Fic: One of the Beautiful People | Part Three
continuation from part two
The next night, Louis is flustered and nearly late for his shift at the club.
He has a loose-lidded thermos of coffee in one hand, his keys, wallet and iPhone charger stuffed into the other, and a bag full of clothes weighing him down. He tries to push past his stubborn dressing room door and he feels about ten degrees too warm beneath his stupidly woolly jumper and he's just about to break down melodramatically on the floor to cry, because today is decidedly not his favourite.
The thing is, he'd had an inexplicably lousy night of sleep followed by a lethargic day spent grumbling face-first into the couch, and the resulting exhaustion has thrown him off in everything he's tried to do since waking up:
He spilt hot tea on himself in the morning,
put sugar in his chicken stir-fry instead of salt,
had a useless argument over the phone with Zayn,
accidentally gave the cabbie far more than the fare he owed on the way here,
and now he can't even get through this damn dressing room door without feeling like he's waging war against the flimsy weight of it.
He nearly topples over and winds up wearing his coffee when he finally shoulders his way into the room with a whoosh, but he quickly balances himself as he walks over to the dresser and sets his things down, his phone buzzing loudly.
He groans when he sees an incoming message from Harry who's apparently already outside the club -- he'd somehow forgotten that he'd invited a child to come watch him dance. Of course he did.
He taps out quick instructions for Harry to get to his dressing room and sets his phone aside, starting to strip off to get ready for the night. He's right in the middle of pulling his pants down his thighs when the door swings open and he wants to roll his eyes at Harry's impeccable timing.
"Didn't mean to just barge in," Harry spits out apologetically. He looks a mix between bashful and wild when their eyes meet, his cheeks tinged pink and smelling like cold air.
Louis laughs to himself, pulling on a tight pair of snakeskin shorts. "You didn't exactly knock," he points out. "Hoping for an eyeful of arse, were you?"
Harry smiles, shaking out his hair and pulling his fringe to the side as he looks up, meeting Louis' eyes. "Can't say it's anything to complain about."
There's something unnervingly disarming about Harry's gaze so Louis looks away from it, grabbing lotion off the counter and smearing it on his arms and torso. "Want to help me with the glitter, then? Since you're such a big fan of sparkle."
Harry walks over and pulls off his jacket, setting it aside. Louis hands him the jar of glitter, spreading his arms out by his sides readily. "Go on, love. Make me gorgeous."
Harry smiles. "Won't be too hard, to be honest."
It's Louis' turn to go pink in the cheeks, but he rolls his eyes to downplay Harry's embarrassing effect on him. It's maddening to him that a child could get him to blush. Was this some sort of quarter life crisis? If it was, he refused to succumb to Harry's charm without a fight.
He watches as Harry carefully sprinkles his arms with glitter, as though if he did it too hard, the soft silver flakes would break Louis. He wants to remind Harry that he's been much, much rougher with him in the past, but he bites his tongue. Once he's done sprinkling, Harry smooths his hand over the glitter and spreads it over Louis's arms like butter, a fond smile playing on his lips the entire time.
"This is great, you know," he says.
Louis watches the side of his face curiously. "What's that?"
"This," Harry reiterates unhelpfully, but a moment later he twists his body to give Louis' dressing room a once over. "You really are a rockstar. I feel like I'm with someone famous."
Louis scoffs. "Are you taking the piss? I've seen rubbish bins more luxurious than this room."
"Dressing rooms aren't meant to be luxurious! They're meant to be gritty. I've been in a band before and I'm fairly certain one of our dressing rooms was an actual literal rubbish bin. Gives you street cred and that."
"Says the poshest boy I've met in a while," Louis comments. Harry turns back to him with an unfazed smile and Louis can't help but glance at his lips. "You sing, then, do you?"
"A bit, yeah. I'm in lessons now to get my voice better."
"Should've known," Louis laments, meeting Harry's gaze with a mischievous glint in his own.
"And why's that?"
Louis raises his brows. "I seem to remember that you've got great control of your throat. Must be all those vocal exercises..."
Harry laughs, cheeks rosy once again. He takes a few steps forward to close the distance between them, pressing his body against Louis' and curling his fingers in his hips, pulling him in. "You're filthy."
"Lies. I'm utterly pure, young Harold."
Harry smiles and ducks in, closing his lips around Louis' in a warm kiss. "A right angel, you are..."
"I've got the wings to prove it," Louis murmurs, pecking Harry once more before he slides away, digging through one of the dresser drawers and pulling out a set of white wings, holding them up proudly.
Harry barks out a laugh, grabbing them from Louis to inspect the feathers. "You weren't joking."
"Nope. Zayn sewed them for me last Halloween, the artist he is. They nearly got ruined that fateful night--" Harry starts to slip the wings gingerly onto Louis, securing them over his shoulders and adjusting the straps. "--I was with a bloke dressed as a zombie who was dead set on finishing himself off on them. He said he'd always wanted to come on an angel, which mostly killed the mood? Anyhow, I had to get them dry cleaned."
Harry wraps his arms around Louis from behind and nestles his chin over his shoulder with a grin, the two of them facing the mirror, watching their reflections. "Charming. Will you wear them while you dance tonight?"
"Absolutely not. They hardly match my kit. Snakeskin and feathers aren't exactly biscuits and jam, Harold."
"For me?" Harry cajoles in a low voice, dropping a kiss to his neck. He he has this dopey smile on his face that manages to put Louis at ease and cloud his judgement spectacularly until Louis's rolling his eyes in a huff and saying, "Fine, you petulant child. Now shove off, I've got work to do."
