Chapter Text
— — —
The radiator in the hallway had been dying since September.
Louis had reported it in September. He had reported it again in November, an email that was technically polite and actually quite threatening, and had received an automated response telling him his query had been logged and would be addressed within five to seven working days.
He'd read this out loud to Liam in the tone of a man announcing a terminal diagnosis.
"Just wear a jumper," Liam said.
"I wear a jumper," Louis said. "I wear a jumper and a hoodie. The point is principle."
"The principle of central heating."
"The principle of paying rent and receiving habitable conditions in return, yes."
Liam gave him the look — the one that had been in development since they were about seven, the one that meant I love you unconditionally and you are exhausting — and went back to his video, and Louis went to his room and put the hoodie on over the jumper and that had been October, and now it was January and the radiator was still dying.
Louis had just come back from three weeks at home and it was the first thing that greeted him and it felt, in the way small things feel large when you're already in that mood, like a comment.
He dropped his bag on his bed.
His room was exactly as he'd left it. The Chelsea poster slightly crooked because Liam had hung it and he had no spatial awareness. The shelf of books that he would read this year maybe. The photo strip from Niall's twentieth above his desk — him and Liam pulling faces, Niall with his mouth open, Zayn somehow looking like an advertisement, Harry with a pint raised.
His desk was clear because he'd cleared it before Christmas, an act of optimism about the person he'd be when he returned.
He looked away from it.
He was not yet that person.
He unpacked slowly, putting things away, and thought about home.
Christmas had been good. Genuinely, surprisingly good, in a way he hadn't anticipated because he'd arrived home in mid-December in the specific condition of someone who had been fine for an entire term and was extremely tired of it.
His mum had been in the kitchen, and he hugged her tightly, and the dog had lost its mind and within twenty minutes he'd felt something loosen in his chest that he hadn't known been wound.
Three weeks of his mum's food and sleeping too much and going for long pointless walks in the cold and thinking. Properly. For the first time since September.
About Catherine. About the night it happened, the way she smiled sadly and held his hand and, I think you're still figuring yourself out, Lou. He'd opened his mouth to argue but found he had nothing and that was that.
He'd thought about what he was figuring out.
Not in the panicked circular way he'd been thinking about it all last term, moving around it rather than through it. Just sitting with it on the long walks, in his childhood bedroom at night, in his mum's kitchen.
By New Year's Eve he'd come out the other side of the sitting-with-it and found something that felt less like a question and more like a fact.
The fact: he was twenty-one and bisexual and had spent three years with a girl who was lovely but who had known before he did that she wasn't quite the right shape for what he needed, and he was going back to London for his last term of university, and he wanted to do something about the part of himself that had been waiting in the corner to be acknowledged.
Not a whole relationship. He couldn't do a whole relationship — his dissertation was due at the end of term, job applications were already accumulating, and the general vertigo of everything ending was taking up significant processing space. But something. Something real. Something that felt like stepping through the door Catherine had been kind enough to open rather than standing in the frame of it indefinitely.
He hadn't told anyone though.
He wasn't going to tell anyone until there was something to tell.
— — —
He found the thread on his third night back.
Liam had gone to bed at a reasonable hour because Liam always went to bed at a reasonable hour when a pint wasn't being shoved into his hand, a feature of his personality Louis had spent twenty-one years finding baffling and inspiring, like his inability to hang things straight while still having the genuine motivation to try.
Louis was on his phone in the dark, doing the aimless scroll of someone not tired enough to sleep and not focused enough to do anything useful. A Reddit rabbit hole — a video of a cat doing something improbable, then a comment thread, then a linked post, then a forum he didn't recognise, then its sidebar.
Connections & Personal.
He clicked it the way you poke at a bruise. Just to see.
The first post was someone from UCL looking for their "academic rival to lovers pipeline." The second was clearly the same man posting three times under different usernames. A girl from Imperial offering something that might have been therapy or might have been something else entirely, and Louis didn't click to find out. A very detailed post from someone at LSE that he got three paragraphs into before quietly closing.
He scrolled with the detached interest of someone who was absolutely not considering posting himself, because that would require a level of honesty that he wasn't sure he was ready for, a putting-it-in-writing quality that was different from the private fact he'd been sitting with over Christmas.
He opened New Post.
— — —
He wrote three drafts and hated all of them.
The first was too jokey — the self-deprecating deflection that would have made Zayn laugh and also communicated nothing real. He deleted it with the embarrassment of recognising his own defence mechanisms written out in front of him.
The second was too long. He'd apparently had more to say than he'd realised, which was information, but it read like a personal statement and he wasn't applying for anything.
The third was three lines and felt withholding in a way that would just produce useless responses.
He wrote the fourth one quickly, before the part of his brain that had opinions about vulnerability could get fully operational.
— — —
[M4M] [21] Final year, London — read before you message
I'll be upfront because I've read enough of this thread to know that vague is a waste of everyone's time.
