” He takes one more step in, just the one. “You’re the one who showed up here, not the other way round. I’ve left you alone, I’ve given you space. You’re the one who came here, instead of calling or waiting or asking around. Louis,” he says it slow, emphatic, like it’s a point itself, “don’t act like I’m stupid, I did the same thing to you months ago and you didn’t like it. Having your equilibrium fucked right up when you were doing all right.”

There’s an edge to his voice now, and Louis shifts weight, digs his feet into the carpet for purchase. “No.”

“So what the fuck,” Harry says, “are you doing fucking mine up now? Just on a whim, because you wanted to.” His eyes are wide, incredulous now. “Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to— do you know how hard it’s been for me to leave you alone? How much I’ve fought that instinct just to fucking force my way back in or beg or— and it’s just so fucking easy for you to show up the second you feel like it, on impulse. When I was doing better. I was doing all right. Fuck you.”

Louis grits his teeth, takes a slow breath. “You know, typically, when you’re doing all right,” he gets out, “you don’t piss off everything you’ve wanted your whole life on some half-baked—”

“Fuck off, you don’t know what I want.” Harry drags his hands through his hair, groaning. “I can’t even say what I want because you don’t trust it, and you might be right not to.” He drops down at the foot of the bed, sighing. “You’re the one who said it, Louis. You said it. I want and I want, but I don’t necessarily—”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” Louis exclaims, “and you know I wasn’t, I wouldn’t. I know you want this, it’s the only thing you’ve wanted consistently in all the time I’ve known you.”

Harry fish-mouths. “Not the only,” he mutters, so low it takes a second for Louis to hear it.

“Harry, come on,” Louis sighs, “you know as well as I—”

“Oh, shut up, Louis,” Harry suddenly shouts, spitting the last word out like it burns his tongue. As if having Harry raise his voice at him, for once, wasn’t enough to make Louis’ heart seize in his chest, Harry snatches a throw pillow off the end of the bed and flings it across the room.

“Don’t shout at—”

“I’ll shout if I fucking want to, s’my house,” Harry snarls, and that’s just so fucking childish that Louis needs to strike it down, but his words fail in the face of the ferocious look Harry cuts him. “You’re the one who came here,” he reiterates, “and you’re so fucking sure you’ve got it right, you’re so fucking sanctimonious, saint fucking saviour Louis coming here in spite of yourself, oh it must be so hard.”  

He stands and Louis backs up further, windowsill digging into his back. “Harry.”

“Oh, I’m not here for that, I’m not here to see you,” Harry mocks, gesturing manically, “I just wanted to come here and rant because I know better, I’m the bigger person, I’m so fucking above it all—”

“I never said—”

“Good, cause you’re not,” Harry snaps, and stops still right in front of Louis. “You came here to see me.”

Louis’ teeth are throbbing. “Yes, I came to—”

“No.” Harry shakes his head, once, sharp. He steps closer and Louis thinks he raises a hand up in warning, but he can’t even really feel it, “no, you could’ve done this over the phone.”

One more step, and then Louis can smell him, all over, sense his arms up on either by the side of his face, see the specks of gold in his irises. There’s a hand grabbing the side of his neck, thumb on his throat. Harry presses, just a little, and Louis gasps through his teeth. “You came here to see me,” Harry whispers, breath like a thousand tiny needle-pricks on Louis’ lips. His knees are giving out, if they’re even there anymore. “Say it.”

Louis’ throat clicks loudly when he clears it. “I came to tell—” 

“No.” Harry’s forehead presses against his own, feverish hot, “don’t lie,” he urges, and Louis can’t tell what’s Harry’s thumb and what’s his own pulse anymore, they’re so closely pressed together, “lie to yourself all you want, but don’t come here and look me in the eye and lie to me, Louis, don’t fucking insult me like that.”

Harry’s eyes are closed, tight, his whole body tensely pointed into Louis, back muscles rising and falling fast under Louis’ hands. His mouth is open, panting, waiting.

“Please,” he whispers.

And Louis slaps him hard, over the back, then leans up and closes the gap between their mouths. Soon as he does, it’s like Harry’s whole body snaps loose in one gasp, falling into Louis.