---
Harry's presence in his dressing room had temporarily distracted Louis from his earlier bout of exhaustion, but as soon as Louis sets foot in his cage above the dance floor, the weariness from earlier is back in his bones, making him ache before he even starts to dance. He shakes his arms out and takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly.
Someone catcalls and a brilliantly forced smile finds Louis' lips as he winks in the direction of the noise. He holds the bars on each of his sides and starts to move, twisting his hips to the beat. He sees a few erratic flashes from mobile phones below, people eager to take his picture.
It's not long before his eyes find Harry's, locking in on him. Louis can tell, even through the sweat-thickened air that's hazy with manufactured fog, that Harry is in a state of awe. Louis has seen that look from many a boy before. They would shag him in a frenzy after his shift was over, driven to careless lust by the way Louis' hips had gyrated in his cage.
It's not that Louis's up himself or as if he thinks himself completely irresistible, it's just that he's lived through this scenario enough times to know how it goes. Boy meets boy. Boy watches him dance. Boy is reduced to an animalistic desire to fuck him silly.
The club gets hotter and the night darker and the bodies multiply around them, radiating moist heat until it becomes difficult to take a breath without choking on it. When Louis starts to become flushed and damp with sweat, he lets his eyes close against the world.
The glitter on his body catches the red and blue and green lights of the club and his skin glimmers with their vibrancy, reflecting rainbows back into the crowd, almost like he was some form of human disco ball. A shiver goes down his spine at the thought of being a mere object there to serve others, but he brushes it off, remembering with a sharp clarity that dancing like this has always been about his own satisfaction and never the pleasure of others.
Louis doesn't talk much about dancing -- doesn't tell people about the formal training he had as a child, from ballet to classic to tap. He doesn't talk about the fact that his family couldn't afford to send him off to proper classes, so one of the neighbourhood mums gave him private lessons as a favour. He doesn't really discuss any of it, but sometimes after Zayn packs them a bowl and they cough through the smell of weed, Louis lets his tongue loose.
Red-eyed and light-headed, Louis talks about being in his cage and spinning on his tiptoes and feeling physically possessed with music. He talks about sometimes feeling like there were two versions of him: one standing on the dance floor between the crush of bodies and one moving in the cage above him -- the one on the floor watches the one in the cage as he swings his limbs, moving gloriously to the beat.
Zayn should make fun of him for his supposed out of body experiences -- Louis would definitely make fun of himself -- but Zayn is a better person than he is so he just kisses Louis' temple and says, "Sounds brilliant, Lou," as though there was a good chance that Louis wasn't absolutely bloody mad.
When Louis' eyes reopen, the strobe lights assault him all at once and Harry is still watching him, a smile playing on his crooked lips. It might be the sweat pooling between his own lashes, but Louis could swear that Harry's eyes were glimmering in the distance, as though they were made of diamonds -- of emeralds.
Louis huffs out a laugh at the ludicrous thought and Harry seems to catch it because he mirrors it with a laugh of his own. It comforts Louis a little, to think that Harry might be just as overwhelmed by the electricity in the air as he is, that the two of them can snap each other out of it just the same.
Time passes in a strange, distorted kind of way, speeding up and slowing down impossibly until Louis' shift ends and he's climbing down from his cage, taking a breath once his feet hit solid ground. He feels disoriented and on fire, his heart racing, fingers tingling. It's not an unfamiliar sensation, but it's an infrequent one -- one he'd almost forgotten.
Within a beat, Harry's crashing into Louis' chest, taking his cheeks between his palms and kissing him with intent, prompting a small sound of surprise from Louis. Louis curls both his hands around Harry's wrists and pushes up onto his tiptoes, starting to kiss back. Harry keeps hold of his face and the kiss deepens on both ends, their lips all but battling for dominance, bruising in the midst of it.
When they break, Louis lowers himself back to the ground, watching Harry's lips breathlessly. "I'm guessing you liked what you saw."
"You're brilliant," Harry tells him quietly. "Genuinely honoured to be kissing you."
"You talk so much shit," Louis tells him with a soft groan, shaking his head.
Harry quirks a smile. "I don't talk any shit. You're just terrible at taking a compliment."
"I'd rather be showered with alcohol than flattery, to be perfectly honest."
Harry rolls his eyes but lets go of Louis' face, taking his hands in his instead, squeezing them as he pecks Louis' lips. "Have a drink or ten with me."
"Just a couple," Louis says, and Harry kisses him with an appeased nod before leading him to the bar by the hand.
--
The problem with claiming they were just going to have a couple of drinks is that it's a complete and utter load of shit.
By the time they're in the back of a cab at the end of the night, Harry's cheeks have gone as red as the wine he'd devoured and Louis can barely keep his eyes open, body tucked beneath Harry's arm and huddled against him for warmth.
Louis' throat feels raw from talking. In a corner booth of the club, he'd slammed a succession of shot glasses down on the table and told Harry about his family. He'd told Harry about his sisters and his twice divorced mother who's always been his only hero.
He'd told Harry about his aborted English Lit. degree and his current dream job at the bookstore where he can flick through dusty books all day and ignore customers while his boss, Nick, yelled at him from the back. He'd told him all about Nick, about how he can be insufferable at times but is great for banter and a good heart-to-heart when you need it.
He'd told him about the two versions of himself, the one on the dance floor and the one in a cage, the two of them coexisting strangely in this exact club every once in a while.
Harry had taken it all in with big doe eyes, pulling the information out of Louis with simple, earnest curiosity and a series of questions that Louis hadn't been asked in a while.
In return, Harry'd told him about his only sister and his beautiful mother and his nice enough stepfather in Cheshire. He'd told him about being in his third year of sociology and wanting to work in Pro Bono law sometime down the road. He'd told him about the types of girls and boys he usually likes to kiss and the way that liars turn him off more than anything else.
