halved
only love is all maroon/ lapping lakes like leery loons/ leaving rope burns, reddish ruse
pairing: harry styles/louis tomlinson
disclaimer: this isn't real, unless you'd like it to be
word count: 21,000 (total, 3 entries)
summary: harry finds louis, and things make less and more sense then they ever have
rating: r
Now
Sometimes, as he drifts in and out of a tentative consciousness, Harry can remember a time before Louis. If he lets his eyes slide out of focus, tugs coaxingly on the smeared, blurry edges that hang just out of sight in the corners of his eyes, he can snag the memories until all at once they slide down and settle out, rippling like little ridges of lake water. But he isn’t particularly sure he likes doing it. These memories run with crackles down the middle, scratches on the tape, lacking the sharp relief that his more recent recollections are thrown into under the supervision of Louis’ dazzling grin. In fact, Harry realizes now, his life can be divided cleanly in two, a halved sort of existence defined in terms of Before and After Louis. Occasionally the thought occurs to him that really, it is as if he has lived two separate lives entirely. He knows he became a wholly different person upon Louis’ loud and gangly entrance, tripping in from stage left like the cacophony he is. But that kind of admission is hard, and Harry still wants to believe that he can exist on his own, not feel as though he has a vital organ operating outside of his own body. Or, more importantly, he wants to believe that Louis can do the same, because it matters now. Or it will matter soon, this particular kind of independence.
Sometimes, Harry can remember that time before Louis. Sometimes, he’d rather not. He closes his eyes and lets Louis’ face take up the whole screen behind his eyelids, steady, warm, unflinching. Sometimes.
Before
That day, although Harry didn’t know it yet, he would find two important things.
He had discovered very quickly that the problem with living alone was, in fact, living alone. Alone is fun, lonely is not so much. And knowing he had no other options was the worst. The flat was tiny, a room with a sink and a stovetop and a fridge and a mattress and a conglomeration of things that Harry had carried around with him for a long time: a ratty footie duffle from a primary school he had never heard of, stuffed full of his frayed tees and three pairs of underwear, four unmarked CDs from the box in the back of his mom’s closet (never listened to, he’d much rather imagine what could be on them then know for sure), a stack of photographs, worn on the edges from his thumbing through them - in the dark, because he knew the intricacies of what was printed on them by heart.
Dawn was his favorite time to be in the flat, so he’d been trying to be other places the rest of the time. He wandered at night, peering into windows and laying down in the middle of deserted roads and during the day visiting chip shops and charming his way into all sorts of things. He knew he could get meals with the crook of a half smile, a place to spend the night (and sometimes some action to accompany his lodgings) with a carefully placed hand and the drawling of a name. He was craving a different sort of attention though, a kind he could believe in, one he hadn’t conned his way into with his eyelashes and bruised mouth and inherent understanding of what those within a few feet of him most wanted.
That day, though, Harry had been awake in his room for a long time. It was dawn, finally, and some of the dinginess of the flat disappeared, some of the emptiness seemed to fill up in the half-light. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep, because he never had been to begin with. He was pretty sure he was breaking some law of physics by the mere fact that he was able to still be awake and walking and functioning given the amount of sleep he hadn’t had for months on end, but there weren’t even bags under his eyes. Maybe a diet of tea and vaguely satisfying sex was a cure-all. Either way, sleep was not on the agenda for the day, so Harry got up, snatching his wallet from yesterday’s pants and meandering down the stairs to the little bread shop below. He wasn’t really hungry, but the owner had taken pity on him and he ate a flaky croissant under her watchful eye. He thought about how the word “croissant” tastes just like the pastry itself.
Almost immediately after leaving the shop, Harry found Clive. The cat was huddled partway behind a trash bin, and when Harry caught sight of it he didn’t even realize it was an animal at first, until it meowed and Harry was suddenly struck by the knowledge that this cat was, in fact, his. He was wary, of course, knowing that adopting a potentially feral cat from the street could be a tricky sort of maneuver to work out, but he discovered upon bending down that his ceaseless charm seemed to work on creatures of the feline variety as well. It was a mangy thing, fierce and small and lost and Harry realized with a strange sort of satisfaction that the cat looked exactly like he felt. And, also, that its name was going to be Clive.
Harry tried to take Clive upstairs to his room, where the cat sniffed everything once before returning to Harry’s side and refusing to leave. It became clear that, at least for the time being, he wasn’t going to be able to go out without bringing the kitten, so he slid on his hoody, despite it being unseasonably warm, and popped Clive into the big pocket. He felt rather like a mama kangaroo.
There was a pet shop a few blocks away, and Harry walked to it feeling more excited and purposeful than he had in ages. Here was something that needed him, something that required more care than the cursory nature of what he was giving himself. Harry got to the shop and, to his annoyance, the lights were on but the door wouldn’t open, even after several tries. He turned, thinking he’d try back later, and there he found the second important thing of his day.
The boy was standing just a few feet behind him, arms crossed, one well-groomed eyebrow arched. “Can you read?” he asked, with a laugh in his voice, and gestured to the sign that said “pull” on the door Harry had just been pushing for a few minutes. Harry meant to respond, a snarky come back ready to trip its way out of his mouth, but then he realized that this boy had eyes that looked shockingly like Clive’s, and he stared, unable to vocalize his thoughts.