His tongue is in Louis’ mouth, his hands are in his hair, on his waist, round his face, and Louis digs his nails in to cope. He doesn’t know when he’s gotten his arms locked around Harry’s neck, or at what point his knees finally gave out, but suddenly he’s off the floor, pressed into the wall. Harry grabs him under the thighs to hitch him higher and he locks his legs around Harry’s waist in turn, squeezes.

They’re too hungry, sloppy with urgence, spit dribbling down Louis’ chin when they part to gasp for air. Harry groans, laps it up and shoves it back into Louis’ mouth, crushes him harder into the wall. Louis’ arse gets dumped onto a desk, several items shoved right off and onto the floor. He rips out Harry’s hair tie, pretty sure he yanks a good clump of hair right with it, and Harry bites his lip, then his jaw and his earlobe, tongues into his ear and then sucks on the shell of it.

His hips are grinding, trying to get to Louis instead of just rustling the desk, but the position’s all wrong. Harry tries to get on top, push him down, but there are about ten thousand pieces of stationary stabbing Louis in the back when he does. He winces, shoves Harry off and shoves him again, yanks him in again and tries to steer him backwards into the bed.

“No, mine, mine,” Harry pants, and yanks Louis with him by the wrist.

The floorboards creak just as loudly as before when they rush out and into the Harry’s bedroom, and Louis feels like he slams the door behind him, but Harry doesn’t seem to care and fuck it, Louis doesn’t really either. They fall into Harry’s single bed, the collage frames of school, friend and family photos shaking above them.

Harry pulls Louis out of his trackies, but Louis can’t handle not kissing him long enough to get out of his sweatshirt, so pulls him down again. The weight and heat of Harry on top was always something else, and it’s crushing now, but Louis wants it to suffocate him. He wriggles onto his front and Harry whines at the loss of his mouth, but mounts him simultaneously, pushes everything he has down into Louis’ body. His mouth is on the side of Louis’ face, his hands are grabbing down his sides, fitting under his hips and wriggling inbetween the fronts of his thighs.

“Can’t,” he chokes out, but he’s humping his big cock into Louis’ arse like it’s the only thing he can do, “wait, fuck, I’ll come, I’ll come—”

“Shh, s’okay,” Louis stretches a hand back and cradles the back of his neck, gets him close. “Just come, it’s okay,” he urges, cock throbbing against his waistband when Harry shoves his sweatshirt up and clutches at the fabric, spilling up Louis’ back.

Harry groans and curses against the nape of Louis’ neck, twisting his sweatshirt up so tight it’s digging into the fronts of his ribs. The mattress is already damp where Louis’ cock peeks out over the waistband of his boxers, but his arms are twisting back, clawing at Harry, and he can’t, won’t, let go.

Harry draws his hand down Louis’ spine, and Louis only realises he’s been scooping his own cum up when he feels Harry’s cupped hand sliding up against his mouth. He makes a sound like he wants to say something, but can’t, and Louis can’t either, so he just licks Harry’s hand clean and sucks his fingers into his mouth.

Fingers sliding out, Harry turns him around and kisses him again. On the mouth, the jaw, down the chest, the stomach. When he finally tugs Louis’ boxers off and sucks him down, Louis’ sure he’ll come in the same instant. But Harry’s got a firm hold at the base of him, squeezing, and keeps squeezing as he sucks, even when Louis gets a hand into his hair and tries to urge him deeper.

Harry pops off and looks up at him, mouth wet and wrecked, shakes his head. “Not yet,” he rasps, “hold it so I can fuck you.” 

Then he slides his hands up under Louis’ thighs and pushes him open, looks.

“Not fair,” Louis grunts, but grabs himself under the knee and holds on so Harry can focus on spreading him open. It’s so much, and so, so long ago, that Louis twitches away at the first swipe of Harry’s tongue, arsehole screwing up tight. Harry follows and digs in, his hair scratching and tickling at the backsides of Louis’ thighs, even as Louis tries to gather it all up in a hand and keep it out the way. With some effort, Harry wriggles his tongue inside and Louis breathes in huffs, trying not to hyperventilate. It’s so good it’s almost unbearable, and Louis keeps trying to squirm away despite himself, but Harry’s got hold of his hips now, fingers digging bruises into the flesh of his thighs. He won’t let go for anything now, Louis can tell, and somehow that helps, lets him unclench a little more.