Harry had nudged his nose against Louis and pressed their mouths together and had told him he was having a great time, they should definitely do this again.
They're contently quiet in the back of the car now, listening to the distant sirens of a police van racing down the streets of London in search for one thing or the other. Harry sings below his breath, "Let's follow the cops back home, let's follow the cops back home, let's follow the cops back home and rob their houses..."
The first address they'd given the taxi was Louis', and when they arrive, Harry presses a kiss to Louis' hair and stops him from going for his wallet. "I've got it, babe."
Louis meets his eyes through thick lashes, searching them for something. "Why?"
"I just have," Harry says, pecking Louis' nose.
Louis lets his eyes fall shut, vaguely hearing their driver let out an agitated sigh, his hazard signal ticking loudly as he waits for Louis to get out.
"Come up with me," Louis mumbles, and he's just drunk enough that the words don't terrify him into taking them back. "It's late and it'll be a long drive to yours yet."
"All right, lads?" the driver calls back through the glass divider, audibly impatient.
"Yeah, sorry," Harry says, disentangling himself from Louis to pay the fare.
Louis slips out first and wraps his arms around himself sleepily against the night air, waiting for Harry. Harry follows close behind with Louis' clothes bag swung over his shoulder and Louis leads the way inside and upstairs to his flat.
Louis waits only long enough for them to push off their shoes and set their things down in the entryway before he takes Harry's hand and leads him to the bedroom. When he lets go of Harry, Louis strips off his kit drunkenly, letting out a sigh of relief once he's completely naked, crawling underneath the covers. Harry grins as he watches him, his smile lop-sided and eyes dazed, then starts to undress as well.
"Your job is to keep me warm at all times," Louis grumbles decidedly, his voice raspy with exhaustion, eyes already shut.
"Shouldn't be too hard," Harry tells him, crawling beneath the covers. He wraps an arm around Louis from behind, his hand splaying out over Louis' bare chest as he drops a kiss to his shoulder.
Louis winces and squirms away half-heartedly, reaching behind him to push Harry off by the hip. "Your hand is cold as ice, you absolute arse."
Harry laughs but pulls Louis back against him firmly, fitting them together and kissing his neck. "Don't be a prat. It's because I had to give a particular someone my gloves. You'll warm up in a minute."
"You're a nuisance," Louis mumbles, but he doesn't pull away. He's fairly certain he'll never admit how quickly he falls asleep to the beat of Harry's heart thrumming against his spine, Harry's cold fingertips going warm against his skin.
--
It takes Louis a good three minutes to realize the pesky knocking at his door isn't a part of his ridiculously intricate dream about dinosaurs returning to Earth but being much smaller than he'd expected. He misses his pet T-Rex soon as the noise wakes him from slumber.
It's nearly two in the afternoon and the incessant banging won't bloody stop, no matter how much Louis stubbornly wills it to. A moment of hopeful silence... and then it's there again, louder and harder.
Louis moans and drags himself out of bed begrudgingly. He groans once he stands and his feet hit the cold tile, then again when he hears ruffling from behind him and turns around cautiously to find Harry splayed out on his sheets, dead asleep.
"Why, Lou? Why do you do this?" he whispers to himself.
His room doesn't even smell like sex and there's a warm, preposterously inviting body in his bed. What was his world coming to? He takes a deep breath and turns away from the lanky eighteen year old with a mess of sheets slung obscenely low on his hips. He'll worry about it later.
Louis pulls on his pants blearily, shuffling to the front door, and when he cracks it open, he comes face-to-face with a very annoyed looking Zayn. Louis wants to be more concerned, he really, really does, but instead of that he rubs the sleep from his eyes and lets out an involuntary yawn.
Zayn doesn't seem impressed, if his sharp tone is any indication. "So you're alive, then? Jesus fucking Christ, Lou. I could punch your teeth in right now."
"Morning to you, too, sunshine," Louis grumbles dryly, leaving the door open and making his way into the kitchen.
He's guessing there's no hope of him trying to get back to sleep when Zayn is In a Mood, so he may as well go for a cuppa. He starts the kettle and hears Zayn click the front door shut, kick off his shoes and follow behind him.
"Ever heard of a mobile phone?" Zayn asks. "It's great -- people call you on it to check up on you and you bloody answer them so they don't have to worry you're passed out in a ditch somewhere."
"Is that what it's for?" Louis quips half-heartedly, pulling two mugs down from the cupboard. "Huh. Always thought it was more to send dirty photos when you've had a drink too many."
Louis knows he's being unfair. Him and Zayn have an unspoken agreement that Louis texts him when he's finished dancing on Saturdays to let him know he's okay -- he's in an apartment on Baker St. because he'd pulled a fit lad in white trainers who looked a bit like Bon Jovi and Channing Tatum's bastard lovechild or he's at home alone and very moodily going to bed.
The club isn't in the safest neighbourhood and there was a scare in the area when a lost person poster had gone up last month, but Louis has to remind Zayn that it's London -- nowhere he goes is going to be a playpen and there's always a chance that something completely shit could happen to him.
"I called all morning," Zayn goes on. "No answer and then it went straight to voice mail. Are you still cross with me from yesterday or something? You could've at least answered and told me to fuck myself."
"I don't even remember what we'd fought about." He's not lying. He thinks it may have had something to do with Louis comparing Liam to the Virgin Mary, but he can't quite remember. "I was just asleep, is all. My phone must've died in the night. Nothing dramatic, I'm afraid."
Louis picks up the two mugs of tea and walks over to Zayn, pressing one against his chest. The look in Zayn's eyes is one he'd expect to see from a puppy whose owner got hurt in front of him.