“Are you deaf as well as illiterate?” the boy asked cheekily, both eyebrows swooping dangerously far up his forehead. “I’m afraid I don’t know any sign language, but if you happen to speak dolphin, we should be set.” He laughed raucously at his own joke, and Harry felt like he had been startled back into his own skin. He gave a small giggle, more of surprise than at the comment itself, and smoothed his hair out of his face. “Oh, and I’m Louis,” the boy added, pleased to have earned a reaction at last.
“I’m Harry. Sorry, I guess I can be a bit oblivious. Hope I wasn’t holding you up,” Harry offered in return with the best of his smiles, feeling his usual charm settle back over him. It was going to be like this for a long time, Louis jostling Harry out of himself and giving him the peculiar sensation of slowly coming back down into his body more alert than before.
“Nah, not terribly, although I do have a bit of a crisis on my hands. I suppose you could make it up to me by helping out?”
“‘Course. What sort of a crisis?” Harry asked, genuinely intrigued. Louis’ eyes flashed in the brittle morning sunshine as he grinned mischievously, and Harry felt something in his stomach slide into place. He resisted reaching out a finger to touch the corner of Louis’ mouth, fascinated by its shape and the effect it was having on him.
“There’s a distinct possibility I killed my sister’s fish last night, and I have to find an identical replacement before she’s home from her sleepover at noon. Do you want to help?”
Harry smiled, almost disbelieving. “You killed it? Was it an accident or a case of cold-blooded fishicide?”
“Definitely the latter,” Louis responded, his eyes snapping at the banter. “The poor bastard was having an affair with my girlfriend.”
Harry was surprised to feel the twist in his stomach at the word, but then Louis had taken his hand and was pulling him into the tiny, crowded pet shop, his soft fingers tugging Harry through a maze of bubbling treasure chests and rabbit food until they reached the wide, cool tanks near the back. They stood together, noses against the glass, watching the goldfish flit back and forth making accidental figure eights and ovals and the occasional ambitious rhombus. Harry was entranced until he heard Louis give a small, strangled cry next to him.
“Harry,” he said, gesturing to his midriff, “please don’t panic, but I think you may have a cat in your pocket.”
Harry can’t remember what came over him, but at that moment something inside of him loosened, a damn opening all at once. He looked at the bright-eyed boy next to him and started laughing, an uncontrollable giggle that grew until he was gasping for breath and Louis was laughing with him, not sure why but happy to accompany him regardless. Clive was startled but not unhappy, his head sticking out from Harry’s pocket like a pig in a blanket, and Harry caught sight of his own face in the goldfish tank, red and aching, hurting with more real emotion than he had felt in an eternity. Wiping away tears, he wordlessly helped a chattering Louis pick out a goldfish that would “fool Lottie, no doubt about it, it’s got the same baffled expression as the last one,” and then the two of them spent an absurd amount of time choosing cat food and toys and a bed, although Harry planned to have Clive sleep with him. If he ever slept.
It was nearly noon when the two of them left the shop, and Louis had to return home to get the fish set up. Harry felt a small twinge in his belly as they stood outside, but then Louis made it easy: “meet back here in twenty for lunch, yeah? I think we need to celebrate a job well done.” Harry took Clive home, and distracted him for long enough with food to slip back out the door, his heart racing for some reason he couldn’t or didn’t want to imagine as he returned to the street corner where Louis is waiting for him. He hadn’t seen Harry yet, which Harry was grateful for, because it gave him the chance to study Louis carefully: the flip of his fringe, his taught legs, the slip of skin between his shirt and his pants that Harry had the strangest urge to lick. But then Louis saw him and his face lit up and the next hour was a whirl of greasy eggs and more tea and laughing and stories and Louis’ face and those strange eyes and Louis’ hand on his thigh and then Louis saying “I don’t actually have a girlfriend, you know” and Harry was suddenly completely certain how he should interpret the twinges in his belly. He tried to smile, one of the long, slow, smoldering looks he knew he was good at, but it got caught somewhere below his windpipe as Louis beat him to it, gazing at Harry from underneath his eyelashes with a kind of confidence that Harry felt as though he could drink.
“Oh, fuck, it’s past three,” Louis exclaimed, suddenly standing and breaking the walls of the fort they’d built in the corner of the shop out of stories and hand touches and Significant Looks. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he had been this flustered, and it was fun, it was thrilling, it was new, and he was following Louis out onto the street. Quick as a flash as the shop door closed, Louis turned, his thumb finding Harry’s lower lip, and then Harry was leaning forward and he was certain his heart was going to explode out of his body it was racing so fast. Louis’ lips were warm and he tasted like boy and salt and something that Harry knew he was never going to have his fill of, so he darted out his tongue and traced the outline of Louis’ lips and tangled a broad hand into his hair and then Louis was gone and Harry felt like a hospital patient disconnected from life support. Louis slipped his hand from underneath Harry’s shirt and wiped it across his mouth like a child, looking bitten and flushed and completely edible. “I have to go,” he muttered hoarsely, “but I’m going to see you again, ok?” He leaned forward and nipped Harry’s neck and then turned, speeding away like he had to go quickly or never leave. Harry was left panting, touching a finger to the spot on his neck and dazedly wondering how on earth they were going to find each other again.
He made it up the stairs, somehow, where Clive met him at the door, and then he laid down and slept.
-
The next time Harry saw Louis, he was drunk.
He heard someone call a slurred version of his name across the lowly lit bar, an exclamation barely spanning the two syllables it required, but something about made him turn around anyway, sure that it was a demand for his attention. It took Harry a moment to realize where it had come from, as Louis was disconcertingly sprawled upside down across the laps of two boys, his floppy fringe trying its hardest to make a break for the ground below him and his red suspenders laying akimbo across his chest and shoulders. Louis sat up suddenly as Harry made his way over, then pulled a face that made it clear the motion had been the wrong choice.