Every finger Harry squeezes into him burns, because he hasn’t been fucked properly since Harry last, but it fits too, feels exactly right when it does. Louis closes his eyes and lets himself feel it, ache like he’s nineteen again, lying right in this very bed and fighting not to let it show how fucking terrified he was, the first time Harry took him. 

“Do you remember,” Harry pants, coming back up to kiss him, three fingers kneading at his insides. “This is where—”

“Yes,” Louis whispers, kissing him in between, “I was so fucking scared.” 

Harry nods, closes his eyes, and nudges their noses together, “you were the best thing I’d ever felt.”

“Fuck,” Louis gasps, clutching Harry’s arm, “Harry, please, come on.”

Harry doesn’t tease, doesn’t dig, just grunts like he needs it too, and sinks inside slowly, stretching Louis until he’s just one big ache, trembling tight around him. He settles ball-deep with a sigh, then pulls out and comes back in again, deeper, and deeper again the next time, moaning and mumbling, “let me, let me in, ungh, fuck, just let me have you.”

Louis can’t speak, just moans and winces and digs deep nail-shaped indents into Harry’s back as he lets himself be folded up and fucked into on long, slow, inescapable strokes. Harry puts a hand on his throat, just holding, asks him where it is, if he likes it there, if he’s missed it, missed this, missed Harry, and pounds out the answers.

“It’s okay,” he says when Louis starts to squirm and whine and lose his breath, because it’s so much, and it’s so overwhelming, painful and relentless and so fucking good that he doesn’t know what to do with the shock of it. Harry is just looking at him, the whole time, just looking him right in the eye, and Louis can’t break it, can’t look away. “Hey,” Harry pants, face shining in sweat, beautifully flushed. He moves his hand off Louis’ throat and up to cradle his face, “s’just me.” 

“Yeah,” Louis gasps, and pulls on him until he’s close enough to kiss on, “yeah, I just missed you too much.”

Harry groans, wounded, and then goes harder, deeper, Louis stretching further than he thought he could go, making sounds that don’t sound like his own. When he comes, he shakes and shouts into Harry’s mouth, sobs when Harry follows a while after.

Harry clings to him after that, all night in his single bed, and Louis threads their fingers together, holds on tight.

*

When the sound of Anne moving about in the kitchen downstairs wakes him the next morning, Louis is pressed into the wall, nose buried in Harry’s hair. The blinds are half drawn up, little flecks of dust floating aimlessly where the sunlight exposes them. Someone’s got a lawnmower going in one of the other gardens and Anne’s put the radio or telly on downstairs. Harry is sound asleep, but still whines a little when Louis wriggles his arm out from under him. There’s nothing he’d rather like, honestly, than to bury his nose in the nape of Harry’s neck and stay huffing his warmth forever, but nature calls and Louis is sticky, front and back.

Harry’s bathroom is small and dull pink, connected to Gemma’s old room through another door. Louis remembers falling into bed on top of her one time, drunk, having gotten his directions jumbled. Could’ve asked me first, before jumping in bed with my sister, Harry had told him after the initial screaming and laughter died off, and he’d smiled that slow dopey smile of his, the one that used to make Louis’ stomach flipflop.

Well, ‘used to’ might be a bit a reach, but; the implications are different now. Harry turns up a moment after he’s stepped in the shower, staring blankly at Louis like he’s still half-asleep and scratching his own stomach. He doesn’t say anything, but sticks two fingers into the gab in the shower-door and pushes it open.

“Hey,” Louis says, and Harry steps close enough that their stomachs press together, and the overhead shower flattens his hair. He looks tired, weary, and a little bit like he expects Louis to soap him up and wash him down. He starts out smoothing Harry’s hair out of his face. Their toes nudge together like this, and Harry closes his eyes and sighs when Louis rubs his fingers through his hair.

There’s a hand on Louis’ hip and another one sliding down between his arsecheeks, but it’s more so gently curious than trying anything so Louis lets it be.