Louis sighs, his voice becoming gentler. "I'm fine, Zayn. No one's kidnapped me and I woke up in my own bed like a champ. The horny, insufferable club patrons didn't win this time."
Zayn drops his forehead to Louis', eyes falling shut. "I'm gonna have a smoke," he tells him quietly and Louis rolls his eyes.
"Don't," he mumbles, pecking Zayn's lips. "The smell will stick to everything I own."
"Febreze," Zayn says simply, accepting the mug of tea and wrapping his arms around Louis' shoulders, holding him close.
Louis nuzzles Zayn's neck, eyes falling shut. "You're a pain."
"A pain who's willing to love you, so you'll have to live with it."
A cough from the doorway forces them to break apart and look up, and of course, there's Harry with his sleep-mussed hair and pants hanging even lower on his hips than the sheets had been minutes ago. He's scratching at the back of his neck and looking incredibly confused and concentrated as he studies Louis and Zayn, endearing red indents pressed into his cheek where it had hit the pillow.
Louis doesn't know who of Zayn or Harry he's going to need to explain this situation to more direly, so he just walks back to the kettle as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He pulls down another mug and chirps, "Morning, Harry. Fancy a cuppa?"
"Yeah, sure," Harry says, but Louis can tell it's aloof and distracted. "Sorry. I didn't realize you were over."
"Didn't exactly think you'd be here, either," Zayn says, and Louis wonders how much magic he'd require to abracadabra the floor open so he can fall right through.
"Great coincidence for everyone, it's true," Louis says, walking back and handing Harry his mug. "You wanna grab a shower?"
Harry nods slowly. "Yeah, all right."
"Great," Louis says, setting his own tea aside and walking to the doorway. "I'll set you up with a towel and toothbrush and all that. Come with me."
Harry furrows his brows deeper and stares at Zayn for just a moment longer before following behind Louis into the bathroom. He's uncharacteristically quiet, even for someone who rarely strings more than a handful of sentences together at once.
Louis sets a clean towel and toiletries down on the closed toilet lid. "If the shower head whistles, just pull at that little thing on the faucet and it should quiet down."
"Am I missing something?" Harry asks, meeting Louis' eyes, and Louis can hear the unspoken question about Zayn and Louis' relationship tucked right in there.
Louis glances over at the pile of things he'd left out for Harry and then meets his eyes again, deciding to take the cowardly way out by playing stupid. "I don't think you're missing anything. I could get you a clean pair of pants, if you'd like."
Harry nods small, looking a bit wounded at Louis' unwillingness to acknowledge his question. "That'd be good, yeah. Thanks."
"No worries. I'll set them down in front of the door for you."
Louis walks out and does as he promised before padding back into the kitchen, finding Zayn smoking a cigarette by the windowsill. Zayn's tea is steaming beside him and a soft, cool breeze is coming through the small crack in the window. A spread of goose pimples finds its way over Louis' arms, but he's not sure if it's the cold or Zayn's curious gaze that does it.
They're both silent for a while before Zayn finally speaks up, voice even. "I love you, Lou, but no. You've got to end whatever you've started with him and I hope to God you've not fucked him up already."
Louis swallows hard, taken aback by the severity of the sentiment. He feels Zayn's words like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, sobering him up in an unexpectedly ugly way.
"Right," he says eventually and clears his throat, nodding. He holds himself together. "Right, of course."
"You knew he was off-limits, Lou. The one bloke I told you to stay away from. God. If Liam knew?"
"He won't know," Louis says. "Just forget what you saw. I wasn't planning to have anything with him anyway."
"Of course you weren't, Lou. That's the problem. You shag them, break them and then leave them to pick up the pieces. Except Liam will end up putting him back together and resenting me for it."
"Zayn," Louis interjects firmly. "None of that will happen. Just forget what you saw. Go back to your boyfriend and let me handle this myself, all right?"
Zayn shakes his head and turns to the window, putting his cigarette out on the sill before pushing the butt of it out of a tear in the mesh netting. "Charge your mobile, all right? We'll talk later."
"I will," Louis says, watching as Zayn walks over and puts his tea down in the sink, walking past Louis wordlessly.
Louis bites his lip and stands there, listening to the sounds of Zayn tying his shoes and slipping out the flat without so much of a goodbye. Louis takes a deep breath and does the few dishes left in the sink before heading into his living room.
He curls up on the couch with his tea and a blanket thrown over his folded body, feeling warm and sleepy in the yellow light that pours in from between his curtains. He watches the telly on low volume, the shower still running in his washroom for another good while before Harry dresses and comes to join Louis, sitting down on the couch next to him.
"This was a mistake," Louis tells him after a moment, eyes trained on the telly. "I shouldn't have let you come up here last night."
Harry doesn't seem to react at all, but Louis can feel his eyes on his face. "You're very intent on shutting me out, aren't you?"
Louis rolls his eyes. "It's not about that, is it?"
"I think it's exactly what it's about, really. I don't know about you, but I had a wonderful time last night. And I really enjoy your company, Lou. I enjoy it a disgusting amount even though I know nearly nothing about you. Except that you very well might be in love with my best mate's boyfriend. And if that's true, just tell me."
Louis takes a breath. "Harry. You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?"
"Zayn and I are friends. Good friends. We've had... things in the past, but he likes Liam. A lot. And that's why you and I fucking around like this is not a brilliant idea."
"I'm not looking to fuck around, Lou," Harry pleads, his exasperation becoming audible. "I've told you. I want to get to know you. I like you. I like your friends. I like your stupidly nice apartment and the fact you've got two entire bookshelves filled with poetry and I like the pictures you've got of your family everywhere and I like the feeling of butterflies in my stomach you give me every time I see you. I don't know if you know how hard it is to meet someone who makes you feel comfortable these days, but you do that for me."