“Harry,” he announced gravely once they were within speaking distance of each other, “I am drunk.”
“Louis,” Harry responded, “you could have fooled me. You look as sober as an American on the Fourth of July.” He didn’t mention that he, too, felt drunk, actually had felt that way for the last four days as he subsided off of little besides the memory of their hasty kiss outside the shop.
“See, I told you he was a laugh!” Louis said triumphantly, turning to the two boys who were serving as his personal chaise lounge. Harry tried not to let his reaction to the fact that Louis had been talking about him show on his face, which was a real feat given the affect it had on a point somewhere right near the equator of his body. Instead he raised his hand in a sort of solute and said: “I’m Harry.”
“I gathered as much,” said one of the boys, crinkling the corners of his eyes up in a smile that made Harry feel as though he suddenly fit correctly inside his own skin. “I’m Niall, otherwise known as this one’s babysitter.” He ruffled Louis’ hair affectionately and then gestured towards the other boy. “Zayn and I here like to think of ourselves as his legal guardians, although if anyone ever let that happen they’d have to be out of their minds.”
Harry grinned and turned his attention to the second boy, realizing as he did that he had never seen someone quite so -beautiful. There really wasn’t another way to describe it. Zayn’s eyelashes looked like the feathers of some exotic bird against his unnaturally burnished skin and he had the kind of cheekbones that would be confiscated at an airport security checkpoint. He raised his eyebrows in a friendly greeting in Harry’s general direction, and Harry grinned easily back. Zayn looked like he was in an awesome place.
“Well, that’s all right then,” Louis said, sitting up as straight as he could (which was still practically sideways) and clasping Harry’s hand to pull him closer, wedging him between himself and Niall on the cracking pleather couch. “You’ve met my best mates so everything is right in the world. Although, I don’t think the world is right side up anymore, but I have a hunch that’s just me.” He leaned his head back against the couch and sighed contentedly, letting his eyelids flutter as he closed them in a tempo that almost matched Harry’s heart rate. Suddenly, he turned to Harry with a conspiratorial grin, letting one eye peek open, and whispered “I think I might kiss Harry tonight” before his eye drifted closed again.
Harry tried to keep his expression serious and his heart from beating out of his body as he answered “only might?” Louis’ eyes flew open together this time, and he looked at Harry with a small amount of alarm. “Could you excuse me for just a moment?” He asked, then turned to Zayn on his other side and whispered loudly, again, “I think I might kiss Harry tonight.”
“Oh, God,” Niall interjected, rolling his eyes at Harry and squeezing him on the knee. “None of us are drunk enough for this except for you, Lou. Harry, come get some pints with me?” He vaulted himself off of the couch, and when Harry stood he was surprised to see that the blonde boy was nearly as tall as he was, with hips so narrow they looked like the could fit through a doggy door. Louis certainly didn’t have unattractive friends.
Niall gave Harry an appraising look as they pushed their way through the crowd towards the bar, giving him a wicked grin. “You know, you had quite an effect on our Lou,” he tossed out, his ocean-tinted eyes flashing with good humor and what Harry surmised was also a bit of a warning. He wasn’t quite sure whether it was for him or against him, though. “Louis is like a hurricane, ok?” Niall said, offering an unsolicited explanation for something, although Harry wasn’t confident what. “You get on his periphery, and it’s wild and raucous and there’s no real escape until you reach the center of it, but then you’re pretty much stuck there. He doesn’t let go of people easily, and you probably won’t want him to.” Harry didn’t know what to do except nod, lodge the word “hurricane” into the section of his brain that was rapidly filling with Louis paraphernalia (the crinkles in the corners of his eyes, the unnameable taste of that kiss, the way he put his hand on Harry’s thigh when he was making a point) and take several of the pints that Niall had ordered. “That being said,” Niall threw over his shoulder as they made their way back to the couch, “the good news is that Louis’ a package deal: you get me too!” he winked and then laughed at his own joke, then added “and Zayn too I suppose. And Liam. Ooh, wait until you meet Liam.”
Harry wasn’t given much chance to ponder this before Louis had pulled him back down on the couch, their thighs pressed together like a hug, and began sternly lecturing Harry about the virtues of being really, thoroughly drunk. “You need to drink that beer now, Harry,” he prompted, “because nothing hurts when you are drunk. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.” He paused and then added, “damn, that is a good quote. Copyright: me. You all heard it here first.”
“I’m not sure -” Harry and Zayn both started together, and then grinned at each other as Louis interrupted “have a little faith please. I am confident I just made that up. Overconfident, even.”
“Can’t argue with assurance like that,” Niall shrugged, and Harry felt that if his smile grew any wider it would split his face open. It seemed like the longer he spent in the presence of this trio the more comfortable he was, the more languorous his limbs felt, and he had the strangest sensation that, had he wanted to, he could have charmed anyone in a 30 mile radius into doing anything he might ask of them. (Harry had an endearing knack for not recognizing that he could, in fact, do this at any point he wanted).
Zayn spoke directly to Harry for the first time, one corner of his (incredibly lush, as Harry noted) mouth quirking up. “Are you taking Sir Louis home this evening, or are we still in charge of him?”