“I’ve washed it out, if that’s what you’re feeling for,” Louis says, “you’re about a minute late, your babies already went down the drain.”

Harry looks at him, for so long it becomes unnerving, and then snuffles and slides his hand up to the small of Louis’ back. “Fast swimmers,” he says, and curls his mouth.

Louis rolls his eyes, giving him a slap over the hip. “All done, it’s yours,” he says, sidestepping Harry.

Of course, he gets grabbed by the wrist on his way out. But when he turns, the look in Harry’s eyes is startling, almost nervous.

“I won’t go,” Louis says, swallowing hard, “you can shower, I’ll be in your room.”

That seems to sate him enough to let go, though he hadn’t really held on that hard to begin with. Louis is sore, and displaced, and brushes his teeth with what he thinks is Gemma’s toothbrush, then puts on last night’s track bottoms and finds a t-shirt in Harry’s drawer. The bed is nasty, but dry, so Louis shakes the duvet out, throws himself on top of it and calls it a day.

He left his phone in the guest bedroom.

The pillow smells like Harry, and him, him and Harry, all night.

There’s a bottle of water on the nightstand that Louis eyes for a minutes on end before his dry throat wins out over the fatigue in his limbs. He reaches over and accidentally knocks a leather notebook onto the floor. The water goes down easy, but it’s a hell of a strain to lean down and pick up the stupid notebook.

The shower has just cut off in the bathroom, but Harry likes to take his sweet time drying off and checking for signs of belated facial hair-growth in the mirror, so Louis allows himself one quick moment to peek. It’s not a bloody diary, anyway. It’s not like Louis found it tucked under the mattress with a heart-shaped lock on it.

Most of the scribbles are as garbled and nonsensical as Harry when he’s worst, some are just laundry lists and others little doodles. There are three whole pages dedicated to a stickman family with a pet ferret and a foster stick child and a whole bizarre lore to it. But between the randomness, there’s are words – tell me something I don’t already know – connecting in a shared, heart-aching theme – we don’t say what we really mean – that Louis knows all too well. We’re both stubborn, I know. He can’t stop flitting through the pages, -- just take the pain away – even as the lump in his throat balloons out, – we don’t talk about it – and hardens, – it’s something we don’t do – turns to stone, -- ‘cause once you go without it -- unsinkable. Nothing else will do.

Louis’ lip has gone numb where his teeth are dug on, and Harry is standing somewhere on the floor across from him now, just breathing. He closes the notebook on unsteady hands. “Harry—”

“It’s just stream of consciousness,” Harry says, and Louis sees his pale legs move away through a blur. “Rubbish, mostly.”

“So you have still been trying, then,” Louis says quietly.

Harry’s got his naked back to him, and is rifling through the top drawer in his dresser. He’s moving too fast, agitated, and steps wrongly into his pants three times, stumbling and groaning with his long wet hair in his mouth, before he manages to get them on. Louis sits there, clutching the notebook, and watches, thinks no, nothing else will ever do.

“Force of habit, I guess,” Harry mumbles, answering something Louis had already forgotten he’d said, “some of it’s from New York.”

“Much more vulnerable than anything you’ve done before,” Louis says, “in the band, I mean.”

Harry pulls on a t-shirt and shakes out his hair. “Yeah, well, it’s just me,” he says, finally looking at Louis as he starts to tie his hair up. His eyes are wide open, but there’s a nervous bend to his mouth when he tacks on, “like, distilled,” and oh, Louis aches with affection.

Tell me something I don’t already know, he thinks. “I spent New Year’s Eve alone.”

“What?” Harry’s shoulders come down, and he frowns. “This last one?”

“Yeah.” He’d been dressed up and halfway out the door at six, still stuck in his hallway half an hour later, and then back in bed by seven, just him and a bottle of sparkly meant for the host. “Was meant to go to a party, but… I felt ill, so. I stayed in.”

“Oh, that’s no fun.”

Harry presses his lips together, head tilting nervously, and Louis knows why.

“And I saw it when you called,” Louis says, because he’s opened the door now, for better or worse, “Just… couldn’t get myself to pick it up.”