"Harry--"
"I know what you're thinking and it's not shit, Lou. It's not. It's how I feel."
"Okay." Louis nods, quiet. "Okay, well. You should go home, all right? It's been a long few days and I think it's probably best if you go home."
"Right," Harry says, nodding slowly, the wrong kind of smile finding his lips. "Right, Lou."
Louis watches with a pain in his chest as Harry gets up from the couch and walks over to the door. He slips on his shoes and jacket all too gracefully before finally making his way out, slamming the door shut behind him.
Louis goes back to bed.
***
For a week, Louis avoids nearly everyone he knows. He's an uncertain mix of hurt, embarrassed and tired by the events of his weekend and decides to take some time to piece his life back together into something remotely coherent.
He goes into work at the bookstore the next day feeling haggard and Nick starts strong with a kind enough "Morning, darling!" then quickly deteriorates with a comment on how spectacularly shit Louis looks. Louis quips that now he knows what Nick must feel like everyday and he has to block the water bottle that Nick throws his way.
Louis stocks the new arrivals until his headache fades. He drinks two mugs of coffee behind the counter with a worn copy of Siken's Crush opened in front of him, pulling him into another world.
"Oi! I'm not paying you to look pretty," Nick chides as he comes out of the back with two boxes stacked in his arms. "You're not even doing a good job of that. Run a comb through your head, why don't you."
Louis rolls his eyes, flipping the page. "For that, I'm going to stay on break for another two hours."
Nick's voice is distant from between the bookshelves. "I forget why I've not fired you, to be honest."
"Because my arse sells more books than your face could ever?"
"Fair point," is the only reply Louis gets and he smirks small to himself around the rim of his mug.
When he goes home that night, Louis calls his supervisor at the club to tell him he needs the weekend off to see his family. He's due for a visit to Doncaster and the timing is perfect for him to get away. Louis is so eager to escape London that he starts to pack for the trip as early as Tuesday.
On Friday morning, Louis reads Killing Yourself to Live on his way to Doncaster until he falls asleep, lulled by the steady sway of the train on the tracks. When he gets in, his mother has already baked him Shepherd's Pie as a welcome treat. He slides her a wad of money after they eat and she refuses it just like always, but they both know he's going to stuff it into the biscuit barrel for her to find when he leaves.
Stan comes over for a beer and a standard round of football in the backyard and Louis' sisters make him give them matching French braids before they go to bed. Everything is fine for a while, everything is great until his phone buzzes on Sunday evening and Zayn's name flashes on the screen.
All right, Lou? x
Louis considers ignoring it altogether -- it's just three words and he can't be bothered to do whatever this is over text -- but it's all too easy to slide his thumb across the bottom of his phone to unlock it and type back.
Yeah, alls good. In doncaster. Yourself? x
Still in london, im afraid. Li & I are having a get together for his bday tues night come by? xx :)
Louis hesitates.
Dunno, you sure that's a good idea?
'Harry will be there' goes unsaid and his phone buzzes an instant later.
Yeh, bring some wine and well make dinner. 7pm. Miss you love to jo from me xx
--
As expected, Harry looks unnaturally and nauseatingly beautiful at Liam's birthday.
It doesn't take more than a few drinks for Louis to ponder the likelihood that Harry was actually made in a factory. He becomes briefly hopeful at the idea that Harry was mass produced and distributed worldwide. There could be dozens of him that don't come with the drama of being his best friend's boyfriend's best friend.
Harry's clad in a navy blue flannel button up and his black jeans look painted on his endless legs. He's barefoot and there's a glass of wine held delicately between the web of his fingers while he laughs at something someone says. Louis hates how much he wants to go over and snog him in a completely and utterly domestic, albeit slightly possessive and inappropriate, way.
Instead, Louis sits on the couch with Niall looking through pages and pages of Justin Bieber's Twitter feed (Niall's idea), drinking rum with a dash of coke (his idea) until his skin is buzzing with it. He does a good job of ignoring Harry and getting smashed and pretending to be interested every time Niall looks up from his phone and says, "He's cool as fuck, isn't he, Lou?"
Zayn doesn't say much to Louis, the air still tense between them, but once Liam is distracted talking to a few cousins visiting from Manchester, Zayn asks if Louis wants to join him on the balcony for a smoke.
Louis agrees and they lean over the railing and stare down at the street that's far too bright and alive for a night like this. Louis is in the middle of counting taxis when the repeated hiss of Zayn's lighter breaks the silence, the wind fighting against the flame.
"I'm sorry," Zayn says finally, seeming to have successfully lit his cigarette. He watches Louis through a cloud of smoke and Louis furrows his brows inquisitively until Zayn goes on. "What I said the other day about you and Harry. It wasn't fair. He spoke to Liam about you and he really does like you, Lou."
"Oh," Louis says uselessly, because that's not what he was expecting out of this conversation at all, and he hadn't really come prepared to hear that Harry had spoken about him to someone, let alone to Liam.
"It was fucked of me to talk to you that way. It's not right of me to be angry with you for the fact that you and I -- for the fact that it never worked out the way it could've."
Louis swallows hard, wetting his dry throat. "You can still be angry with me. For as long as you like. I did sort of cheat on you."
Zayn shakes his head. "That was ages ago, Lou. We were young and we weren't even really together, were we? We just had too much on our plates and things happened and it's in the past now. You've always been my best friend through it. I love you more than anyone I know. I really hope you get that, yeah?"