Harry knew that the look on his face was probably unbearably predatory at the thought of taking Louis home with him, but he also knew it was a silly idea. “Nah, better not,” he tossed off lightly, “as my room is about the last place you’d want to wake up with a hangover like the one he’s going to have.”
“Come home with us, then, and you will meet Liam in the morning. He’ll probably make breakfast” Niall said in a tone that left little room for argument, as if Harry would have offered any. He thought for a moment of Clive, alone and probably resentful of the fact, but resolved that he would be back early enough to make it up to the cat. Nobody had made him proper breakfast in a long, long time.
By the time they stumbled toward’s the boys’ apartment several hours later, Harry was quite drunker than he had been, well, possibly ever. It was a heady combination of new friends and proximity to Louis and the looks he had been getting from boys and girls alike all night: long, lusty glances out from under eyelashes and fringes that made him hyperaware of his own attraction. Zayn and Niall were attempting to do cartwheels down the deserted sidewalks, ending each try in a hilariously flamboyant pose and blowing kisses to invisible fans and each other. Niall succeeded in pulling down Zayn’s pants in the middle of one go, and Louis laughed so hard he had to sit down on the curb with his head between his knees, panting and wiping away tears from his ruddy cheeks. Harry sat next to him, laughing more at Louis than anything, realizing that the strange pressure residing just under his clavicle was actually a happiness of such intensity it was practically holding him a few inches off of the pavement.
Their flat was big and echoey, barely furnished but full nonetheless of laughter and the almost tangible sense of friendship that the boys carried around with them like a blanket. Harry hadn’t felt so at ease since he was a small child, something he marveled at as he forced down a glass of water and made the other three do the same. It wasn’t even possible to wrap his head around just how good it felt.
Zayn disappeared into his room and Niall passed out on the couch within moments, his blonde hair tousled and one lanky leg draped over the backside of the sofa. Louis, suddenly seeming much more sober, took Harry by the wrist and led him through the flat to a small bedroom at the back, decorated liberally with pictures and dirty clothes and Louis’ smell. “There’s really no need to sleep in your clothes,” Louis announced, stripping down to a shirt and his superman underwear. “Modesty isn’t really encouraged in this household.” He didn’t avert his eyes as Harry undressed, and Harry didn’t mind, although when did he ever. He knew his body was powerful, and he had perfected the art of using it that way long ago, when he lost control of most other things.
They laid in Louis’ bed for a long time, sprawled across his duvet like two starfish, their bodies singing wherever they made contact with one another. Harry couldn’t stop himself from humming contentedly, pausing only a little as Louis reached out to rest a warm finger on his throat, feeling the vibrations under Harry’s golden skin. It was an undeniable sort of magnetism, really, as Harry could’ve sworn neither of them moved an inch, yet it didn’t take long for the space between their bodies (not negative space, no, but very, very positive) to close immeasurably. Everything slowed, time became honey glazed, and when Harry reached forward to nip Louis’ jawbone, it came into starting amber focus, pulsing and glowing and crackling. It wasn’t frantic at all. Harry moved easily, his skin sliding over Louis’ as he raised himself on his forearms, hovering over Louis and arching his neck as the boy planted feathery kisses across the expanse of Harry’s throat. There were sweet pecks on eyelids, long, slow kisses that caused Harry to growl, nails run over skin in a way that made Harry more aware of the shape and stretch of his body than he ever had been before. They were smooth, unhurried, sweet, falling asleep so close together that even they couldn’t tell whose limbs were whose, where one ended and the other began.
-
Harry woke up throbbing in one or five too many places with the Sahara Desert somehow wedged between his teeth and the back of his throat. He didn’t have to open his eyes to locate Louis on the bed, because they had remained intertwined throughout the night and Harry could feel Louis’ breath wuffling sweetly across his chest. He was sweaty and hungover and uncomfortable, the romance of waking up next to someone (next to, on top of, connected to?) clearly reserved for movies and teen novels. He was so, so content though, realizing it was the best night of sleep he’d had in what felt like lifetimes. And when he thought about the kissing from the night before, there was a tightening in his hamstrings, a little hitch in his body that felt like a plaintive cry for more.
Louis’ eyes blinked open then and found Harry’s immediately, a slow, impudent smile sliding across his sleepy features. “Why, Mr. Styles,” he drawled, his voice lower and scratchier than usual, a sound that made Harry feel like he was turning inside out, “Waking up in bed with a near-stranger? What would your mother think? I could have terrible intentions towards you and you wouldn’t even know, except for the fact that I’m now telling you: I have terrible, horrible, no good, very bad intentions towards you.”
“You know, I’m fairly certain that last bit was from the title of a children’s book,” Harry said, biting his response out around the beginnings of a massive smirk. He was fairly easy to arouse, sure, but the way Louis had crossed it off of his to-do list within moments of waking up was almost awe-inspiring. If Harry had been the sort to get embarrassed, the obvious effect that Louis’ intentions were having on him would have been quite embarrassing, but as it was, he was really rather enjoying himself.
“No, I think I probably made that up,” Louis said confidently, glancing up at Harry out of the corner of his eyes, daring a challenge. It was becoming clear to Harry that Louis had no issue shamelessly claiming others’ quotes as his own, and he was just cute enough to make it endearing. Actually, Harry thought, it was pretty clear Louis had no issue with shame in general. “Yes,” he agreed amicably, “you probably did, and I am probably in an internationally famous boy band. Just so long as we’re discussing the wildly improbable.” Louis giggled, drawing a finger from Harry’s bellybutton, visible just above the pale green sheet, to his collarbone, in a single gesture effectively raising Harry’s discomfort from a relatively pleasant level to a serious need for some attention. He let out a little strangled breath, surprising both himself and Louis, who pushed himself up onto his forearms and gave Harry an appraising look, so predatory Harry could almost taste it.