Twenty-one, male, bisexual. I've been in a long relationship with a girl for most of university. It ended. Well, but ended.
The bi thing isn't new — I've known for a while — I just haven't acted on it and I'm at a point where I want to.
What I'm after: something mostly online.
Texting, calls if it gets there, video maybe, meeting once if it makes sense. A boyfriend-ish experience without the full weight of a relationship, because I've things on and I'm not in the market for something that takes over everything. It ends at graduation because I'm moving home after and nothing will be geographically sensible. I mean the end date.
What I need from you: London uni, or recently graduated, prove it however. Not a fresher though — I want someone who understands what this last stretch feels like.
And you have to actually be open. Not figuring it out, not mostly sure. I'm doing my own figuring out and I can't be someone else's at the same time.
No photo right away. I'll verify any other way.
DMs open. Be normal about it.
— — —
He posted it.
Put his phone face-down on the mattress. Stared at the ceiling. Said "right" to no one. Went to make tea.
He did not check it that night.
— — —
He checked it at seven the next morning before his alarm, with the slightly sick feeling of someone who has said something real and now has to face the consequences.
Forty-three messages. He went through them with the focused resignation of a man expecting to be disappointed.
The disappointment was largely delivered.
An unprompted photograph arrived in the second message. He closed it so fast he fumbled his phone. Several people described themselves as figuring it out or pretty sure or bi-curious in the exact way he'd said he didn't want — he didn't hold it against them; they just weren't right for this. One message took genuine issue with his requirement for someone already out, calling it gatekeeping, which had enough of a point to be mildly irritating at seven in the morning. A girl called Sophie asked if a friendship with emotional intimacy was essentially the same thing, which was either very sweet or a complete failure to read the post and Louis genuinely couldn't tell which.
By message thirty he was tired.
Not angry. Just tired in a way he should have expected; being reminded that asking for something real on the internet was mostly an exercise in managing other people's baggage. He thought about deleting the post. He thought about the dissertation chapter that needed to exist by the end of the month. He thought about Catherine saying I think you're still figuring yourself out and the fact that four months later he still couldn't argue with it.
He opened message thirty-one.
— — —
anonymous_art:
Hi. I read your post. Third year, King's, business.
I can prove that easily — student email to a throwaway, whatever works.
I've been open since I was seventeen, not as a recent thing but just as something that's been true for a while and everyone knows, so I think I fit what you're asking.
I'll be honest back since you were: I'm not after serious either. I've got a lot on this year and a defined end is more appealing than alarming to me, which is maybe a personality reveal but there it is.
I don't know what else to say in a first message without overselling it. I think I'm a reasonably normal person. You can decide if that's what you're after.
No worries if not.
— — —
Louis read it twice.
Then a third time, slowly, checking for the catch. The place where it shifted.
It didn't shift.
The voice in it was consistent all the way through.
Third year. Same university. Same degree.
He thought: we might know each other.
He thought: King's is massive.
He replied.
— — —
londontile94: Alright. You've cleared the bar. The bar was on the floor so don't get too pleased with yourself, but still.
Third year Kings business too. Does that bother you?
Verification — throwaway student email, not your real one if you'd rather, I'll do the same. I don't want this mixed up with actual life.
— — —
anonymous_art: Doesn't bother me. We're a big school and we both chose the thread, so neither of us can be precious about it.
Throwaway email works. Give me an hour. Send yours and I'll send verification from my actual address to your throwaway — that way we're both clean.
Also — you said mostly online. What does mostly mean to you?
— — —
Louis looked at that last line.
No preamble. No apologising for asking. Just the question, because it was the obvious thing to want clarity on.
He liked that.
— — —
londontile94: Texting is the baseline. Calls if it gets there. Video maybe. One actual meeting if we get to a point where it makes sense — not a date, just confirming the other person's real. All loose, I'm not drawing up a contract. I just want it to feel like something without being everything.
Throwaway: [email protected]
— — —
anonymous_art: Clear enough.
[[email protected]] — verification incoming in about an hour.
For calls and texts — get yourself a second number. Hushed is the easiest app apparently. Googled it, not weird...
Download it, get a number, send it to me here and I'll do the same.
One more question before we get there.
What do you actually want from it? Not the logistics.
What do you want it to feel like.
— — —
Louis put his phone down.
Got up. Went to the kitchen. Stood at the window with the January morning and London existing and thought about the question properly.
He knew the logistics answer. He'd written that in the post.
He went back to his room and picked up his phone.
— — —
londontile94: I want to feel like someone sees the current version of me. Not the one my mates have known for years, though he's real too....
Just not the one that was in a long relationship. This one. The January one. Twenty-one, finishing university, working out what he actually is.
I want to know what it feels like to have a boyfriend. Properly. Someone who asks how your day was and means it.
I'm aware that's either honest or pathetic depending on your outlook.
— — —
He sent it before the part of him that had opinions about saying real things could intervene.
The reply came in less than a minute.