"I know," Louis says under his breath, and suddenly he wishes he hadn't had so much to drink, because he's a bit queasy and overwhelmed and imbalanced and he feels like he's either going to cry or be ill. He takes a deep, calming breath and says, "I feel the same."
Zayn nods, taking a pull of his cigarette and exhaling slowly. "I know."
There's a stretch of silence before Zayn glances over at him, scanning the profile of his face. "And what about Harry, then? Do you like him?"
Louis huffs out a humourless laugh. "How truthful am I required to be?"
"You can lie, but I know you well enough to know the difference," Zayn says, still watching him, but this time with the beginnings of a smirk playing on his face.
Louis parts his mouth, watching the street lights bleed together in the distance as he gathers his thoughts, but Zayn's phone startles him out of his own head with a succession of buzzes.
"Fuck, sorry," Zayn says, checking his messages and putting out his cigarette moments later. "They're bringing out the cake. Come on, then. We'll talk after."
Louis nods. He follows Zayn back indoors and the lights go dim around them before he can readjust. Everyone breaks into song as soon as Harry comes in with the cake, candles lit up along with his smile.
Louis hugs himself tightly and stares at Harry through the flickering fire and hazy smoke, forgetting to sing along. He moves his gaze to Liam's hand as it curls into Zayn's fingers. When Liam blows out his candles, he jokes that he'd wished for the cake to have ice cream inside and the resulting laughter brings Louis out of his trance.
He takes a tremulous breath, finally recognizing the pressure that's settling heavy in his chest and thrumming in his fingertips. It squeezes at his lungs until his eyes start to sting and he finds himself turning back to the balcony to slip outside quietly, needing more air than a room full of people could provide.
It's a few minutes before the door opens and Louis turns to say, "I'm fine, Zayn, just give me a second--"
But it's not Zayn. It's Harry, stepping outside gingerly in bare feet, his face twisted in concern. "You looked like you were about to be ill."
"Not a fan of ice cream," Louis quips. "The mention of it brings back traumatic childhood memories of being a clumsy kid who fed his ice lollies to the hot asphalt on a regular basis."
"Louis," Harry says, taking a few steps closer, curling his fingers around his wrists. "You're shaking. Are you cold?"
Louis doesn't realize it until Harry mentions it, and even when he sees his own fingers shivering he doesn't think he's cold at all. He could use a cuppa, maybe -- tea always has a way to calm his nerves when anxiety creeps up on him and if he was somehow actually cold without knowing it, a hot mug of tea would do just the trick. He's going to ask Harry for tea. Tea will help.
"I think I like you," he blurts out instead, and Harry furrows his eyebrows worriedly as if Louis were concussed or bleeding profusely from the head.
"Now I'm really worried about you," Harry says, sounding gratingly earnest even through the pounding of Louis' heart in his ears. "Did you take something? Let me see your eyes."
"Don't be a wanker, Harry." Louis takes a shaky breath. His eyes are wild and red-rimmed with intoxication as they settle on Harry's. "Against... all better judgement, I think -- I think I like you. In a stupid, ludicrous sort of way that gets me shaking on a balcony at a birthday party. I think I may be having a crisis, Harry."
Harry's lips are suddenly twisting upwards into what looks like a fond yet disgustingly smug smile, as if he'd known they were going to get to this conversation sooner rather than later. Louis wants to smack or possibly snog the self-assurance off his face.
There's a playful lilt to Harry's voice when he says, "Are you always this insufferable when you let yourself, like, feel emotions?"
Louis groans, because is that what it is? Is he having a feelings fest over a teenager? Surely that can't be the state of things. Louis makes a mental note to knee Liam in the nads for inadvertently turning his world upside down.
"This doesn't change anything," Louis says belatedly. "I'm still going to not date you."
"Is that right?" Harry asks, eyes sparkling.
"I'm in control of my life," Louis insists weakly, and Harry huffs out an infuriatingly charming chuckle as he steps in closer, fingers curling tighter around Louis' wrists. He holds their hands between their chests as he drops a kiss to Louis' lips.
"I think I'm going to enjoy not dating you," Harry murmurs into it.
"I hate you," Louis mumbles back.
Harry nudges their noses together. "You're glowing."
"I've not got any glitter on."
"Not like that." Harry's face has settled into something soft and open. "You look happy."
Louis rests his forehead against Harry's as his eyes fall shut, sighing against his lips. "I'm well and truly fucked, aren't I?"
Harry laughs under his breath, kissing Louis again and again until Louis takes it as his answer.
***
It's been three weeks of them not dating when Harry stutters and stammers and invites Louis to watch him sing.
Harry, bless his eighteen year old heart, is lying next to Louis in bed when he blushes furiously and ducks his head to avoid Louis' amused gaze and says, "You don't have to, really, it's just a thing."
It's hilarious to Louis, because just minutes ago Harry had fucked him until his cheeks were flushed pink, his hair stuck to his forehead and his skin on fire. Louis had been keening Harry's name like a mantra that was keeping him from bursting out of his skin, squirming beneath him and grabbing desperately onto any part of him that he could reach.
Louis' eyes and the jut of his cheekbones are wet now, because he'd been so over-sensitized he'd cried from the pain and the pleasure of it all, letting out a sob when he'd come. Harry had finished off on Louis' heaving stomach, running his long fingers through the warm mess afterwards so Louis could lick his hand clean, sucking between the webs of his fingers diligently.
"Look at you," Louis teases, eyes lit up with a playful wickedness. "You'll throw me into a wall without batting a lash but it takes you ten minutes to get out that you've got a gig. Why is that? Are you a terrible singer? Tell me honestly, love, I must prepare myself if I've got to lie about how good you are."