And then Harry’s broad hands were reaching for Louis, one on his face and one in the feathery hair at the nape of his neck and when was the last time he had been so turned on because Louis was making little noises and foraging trails up and down Harry’s neck with his tongue and Harry had the sensation he was being marked as Louis’ territory. He felt almost violent: he wanted scratch marks and so much pressure it hurt and bruised lips and he was reaching for Louis and so, so needy, had he ever been this needy and then Louis’ cool hand was touching him and Harry thought for an instant that if he had to choose a moment to live inside of forever, it would be this one. Everything was white hot and the pressure behind his eyes made Harry push his head back against the headboard, scrabbling for the sheets to anchor him before his body simply dissolved. Had he been able to see, Louis’ grin would’ve been at the forefront of his vision, a look eerily familiar to the possessive, primal, greedy look Harry himself wore when pleasuring another person.
It was a handjob, sure enough, but that word made Harry think of fumbling fifteen year olds in the school basement, not whatever Louis was doing (although it certainly could have been his job), which felt like the trigger Harry’s body had been waiting for, possibly built for. He couldn’t help but laugh a little as he came, yanking Louis closer to him and biting down almost savagely on his bottom lip in an effort to transmit some of his euphoria and the almost nauseating sensation that he was plummeting through space. They laid side by side, panting, until Louis nuzzled his nose up to Harry’s ear and whispered “I’m sorry, but I am unclear as to whether or not you enjoyed that.”
“God, you’re a bitch,” Harry laughed. He was sure that, had he looked in a mirror, his eyes would’ve had a new sheen to them, the line of his jaw imparted with a new roughness and understanding. Interesting what seven minutes and a good orgasm can do to a boy.
When they had cleaned up and Harry found a hoodie and boxers of Louis’ to wear (there was something mysterious spilled over the majority of his previous day’s shirt), the twosome made their way back out into the kitchen of the apartment, where something smelled delicious and homey. Harry walked behind Louis, loving his extra inch or two or height and harboring fantasies of Louis’ head tucked neatly into the hollow where his neck and shoulder collided. The two boys from the night before were perched on barstools at the counter, and a third, tall, brown haired and puppyish, was standing in front of the stove top scrambling eggs. Harry was hit with a sudden wave of shyness as the three gave him and Louis an appraising look. But then Niall’s eyes were still oceanic and crinkly and Zayn still looked beautiful and the ease Harry had felt the night before came back and took him suddenly by the hand. The third boy said “Hi, I’m Liam, you’re Harry and you’re in Louis’ clothes” in a sort of rush, then immediately cocked his head to the side with a look that suggested he had not been in control of that introduction. “Let me try that again,” he offered, “Hello, I’m Liam, I don’t know your name as we’ve never met and I am happy to assume those are your boxers after all.” He crossed the kitchen and held out a hand to Harry.
“No, these are definitely Louis’,” Harry said, grasping the proffered hand with a smile that threatened to split his face in two. “The rest of my wardrobe wouldn’t get along so well with either purple or tiny flowers.” Liam laughed, and Harry felt overwhelmingly attracted to him, a kind of platonic fascination that made him feel like being Liam’s friend was probably the most important goal he could achieve for the time being.
“Harry,” Liam began, visibly trying to rearrange his features into a more stern pattern (they refused), “before we let you continue with our Lou,” he blushed a little at the accidental insinuation then continued, “I have an important question for you. Do you like chocolate chip waffles? Or are you perhaps Satan?”
“Careful,” Niall warned from next to Harry. “Not sure if you can tell, but there is definitely a right answer to this one.”
“Look,” Harry said, his mouth quirking up to the side, “if you’d like I can give you a quick write up of people I’d happily kill for a single chocolate chip waffle.”
“Excellent,” Zayn chimed in. “In that case, Liam will be happy to provide you with a big plateful once you’ve kindly taken care of Mel Gibson for us.” Harry laughed, feeling Louis’ hand slide under the ridge of his sweatshirt, holding a warm sort of approval against the skin of his back. He eagerly took the cup of tea Niall poured for him, realizing with a start that his hangover, the same one that had threatened total destruction in the moments right after he’d woken up, had lessoned itself considerably. He supposed he had Louis to thank for that.
Breakfast, it seemed, was a family affair. Niall was on tea duty, perpetually boiling water and doling out sugar cubes like the local economy depended on it, while Zayn took on the task of eating every fucking thing in arm’s reach. Niall had to keep swatting Zayn’s hands away from his own heavily loaded plate, squawking indignantly and throwing out extremely disproportionate threats (“I’m going to put your balls in the food processor”) whenever Zayn successfully kidnapped a piece of bacon or the likes. Louis mediated between them good-naturedly, while occasionally rolling his firecracker eyes at Harry and carrying on a conversation with Liam about an audition he’d had the day before. Apparently Liam played the guitar, and was really quite good at it, but didn’t think he could ever be taken seriously. “He’s unbelievable,” Louis whispered to Harry, stroking his fingers across the back of Harry’s neck. “You wouldn’t believe the swooning that goes on around him. Three chords and the panties within a few hundred miles have mysteriously vanished.”