Harry ducks his head, cheeks warming in colour. “Probably better off.”

“But I heard your voicemail,” Louis says, and Harry’s head snaps up, like he’d only just now remembered, “listened to it right away. And then again, and again, and again after that.” And every night for a week. “Happy new years to you too, by the way.”

Harry laughs, breath hitching. “Cheers.”

He shakes his head and then comes over, finally. Louis is sitting cross-legged on the bed, and Harry stops still right in front of him. Then he sinks to his knees on the carpet. His body crumbles there, face burying in Louis’ lap.

Louis swipes his hands up his shoulder-blades, over the angry red lines he drew last night, and leans down to kiss Harry’s still-damp hair. “I probably did come here just to see you,” he breathes into it, “seems I can’t keep away.”

Harry slides his face sideways and looks up. “But you would if you could.”

“The thing is,” Louis says, and then panics in his chest for a good second once he realises what he’s started; brutal honesty is, it turns out, not only brutal on the recipient. Oh, well. He pulls himself up by the balls. “The thing is, I think I’m okay with who I am, at this point. I think I’m old enough now, to be okay with it.”

Harry nods, just wide-eyed listening, like no one else does it but him.

“And I’m okay with the thought you, out there, being everything,” he says, “and knowing that what you and I had is, like, just something we’ll keep with us, forever. Something that couldn’t have worked, you know? Because you’re in love with the world and the world is in love with you and I’m— I could live with that. If I could keep away, I could.”

Harry moves, lips snapping open, like he’s about to object, but Louis shakes his head and pins him down in a look.

“Harry, I don’t know that you know what you want, even if you think you do right now, and that scares me so much because I’m physically incapable of changing what I want. Fuck knows, I’ve tried.”

Harry is quiet for a while, and Louis can see the cogs churning behind his eyes. “You’ve got blind spots too, you know,” he says finally, “you underestimate me, I think. I was quite angry with you about that. I’ve been resenting you for it, a lot. For a long time, I think.”

“I don’t think—”

“No, you do,” Harry interrupts, pulling back further, “Louis, you— I’m not angry with you for it, anymore. I’m not attacking you,” he says, and Louis hadn’t realised he’d been looking defensive until then. Old habits die hard. “Because it isn’t about me, is it? It’s about you.”

Louis swallows hard, fighting down the instinct to deflect. “How so?”

“You don’t think that I mean it because you don’t think I could. Because you don’t look at yourself the way I do. Or other people do. Other people do,” he insists, “all the time. Fans, friends, women, men, all the time, you don’t see it. And I am, you’re right, I am in love with the world, but I am so much more in love with you that it actually makes me want to rip my own hair out that you don’t believe it when I say it.”

Huh, Louis thinks, wires short-circuiting. “You’ve never actually said that.”

“Well, it goes without,” Harry stutters, looking stumped, as well as a little bit self-righteous, “saying.”

Louis flops back on the bed with a sigh. “All right.”

He waits. Harry crawls on top of him and presses his face into his cheek. “But say it back,” he moans.

“It back,” Louis replies, and shrieks when Harry lands a smack on the side of his thigh. “What? You said, it goes without saying.”

It elicits the whiny “Lou-is” that he’s missed so much his stomach does cartwheels, and then a rough, huffing rearranging of limbs

until he’s under Harry, legs around his waist. “I don’t go without,” Harry says, “I don’t, I can’t, so say it.”

“Think you’re gonna have to fetch the belt, love, the whining isn’t gonna cut it.”

Harry makes eyes at him. “Fuck you, I will. I want to.”

“I know,” Louis tucks a long strand of hair behind his ear, and strains up for a kiss. “You can, at some point.”

Harry grunts and chews at Louis’ collarbone. He slaps Louis’ arse lazily. “How long?”

“Couple months, maybe,” Louis says, and Harry digs his fingers in, “could be a year, actually, my schedules sort of packed.”

“With me,” Harry mumbles, “m’not letting you go again. It’s settled, now.”

“Oh, is it?”