Harry rolls his eyes, and Louis is frighteningly endeared by how well Harry has come to know him and how well he takes Louis' constant abuse. "I'm a perfectly fine singer, thanks very much. I'm like John Mayer only good-looking."
Louis squints at him, intrigued. "Really? You think you're better looking than John Mayer?"
"You don't?" Harry squawks indignantly.
"Besides the point, Mr. Humble over here," Louis says dismissively. He picks up Harry's hand from where it's splayed on his chest, entangling their fingers mid-air. "Am I going to have to dress up for this? Am I going to have to like, meet your friends?"
"Gosh, you're so romantic," Harry says. "Please, it's unbearably sweet, you're giving me a toothache just listening to you."
"I'm just saying, Harold. I'm too old for like, gritty rock gigs. And I'm too... not classy for anything jazz related."
"It's pop rock stuff. Me and my mate Aiden. You'll like it. Just come. If you hate it, you can get unbearably drunk until we sound spectacular."
"Will you pay my tab?" Louis teases.
Harry rolls his eyes. "I'll pay your tab, you twat."
"Oi, now, don't be cheeky. No one told you to pursue an emotionally unstable go-go dancer. You did that all on your own."
"What can I say, babe," Harry says with a small smirk. "Sounded like a bit of mayhem."
Louis laughs and Harry dips his head to capture Louis' lips in a kiss, snogging him breathless amidst their chuckles.
--
The whole lot of them come out to cheer Harry on after having pre-drinks at Zayn and Niall's.
The show is two quid on entry and Louis teases that he's indignant he has to pay for it. He makes as if he's going to leave as they approach the venue, but Harry seems to have gathered up some liquid courage already because he tugs Louis against him sharply by the hand, looks him in the eye and says, "I need my boyfriend's support tonight."
Louis didn't realize that's what they were calling it now, but he doesn't have an overwhelming urge to tell Harry to bite his tongue or stick a bar of soap down his throat, so he just curls a hand against the side of Harry's neck, pushes up on his tiptoes and kisses his lips.
"You've got my support, babe," he says, knocking their foreheads together. "You've just also got my undivided sarcasm and quick wit."
Harry smiles dopily at that, and Louis knows for a fact it's because Harry's excited to finally have gotten Louis to admit that they are, in fact, maybe sort of dating.
Inside, Zayn stands with his back to the bar, his arms looped around Liam from behind, the two of them sharing a Sprite. Niall sits on a stool with Jamie perched in his lap, already halfway through his second pint. Louis leans on the counter and nurses a vodka cranberry, watching as Harry and Aiden set up on stage.
The venue is admittedly not as rank as he thought it was going to be. In fact, Louis would feel perfectly hygienic getting on his knees in the toilets after to give Harry a congratulatory blowjob, but he supposes he'll have to wait to see if Harry's any good first.
When Harry takes the mic, he introduces their duo as Harry Styles and Aiden Grimshaw of Omnibus, and Louis makes a mental note to have a talk with Harry about his tragically hipster tendencies. He soon forgets all about their pretentious name, though, because, well, Harry is actually good.
Harry is unbelievably good. Harry is so good that Louis is shocked that Harry hadn't just sung Louis' pants off him when they'd first met rather than try to awkwardly flirt while employing his lone dimple. Singing could've saved them a ton of time during foreplay, Louis supposes, because he already feels arousal stir low in his stomach, mixed in with something else.
Louis feels his chest tighten when he realizes that that something else is pride. He feels a swell of adoration as Harry sings, having a visceral reaction to his low, soothing voice, Harry's eyes closed and lips pressed into the microphone.
"Your boy's good," Zayn says to Louis as Harry thanks the audience and Aiden tunes his guitar between songs. "Really good."
"Yeah. He's all right, isn't he?" Louis says, eyes meeting Harry's briefly while Harry talks nonsense to the crowd, still a bit breathless and sweaty from his last number. He looks perfectly in his element.
Harry introduces the next song as a Beatles cover, dedicating it to all the new lovers in the crowd who had to work hard to win their birds, and Louis very nearly rolls his eyes at how obvious Harry is.
"Imagine I'm in love with you, it's easy 'cause I know," Harry croons, a smile on his face. "I've imagined I'm in love with you many, many, many times before. It's not like me to pretend, but I'll get you in the end. Yes I will, I'll get you in the end, ohhh yeah."
Harry peers over at Louis, his smile growing, nearly splitting his face in half. "I think about you night and day, I need you and it's true. When I think about you, I can say, I'm never, never, never, never blue."
Louis rolls his eyes and looks away, but it's not long before he's watching Harry again, his own smile starting to reach his eyes, cheeks aching from the effort to downplay it.
"So I'm telling you, my friend, that I'll get you, I'll get you in the end, yes I will, I'll get you in the end. There's gonna be a time when I'm gonna change your mind. So you might as well resign yourself to me. Imagine I'm in love with you, it's easy 'cause I know... I've imagined I'm in love with you, many, many, many times before."
Louis sighs dramatically, as though having an eighteen year old boy (with a surprising legion of local fans screaming his name) sing a love song to him was such a burden, but in reality, he can't push away the feeling of warmth buzzing just beneath his skin throughout the entire set.
He waits impatiently for Harry to finish up, and when Harry's done, he comes down from the stage and straight to the bar. Harry's black shirt sticks to him with sweat, his curls smeared over his forehead, cheeks splotchy red and eyes a bright, wet green. He curls his hands around Louis' hips, presses into him and says, "All right?"
Louis wonders if Harry's asking about the quality of the performance or about his little dedication to Louis, but either way Louis grins and says, "Yeah. Yeah, good."
Harry smiles so wide it makes Louis' jaw ache just seeing it, and when Harry presses a giddy kiss to Louis' lips, Louis wraps his arms around Harry's neck and pushes up on his tiptoes, meeting him halfway.