“I can hear you, you bastard,” Liam said, and to Harry the curse seemed very much like a lost phrase that had accidentally found its way to Liam mouth. Niall caught Harry’s expression and grinned knowingly. “It’s like watching a nun give a blowjob, I know,” he smirked, earning a smack on the head from Liam’s eggy spatula. In an instant, Zayn went from sneaking more of Niall’s waffles to defending him, a sweetly ferocious display that involved bear hugging Liam and shaking him roughly, chanting “leave Niall alone, leave Niall alone,” until all three of them had somehow ended up on the floor, laughing and hitting and petting each other. It was one of the most bizarre and lovely scenes Harry had witnessed, and he felt like he had stumbled into a completely alternate world, one he never wanted to leave. He ate his warm waffles (now that he’d tasted them, he was even more sure about his promise to kill for them) and stroked Louis’ knee with his thumb and smiled idiotically until his face ached.
-
Harry’s life had suddenly acquired a new pattern, a lazy, sweet rotation. On one hand there were hours spent lying in bed with Clive warm on his chest, reading tattered paperback plays and letting the cat’s purr seep through him like honey, and on the other was time spent perching at the kitchen counter in the boys’ apartment while Liam tried out new recipes and hummed Britney songs and Louis sat next to Harry, legs thrown over his lap (and what legs they were). Harry was still wandering listlessly the nights he was alone, a habit from the months before that he simply couldn’t stow away completely. The 3 am walks had a new flavor to them now, as often Clive came with him, riding in the pocket of his favorite sweatshirt, and because he used them mainly to think about the way Louis held his name in his soft mouth, keeping the “Harry” between his lips for just a moment too long and then sending it off with a blessing from his tongue. It could be sweet, demanding, yearning, eager, or marinated in a kind of lust that made Harry want to claw his way inside of Louis’ skin, get as close to him as possible. They hadn’t done much beyond Louis’ morning wakeup call and a lot of frantic, delicious kisses, but they left Harry satiated and he was, for once, interested in something other than getting as much action as quickly as possible.
Harry had kissed boys before, he had. He knew that their mouths were harder, more insistent, that they tasted like heat and roughness in a way that girls didn’t. He had never thought of himself as gay or straight or curious or bi or anything, because he just really hadn’t thought about it. He liked people, he liked bodies. He had never really had a type. Well, that wasn’t quite true: his type had always been hip bones and elbows and the stretch of skin over ribs and the seashells inside of ears, no matter whom it belonged to. Now, however, he was fairly confident his type was just Louis. Or, if that was too specific, boys with smirks that made his head go fuzzy, boys who favored striped shirts and stood on their tiptoes to kiss him, boys with feathery hair who made him feel bashful and exultant and frustrated all at once. So, yeah, his type was Louis.
Hanging out with Louis and his friends was kind of a double-edged blade (a butter knife, if anything, but still painful to have thrown at him). On the one side were the moments of being with them, when Harry felt like he was anchored down in the nucleus of a kind of living organism compiled of inside jokes and roughhousing and so, so much care. And then there was the time after, when he was in his flat alone and wishing he could text one of them or just appear at their door and have it be fine, have him be as much a vital part of their crew as he wanted to be. But he knew that Louis was his tie-in, his initial invitation to this testosterone and affection fueled cruise, and he still didn’t feel like he had a place with them except for as an addendum to Louis. Harry knew how to be alone, but being alone after being surrounded by their banter and constant physical contact meant for a much different sort of ache. It gave Harry something to miss, a tangible absence. Louis was their pet, their middle ground, and on the nights and weekends he spent away at his family’s house, Harry felt completely adrift.
The third time it happened that Louis was out of contact for the weekend, Harry realized with a sickening crunch right behind his sternum just how dangerous this situation was becoming. He had been forced to learn how to be independent once, against his nature, and realizing he was again becoming a dependent party felt like he was stepping off of a ledge with no idea how far away the ground was. He sat in the dark corner of a coffee shop near his flat for hours, immobilized by his opposing desires to disappear, shake off Louis while he still had a chance, and conversely find a way to never be somewhere he wasn’t breathing Louis in.
When he finally stood up, unbent his long, lean legs in jeans softened from hundreds of wears, Harry had made a decision: it wasn’t worth it. The feel of Louis’ eyelashes against his cheek couldn’t outweigh the horrible aftermath, the sensation that he just couldn’t continue existing without their feathery touch and the thousand of other quirks that came with it (when Louis had surprised him in the bathroom while he was brushing his teeth and spent a good twenty minutes acquainting his tongue with the back of Harry’s neck, waking up to find Louis’ pointer finger tucked under the waistband of his boxers). The shop was closing and the boy behind the counter who had been eyeing him up for hours was walking out, staring Harry down with a familiar predatory look on his face. Harry followed him, already tasting the gritty sand of their kiss.
He would have gone along with it, too. What was sex, after all? It wasn’t really anything, or at least it felt that way given that the absence of sex had been so much more exciting in the few weeks he had been with Louis. He was pretty certain that a night of writhing and sweating under the watchful eye of a Vampire Weekend poster (he looked like the kind of boy who would decorate his walls with that) would be just the thing to settle his old, dispassionate, detached charm back onto his body like the itchy but comfortable sweater it was. They walked quietly, talking mostly in snatched glances, passing by a couple making out against the rough brick of an apartment building. Harry averted his eyes mostly because it made him want Louis with a deep-seated ache that only reaffirmed his decision, but curiosity pulled his gaze back at the last moment and he suddenly stopped in his tracks a few yards past them, quite sure of what he had seen but not quite able to believe it. Did he sprint in the opposite direction, or turn around? “I’ve just remembered something I have to do” he muttered at the boy, who gave him a dark look then walked away, his shoulders hoisted high.