Harry lifts up and looks down at him, smiling despite the nervous glint in his eyes. “Yeah,” he breathes, “Louis, it has to be, for me. We can’t— fuck around it anymore. This has to be it, either way.”

“Okay,” Louis says, heart pounding. And I can’t go without for the rest of my life. “Let’s give it a proper go, then,” he gets out, as firmly as he can manage, “cause I’m in love with you too. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Harry mocks, but his lips are quivering against Louis’ when he punctuates it with a kiss.

*

Anne is understandably more than a little wary when Harry and Louis tumble downstairs a while later, looking far too blissed out and rosy-cheeked for having slept in separate beds. There’s a pretty good chance she heard them last night, or again this morning, but if she did, she takes a leaf out of the same book she followed when they were younger and acts as though she didn’t. After a rather awkward walk around the garden, in which Louis way overdoes the excitement about the bird feeder Anne’s installed, Harry not-so-subtly banishes Louis to his bedroom so he can have a chat alone with her. That results in raised voices for a bit, and then quiet for a long while.

Eventually, Anne comes up, holding a potato masher in a vaguely threatening manner, and tells him – not in so many words – that if he ever hurts her son again, she’s going to mash him into a shepherd’s pie and serve it cold. Also, would he like a cup of tea?

Oli calls and Louis responds over text. Then Oli rapid fire calls until he’s forced to pick it up.

“What the fuck are you on? We’ve just spent ages getting you over that prick and now you’ve gone and fucked it right back to square one, what the hell is wrong with you, I had my fucking therapist rooting for you too and now I’ve gotta tell her all the work we’ve done has—”

“Hi, Oliii,” Harry cuts in, sitting right there on the bed beside Louis and smiling stupidly.

Louis shoves him, shaking his head. “Ignore him.”

“No, what the fuck,” Oli screams, “my— what’s that, babe? Yes, exactly! D’you hear that, Jess says you’re dickwhipped and you need to stand the fuck up—what’s that? Yes… yes…. That doesn’t matter, he’s got pores up close in real life, babe, he’s not a— right, okay, so now she says she’s taken it back cause she’s realised you’re talking about Harry Styles and so she’d have done the same if she were you.”

Harry laughs and claps. “Thank you, Jess!” he dimples in the face of Louis’ death glare, “such a nice girl.”

“No, I’ve gotta—give him to me,” Oli snaps, “go on, hand him over, I’ve gotta have it out with him, it’s enough now, get on the fucking phone, Styles!”

Louis reluctantly hands the phone over and Harry takes a deafening tell-off for the next forty minutes, responding mostly in uhm’s and yes, sir’s and no, sir’s. One time he tries to sneak in a well, I was only seventeen at the time and sees it backfire so explosively that he kicks Louis out of the room to cope.

When he’s finally made it off the phone, they opt for an evening drive. To get groceries, because Anne forces them.

“Bloody hell, she’s sent you a goddamned novel,” Louis exclaims, looking at the list that’s buzzed in on Harry’s phone.

They’re parked outside the local Sainsbury’s, watching parents rushing children along by trolleys and groups of teens popping in for evening snack runs. There are two women inspecting the outside potted plant selection, but they keep glancing back and whispering to each other in that way— that way, that Louis knows too well.

Harry has spotted it too, ducking his head and turning in his seat. He nudges Louis’ thigh with his knuckles. “Those two’ve got their phones out,” he murmurs.

“Yeah, but they can’t even see us through the—”

“—they will once we step out, they’re gonna stay standing there until we walk up, the flowers give them plausible deniability.”

“This happen every time you pop into town?” Louis asks. It doesn’t, for him, back in Doncaster. Not every time anyway. 

Harry smiles and shrugs. “Locals know my car,” he says, “and it’ll be a bit harder not to get noticed when there’s two of us, won’t it?”

“Would you rather just go in on your own, then?” Louis suggests. “And I’d wait in the car?”

Harry chews on his lip, studying Louis intently. “I don’t know.”

“No? I mean…” Louis sighs, sinking into his seat as he cracks his knuckles. “We were seen about a million times last year. In the karaoke bar, even. It’s not like—”

“And you liked that, right?” Harry asks, lower.

“Harry.”