— — —
anonymous_art: It's honest. It's exactly the right thing to want.
— — —
Louis sat on his bed in the January morning and read those two lines and felt something in his chest do a thing it hadn't done in a while.
Something that felt like looking forward.
— — —
He was going to be late for his nine o'clock.
He didn't especially care.
— — —
Liam knocked on his door at half eight. "Toast before?"
"Not hungry."
"There's that good bread from Harry."
Louis made a face. "I said not hungry, Li."
A pause. He could feel Liam on the other side of the door deciding whether to push. "You're up early."
"New year."
"You say that every January and it's never true."
"This time I mean it."
A longer pause. "Right," Liam said, in the tone of someone filing a thing away for later. "I'll leave the bread out."
Louis listened to him pad back to the kitchen and felt the familiar pull — wanting to tell him, wanting to keep it just his for a little while longer. When there was something to tell he'd tell him. Liam would need twenty minutes just to process the emotional component before they could have an actual conversation, and Louis loved him for it, he just needed to hold this himself first.
He got dressed and went to his nine o'clock and retained nothing.
— — —
The verification email arrived at ten past ten.
King's College London. Business School. Third year. He checked the student ID format against his own — matched. Real.
He sent back from his throwaway: Verified. Downloading Hushed now — will send my number here when I have it.
A minute later: Same. Send it when you're ready.
Then, a few seconds after that:
Are you in a lecture?
Unfortunately, Louis typed.
Same. Solidarity.
At least we're having the same bad morning.
At least, came back.
— — —
He downloaded Hushed while at the library with Liam.
A second number, completely separate, nothing connecting it to his real life. It took three minutes to set up. He sent the number through to the throwaway email with a single line: This is me on Hushed.
He sat in the library for two hours on an essay he was supposed to have started last week and kept glancing at his phone on the table.
At half three, Hushed notified him.
It's art. Hey.
Louis opened the app.
Louis: Got it. Hi.
Art: Hi.
Art: How was the lecture.
Louis: Very insightful.
Art: But actually.
Louis: I was thinking about other things.
Art: Productive ones?
Louis: Debatable.
Across the library table, Liam turned a page. Louis kept his face completely neutral.
Art: What do I call you, by the way. You didn't say.
Louis looked at the message.
He thought about it for a moment — the smallness of a name, how much it could give away, how easily Louis became Louis Tomlinson became oh, I know him, tall, from Doncaster, was with that girl Catherine for years in a group of people who all knew each other's business whether they'd meant to share it or not.
Louis: Tom.
Not a lie. Just a layer. Tommo to everyone who knew him, Tom to the one person who didn't.
Art: Tom.
A beat.
Art: Suits you.
Louis had no idea how a name he'd just invented could suit him to a stranger, but something about it settled anyway.
Louis: What do I call you.
Art: Art.
Louis: Is that your actual name.
Art: Part of it.
Louis looked at that for a second. Part of it. Same game then. Fair enough.
Louis: Alright, Art.
— — —
That night they talked until two.
Not about anything that would look significant written down. An essay, a bakery Art had passed that morning with something in the window he kept describing and Louis kept not quite picturing, a long argument about whether reading a film's entire Wikipedia plot summary counted as having seen it — Louis was firm that it counted, knowledge was knowledge, and Art was equally firm that experience was not the same as information, and the argument went nowhere and lasted forty minutes and Louis enjoyed every second of it.
At quarter to two, Art said: Can I ask you something?
Go on.
The relationship. How long was it.
Louis paused.
He thought about third year king's business and we're a big school and the fact that he'd had a girlfriend for most of university and that was not, in itself, identifying information but it was the kind of detail that would feel like it was a part of him for a minute more.
Long enough that ending it felt like ...something, he typed. Does that make sense?
A pause.
Yeah, Art said. It does. Then: How are you with it now?
Better than I expected, Louis typed honestly. I spent the break working out whether I was performing alright or actually alright and I think it's the second one.
Was it the natural progression of things?
No, he typed. Maybe. She said I was clearly figuring things out.
Were you?
Maybe. Louis stared at the celling. I think I just didn't realise that knowing something is true is different than knowing what it's like.
A pause. And?
I want to know what it's like, he typed. To want someone that way and not talk myself out of it. I've known it for years and I've been living alongside it rather than inside it. And I'm twenty-one and it's the last term and I don't want to leave still doing that.
That makes sense.
Does it?
Yes. You want something you haven't let yourself have. That's just human.
Louis read that twice.
You're quite straightforward, he typed. For a stranger.
You asked for straightforward in the post.
I know. I just didn't expect to get it.
A pause.
Goodnight, Tom, Art said.
Louis looked at the name on the screen. His name. Not quite his name.
Night, Art, he typed back.
He put his phone down and lay in the dark and listened to the radiator making its noise in the hallway and thought about someone he didn't have a face for, in a city he shared with eight million other people, who had said it's exactly the right thing to want like it cost him nothing to say it.
He fell asleep faster than he had in months.