Steeling himself, Harry made the slow rotation, letting the rubber soles of his Converse creak against the sidewalk. It was twilight, a time of almost-dark, but it only took a moment of concentration to confirm what Harry’s subconscious had caught in the instant he walked by. The couple was still going at it, pressed up against each other like their bodies were stitching together a fault line, mending some kind of tear in the air between them. It was so intimate that Harry felt uncomfortable, a remarkable feat, but he coughed gently anyway, determined to get their attention.
And then they turned to look at him and Harry was confronted with Niall and Zayn’s flushed faces, floating in the weird light just a few feet from him, looking surprised and abashed and completely unrepentant. They didn’t even bother to separate, Niall instead sinking further into the edges of Zayn’s body as he smiled at Harry.
“Zayn,” he said quietly, “I’m not exactly sure how to tell you this, but I think we may have been spotted.”
“No,” Zayn responded, laughing, “I don’t think so at all. We should probably continue,” and then he hooked a finger under Niall’s chin and pulled him in for another kiss. Harry was hit with an overwhelming wave of affection, wanting to shout and hug them and demand they tell him exactly everything because how long had this been happening and did anybody know and did they realize exactly how fucking good they looked molded against each other. They peeled apart slowly, coming towards Harry, and Niall reached out to give him a hug.
“Hi, Harry,” he said, a familiar grin taking up residence on his open, cheerful face. “You look a little peaky, mate. I hope it’s not from the two of us. It would really suck if you were homophobic, you know.” Zayn nodded his agreement, Harry laughed.
“I’m sickened, you two,” he said. “You know there is nothing I find more distasteful than two males kissing. Do me a favor and bleach my eyes?” He ignored Niall’s comment about his appearance, which he was certain was a result of spending hours trying to eradicate the steely hold their best friend had assumed over him, liking instead the ease with which he slipped into banter and the metallic taste that accompanied his grinning mouth.
“That’s how I felt the first time you walked out of Louis’ room in his purple boxers,” Zayn tossed back, and Niall hit him tenderly on the cheek.
“Don’t listen to this one,” he countered, “he’s a little worked up, and I’m going to happily take credit for that.” Harry just kept smiling, unsure of how he could contribute to this conversation. “You know,” Niall continued, “you’re the first person to find us out? Louis and Liam would murder us if they knew you beat them to it, but we were actually not planning on telling anyone until we’d experimented a little.” Harry wanted to reach out and hug Niall, suddenly desperately envious of his easygoing nature and automatic desire to share. He wished there was a way to bottle a little Niall up, obtain a backup supply of sincerity and warm-heartedness for when his own supply ran short.
“So this whole snogging your best mate thing is relatively new, then?” He managed to ask, feeling that Niall’s offering was an invitation. The other two looked at each other and giggled a little, and Harry didn’t miss Zayn’s hand reaching out to slide into Niall’s back pocket. “You could say that,” he agreed, and Niall added “Seeing as how that was the first time we’ve actually had the pleasure, I’d say ‘relatively new’ might be understating the situation.” Harry’s eyes widened as Niall continued “I mean, we decided to try it and see if it was even worth continuing, which - “ he turned to Zayn, “I don’t know about you, but yes.”
“Ask nicely,” Zayn admonished.
“Please, can we continue with the kissing things and maybe even some other things like perhaps some touching and -”
“Should I go throw up now or wait for later?” Harry interrupted, gesturing to a bush behind him. “Seriously, you two, get an apartment or something.”
“Brilliant idea, Harry,” Zayn said, “I can’t believe we haven’t thought of that. Speaking of, you want to come back with us? Louis isn’t home, you know, but he’ll be back early and you can crash in his bed?”
Harry wanted to say no, he did. He had made a decision less than an hour ago, and he wanted so badly to stick with it. He also knew that being asked to come over, without Louis as the lynchpin, made his heart expand immeasurably. He felt like the Grinch, for chrissakes.
“Yeah, ok,” he agreed, “but only if you manage to save the heavy petting until you’re out of my sight.”
“No promises, mate,” Niall said, then turned and gave Zayn a huge, sloppy kiss on the lips.
-
Harry woke from strange dreams to the sensation of Louis climbing into bed with him, a blanket of muscle and heat and familiar, comforting smell. He could feel the atoms in his body rearranging themselves, scrambling over each other in an attempt to be as close to Louis as possible. “I almost left you,” he whispered, turning to face Lou with sleep still in his eyes. He felt like he was betraying his better instincts, allowing his sleepy mind to give itself an insurance policy in case rationality were to kick back in at a later date. “Don’t let me, ok?”
Louis looked at him seriously, a rare moment when his face was completely open, exposing to Harry genuine concern without traces of his usual humor. “I don’t know what you mean, sweet boy,” he said, but didn’t seem to be looking for a real explanation. Instead, he curled his sock-covered toes around Harry’s own and tucked his matted curls into the crook of his neck. It was a strange role reversal and the first time that Harry had been held like that in a long time. He felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude and frustration and panic all at once that resulted him him clinging closer to Louis, filling his lungs and bloodstream with his smell, trying to swallow the silvery knot that had lodged itself in his throat.