“But you did, right?” Harry insists, and there’s his hand on the back of Louis’ neck now, digging in, “almost getting caught…” he moves his other hand onto Louis’ thigh and Louis goes flush, tenses right up, “being touched my me. Fear had you fucking crazy with it for a while, there, last year.”

Louis swallows, neck flexing when Harry squeezes the muscles, “Harry.”

“People knowing…” Harry says, moving closer, hand driving up, and in, “the things you let me do to you… that fucking terrifies you, right? Gets you so,” he grabs Louis by the crotch, right where he’s filling in, “fucking,” he squeezes, “hard.”

Louis moans, about to give in when he turns his head and sees the look in Harry’s eyes. And— he can’t explain it, in words, all he thinks if off, this feels off.

“Hey, stop,” he says gently, and takes Harry’s hand off himself. Harry frowns. “You don’t have to play into— not right now. You don’t have to do that.” He lifts Harry’s hand to his mouth and kisses it, rings and knuckles cool against his lips. “I’ll go in with you. We’ll go in together.”

Harry’s face has fallen, and his cheeks go redder. He shifts back in his seat, averts his eyes and shakes his hair out. “Okay.”

“Come on,” Louis says, patting his thigh before he turns and opens the car door, “it’s okay.”

They step out and instantly feel the shift of energy at the flower stand, but pretend not to notice the discretely tilted phones until they reach up to pass and the braver of the women asks them if they are who they are. Harry’s a bit stunted, uhm’ing and ah’ing and standing around far longer than he really looks like he wants to. Louis cuts the interaction short with a sharp “anyway, great to meet you, we’re busy,” and pulls him inside by the arm.

They’re stopped again twice in the grocery isle, and Harry disappears between condiments and coffees. Louis finds him five minutes later, being chatted up by a girl in the dairy section and pulls him out of there rather abruptly.

“Damn near gave her your personal phone number just to be nice,” Louis quips, dumping a six-pack of power c-drinks in the trolley.

“Would’ve, but your jealous arse had to cockblock,” Harry whines.

Louis laughs and shoves the trolley toward the sweet isle. “I’ll go back and wingman you, then.”

“Nah, I’ve got enough on my hands right now, I think. Ooh, jelly babies!”

Outside the shop, a small grouping of fans have accumulated, all with their phones out. Louis trolleys mows through them, screaming out platitudes, and Harry gets lost somewhere behind him. He reaches back up, panting, when Louis is almost back at the car. Louis takes one deep breath, then turns and grabs Harry’s hand.

“What.” Harry stares down at their joined hands like he’s just grown a third arm. “What?”

“What?” Louis responds, holding on when Harry tries to pull back.

Harry makes eyes at him, stepping closer. “People are taking pictures, what are you playing at,” he hisses.

“I’m not playing,” Louis says, as firm as he can manage. He rolls his shoulders back and gives Harry’s hand a squeeze. “I’m not.”

Harry just stares at him, wide-eyed, until Louis deems it job done and lets him go.

They load the car in silence, and drive back to Harry’s mums the same way.

Harry parks out front, rips off his seatbelt, grabs Louis’ face and kisses him hard. “I love you,” he says, before planting a smacking wet kiss on Louis’ cheek as well, “love this little face.”

Louis wipes his cheek, laughing. “Give it a rest.”

“No rest for the wicked!” Harry shouts, and then pulls back and jumps out of the car, and when Louis is in the middle of pulling two heavy shopping bags out of the boot, smacks his arse so hard he falls forward into it. 

“Fuckin’ hell— Anne! Anne!” Louis screams, “Anne, come out, your son’s lost his manners, he’s just slapped me around in broad daylight—”

“Broad daylight? Mate, the sun’s barely out.”

“Don’t mate me, and help me out already, your posh water’s pulling my bloody shoulders out their sockets.”

“Harry!” Anne yells from the kitchen window. “Behave yourself, the neighbours are watching!”

Harry makes a show of huffing and pouting, moans that he’s probably grounded now and then tries to ground Louis once they get in.

*

They elect to spend the night in the larger guest bed, because Harry keeps moaning about his back, even if he claims it’s got nothing to do with the sleeping arrangement.