When they woke again, a few hours later, Harry and Louis had fitted themselves together so closely, it seemed silly to consider existing in the world in any other way. Harry’s arms had found their place under Louis’ shirt and were flush against his cool skin, the taut muscles of their boy stomachs rising and falling together with their breath. Louis made a move to extricate himself and Harry couldn’t help the whimper that escaped him, a tiny noise that nonetheless stopped Louis and made him turn to Harry with a look that could have melted granite. “Hey,” he said, “you’re okay, I swear,” and then rolled himself so that he was hovering over Harry on his forearms, quirking the corner of his mouth up in a promise. Harry couldn’t meet his eyes for a moment, but when he finally did, Louis leaned down and kissed him until his mind was empty, nothing important except Louis’ tongue and the outline of his lips and the steady rhythm of his hips grinding against Harry’s own, until his whimpers were of another sort entirely.
-
Being with Louis, it turned out, required a whole lot of stamina. Harry was frequently left feeling like he was in serious training, just not in any sort of athletic event (although sometimes they got pretty damn aerobic). It was more an exercise in opening himself up for long periods of time, to Louis, to his innumerable friends, to his own overarching desire to attach himself to Lou like velcro. It was scary in a heady, body-tingling way, like regaining feeling in a limb that has recently fallen asleep: a little uncomfortable and a little relieving in a way that made him hyperaware of the minutiae of his body. Harry felt like he fit into himself better, like this new opening up fit better written across his tall frame and broad hands than his closed exterior had just a few months before. It made sense, really, because Harry remembered now that his natural instinct was to share, let his face and the bitten skin around his thumbnails and the scar on the back of his left knee broadcast a special sort of frequency of his thoughts and feelings to those who were attuned to him, as Louis so clearly was.
Nowhere was this connection more apparent than during their raucous playdates in Louis’ bed. They couldn’t lie next to each other and not touch for more than a few moments, finding divots and meeting places across each others’ skin like some kind of whole body sign language. They played so hard, in fact, that Harry was still getting off on the memory of his first blowjob (not his first, in actuality, but doing things with Louis made them important and right in a way that made them feel like different acts entirely), an event that had taken place midafternoon on a Thursday in his flat. It was the first and only time Louis had been there, after a request of his to visit Clive, during which Harry had spent the first twenty minutes or so rigidly pretending he wasn’t embarrassed and saddened by the small, lonely room he inhabited. But Louis knew, of course. He knew without asking and without acknowledging. Instead, he picked up Harry’s stuffed pig, Chrysanthemum (his sister had named her) and covered her eyes with a blanket, saying only “she’s not going to want to watch this next part” before backing Harry down onto the mattress and peeling off pieces of clothing one by one.
Harry didn’t think he’d ever been more aroused, lying naked and anticipatory underneath a fully clothed and fully mischievous Louis who was gazing down at him with a familiar predatory look. Louis took his time, spinning out a topographic map and several short novels across Harry’s bare and slightly salty skin, until Harry begged for the first time, an involuntary trust of his hips up into Louis’ where he was straddling him possessively. Louis raised an eyebrow in surprise and excitement, sinking his hips down against the undeniable feel of Harry’s need, clearly massively turned on himself and undoubtedly enjoying his power. He teased Harry relentlessly: gently grinding the worn-in material of his jeans against Harry’s eagerly thrusting pelvis, scraping his teeth and tongue across his nipples until Harry let out a sound so feral and needy that for a moment he didn’t even realize it had clawed its way out of his own throat.
That seemed to trigger something in Louis, however, because suddenly his hot weight was lifted off of Harry’s aching center and its absence was a terrible weightlessness and Harry realized all at once thatLouis was his anchor, that he was so past the point of not relying on Lou to keep him from spiraling off into the thin London air. And then Harry wasn’t thinking at all because Louis’ mouth was on him, a wet, sweet sort of heat that made him feel like his toes were embers and the pit of his stomach had zippered itself inside out completely. His hips were pulsating frantically a few inches off of the bed, his spine contorted in an ecstatic arch, and if it hadn’t been for his hands, gripping tightly onto the fabric of Louis soft shirt in a sharp contrast to the rest of his body, Harry would have been so overwhelmed by sensation he wouldn’t have felt anything at all. Louis’ mouth continued exploring and Harry didn’t even try to restrain the unbridled rolling of his hips, his heartbeat rocketing like a horse on a racetrack. He finally unscrewed his eyes, looking out at the flat through a haze of eyelashes and lust. The sight of Louis, kneeling lazy and feline between his legs was enough to send Harry hurtling over the edge, a wave of feeling breaking so hard and heavy over his shoulders that Harry felt as though his entire body had been cleansed, leaving behind the purest sort of pleasure and awareness and contentedness he could imagine.
And then Louis had just looked so goddamn pleased with himself that Harry had to do something about it, sliding his hands down Lou’s pants and over his ass and stroking him with a kind of confidence that could only come from intense intimacy. They stared at each other as Louis came, breathing hard and heavy, their faces a few inches apart, both flushed and Louis biting his lip so hard it left visible toothmarks, little ridges across his skin that Harry wanted to trace, commit to memory with the pads of his fingers and his tongue and the tip of his nose. And then they fell asleep, wearing pairs of faded grey sweatpants and nothing else. They were sticky in the most delicious, satisfying kind of way, their skin catching where they made contact at the rise and fall of their breathes, Louis’ thigh wedged firmly between both of Harry’s legs and his head tucked neatly into the curve above Harry’s collarbones, his breath shivering out sweetly across Harry’s bare chest like a promise.
part II