“No, go on— go on the other side, the inside,” he insist when Louis gets in on the outer side of the bed, “go over me, by the wall.”

Louis does as he’s told, but not without kneeing Harry in the balls on the way there. “But you’ll squish me into the wall again all night, though.”

“Exactly, so you can’t leave,” Harry says, slapping the duvet and pursing his lips.

Louis rolls his eyes and pets his face. “I wouldn’t, you’ve grounded me, remember?”

“Just taking precautions,” Harry huffs.

Louis drags a finger down from the top of his forehead, over the slope of his nose and the curve of his mouth. “You’re really beautiful, you know.” So much Louis catches himself, at times like these, feeling guilty for keeping it hidden away for himself, like he’s hoarding something that was made to be seen, shown; that heart-stopping kind of beauty. “Bit much, sometimes.”

“I know, it’s a bloody burden, everyone just wants me all the time, I cry at night about it,” Harry says flatly, the crook on his mouth curving into his cheek.

Louis leans in and kisses it, then his mouth. “Bet that makes you look even prettier, though, doesn’t it,” he murmurs, sliding on top.

“Mhm, makes my eyes shine more, they say, like diamonds,” Harry goes on, smiling into Louis as his hands slide down and settle on his arse, “even you, look, you’re crawling all over me, desperate.”

“How am I meant to keep up,” Louis murmurs, arching when Harry squeezes his bum. His mouth is good, soft and pliable tonight, and Louis would be fine just kissing into it like this, slow and lazy all night.

Harry gives his bum a gentle slap. “Dunno,” he murmurs, “but you’ve got my heart.”

“And what about this?” Louis asks, reaching down to squeeze Harry’s half-hard cock through his pants, “have I got this too, to myself?”

Harry moans, bucking up into Louis’ touch. His head falls back in the pillow, mouth slick and cherry pink. “You’ve got priority.” 

Louis nods, nuzzling their noses together. “You too,” he whispers, and grins when Harry slaps his arse. “With me.”

“No,” he grunts, “no, that doesn’t seem fair, actually.”

“Seems exactly fair,” Louis insists, enjoying the irritable curl between Harry’s brows. “Little hypocrite, you think I’ll let you stick it elsewhere without having it go both ways?”

Harry bites his lip, eyes dark. “Unh,” he grunts, “s’different.”

Louis slides his legs down, hips meeting Harry’s as he starts to grind, slow, Harry’s hands . “How so?”

“’f you want pussy, go ahead,” Harry says, grinding up to emphasise the point, “but I’ve got cock enough for you.”

“Fair enough, then,” Louis decides. The wandering hands, he can live with; as long as the heart stays put. “No repeat customers, though,” he adds, for purposes of clean lines, “and no handholding.”

“Oh, I’d never,” Harry agrees, feigning offense, “I’m not sick.”

Louis hums, moving his kisses down Harry’s throat, then his collarbone, and starts working on a bruise.

“Are you okay, really? With that?” Harry asks, petting his hair, “because I’d try for you, if you wanted me to, but I just don’t know if I’m gonna be able to keep to it. Or you, really, but I’d just get you with the belt in that case.”

“Maybe I’ll get you with the belt,” Louis says, biting the finished bruise, and then smiling up at Harry, “wandering hands were always part of the fun anyway, weren’t they? But the heart—” 

“That’ll never wander,” Harry says, “I can promise you that.” 

“And that you won’t ever, ever, ever even for a second think that you have to sacrifice your dreams in order to be with me,” Louis says, sitting up, “promise?”

“Promise.”

Louis kisses him slow, until he gets pressed into the mattress, under the duvet, cocooned away from the world, just him and Harry, and fucked slow, sweet. Afterwards, they lie wrapped in each other, breaths syncing up, and for the first time since they met, Louis lets himself relax in it. Interlinks their fingers and feels Harry snuffle between his shoulder blades and thinks to himself, yeah. This’ll do.

*

                           8:13 PM

Liam -- *image*

                           8:13 PM

Liam – guys???

                                                                                8:29 PM

Niall – FUCKING FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

                                                      9:00 PM

Zayn – job done #larryisreal