FIN
Hope you enjoyed the read! ♥ Title borrowed from Baby You're a Rich Man by the Beatles.
The next night, Louis is flustered and nearly late for his shift at the club.
He has a loose-lidded thermos of coffee in one hand, his keys, wallet and iPhone charger stuffed into the other, and a bag full of clothes weighing him down. He tries to push past his stubborn dressing room door and he feels about ten degrees too warm beneath his stupidly woolly jumper and he's just about to break down melodramatically on the floor to cry, because today is decidedly not his favourite.
The thing is, he'd had an inexplicably lousy night of sleep followed by a lethargic day spent grumbling face-first into the couch, and the resulting exhaustion has thrown him off in everything he's tried to do since waking up:
He spilt hot tea on himself in the morning,
put sugar in his chicken stir-fry instead of salt,
had a useless argument over the phone with Zayn,
accidentally gave the cabbie far more than the fare he owed on the way here,
and now he can't even get through this damn dressing room door without feeling like he's waging war against the flimsy weight of it.
He nearly topples over and winds up wearing his coffee when he finally shoulders his way into the room with a whoosh, but he quickly balances himself as he walks over to the dresser and sets his things down, his phone buzzing loudly.
He groans when he sees an incoming message from Harry who's apparently already outside the club -- he'd somehow forgotten that he'd invited a child to come watch him dance. Of course he did.
He taps out quick instructions for Harry to get to his dressing room and sets his phone aside, starting to strip off to get ready for the night. He's right in the middle of pulling his pants down his thighs when the door swings open and he wants to roll his eyes at Harry's impeccable timing.
"Didn't mean to just barge in," Harry spits out apologetically. He looks a mix between bashful and wild when their eyes meet, his cheeks tinged pink and smelling like cold air.
Louis laughs to himself, pulling on a tight pair of snakeskin shorts. "You didn't exactly knock," he points out. "Hoping for an eyeful of arse, were you?"
Harry smiles, shaking out his hair and pulling his fringe to the side as he looks up, meeting Louis' eyes. "Can't say it's anything to complain about."
There's something unnervingly disarming about Harry's gaze so Louis looks away from it, grabbing lotion off the counter and smearing it on his arms and torso. "Want to help me with the glitter, then? Since you're such a big fan of sparkle."
Harry walks over and pulls off his jacket, setting it aside. Louis hands him the jar of glitter, spreading his arms out by his sides readily. "Go on, love. Make me gorgeous."
Harry smiles. "Won't be too hard, to be honest."
It's Louis' turn to go pink in the cheeks, but he rolls his eyes to downplay Harry's embarrassing effect on him. It's maddening to him that a child could get him to blush. Was this some sort of quarter life crisis? If it was, he refused to succumb to Harry's charm without a fight.
He watches as Harry carefully sprinkles his arms with glitter, as though if he did it too hard, the soft silver flakes would break Louis. He wants to remind Harry that he's been much, much rougher with him in the past, but he bites his tongue. Once he's done sprinkling, Harry smooths his hand over the glitter and spreads it over Louis's arms like butter, a fond smile playing on his lips the entire time.
"This is great, you know," he says.
Louis watches the side of his face curiously. "What's that?"
"This," Harry reiterates unhelpfully, but a moment later he twists his body to give Louis' dressing room a once over. "You really are a rockstar. I feel like I'm with someone famous."
Louis scoffs. "Are you taking the piss? I've seen rubbish bins more luxurious than this room."
"Dressing rooms aren't meant to be luxurious! They're meant to be gritty. I've been in a band before and I'm fairly certain one of our dressing rooms was an actual literal rubbish bin. Gives you street cred and that."
"Says the poshest boy I've met in a while," Louis comments. Harry turns back to him with an unfazed smile and Louis can't help but glance at his lips. "You sing, then, do you?"
"A bit, yeah. I'm in lessons now to get my voice better."
"Should've known," Louis laments, meeting Harry's gaze with a mischievous glint in his own.
"And why's that?"
Louis raises his brows. "I seem to remember that you've got great control of your throat. Must be all those vocal exercises..."
Harry laughs, cheeks rosy once again. He takes a few steps forward to close the distance between them, pressing his body against Louis' and curling his fingers in his hips, pulling him in. "You're filthy."
"Lies. I'm utterly pure, young Harold."
Harry smiles and ducks in, closing his lips around Louis' in a warm kiss. "A right angel, you are..."
"I've got the wings to prove it," Louis murmurs, pecking Harry once more before he slides away, digging through one of the dresser drawers and pulling out a set of white wings, holding them up proudly.
Harry barks out a laugh, grabbing them from Louis to inspect the feathers. "You weren't joking."
"Nope. Zayn sewed them for me last Halloween, the artist he is. They nearly got ruined that fateful night--" Harry starts to slip the wings gingerly onto Louis, securing them over his shoulders and adjusting the straps. "--I was with a bloke dressed as a zombie who was dead set on finishing himself off on them. He said he'd always wanted to come on an angel, which mostly killed the mood? Anyhow, I had to get them dry cleaned."
Harry wraps his arms around Louis from behind and nestles his chin over his shoulder with a grin, the two of them facing the mirror, watching their reflections. "Charming. Will you wear them while you dance tonight?"
"Absolutely not. They hardly match my kit. Snakeskin and feathers aren't exactly biscuits and jam, Harold."
"For me?" Harry cajoles in a low voice, dropping a kiss to his neck. He he has this dopey smile on his face that manages to put Louis at ease and cloud his judgement spectacularly until Louis's rolling his eyes in a huff and saying, "Fine, you petulant child. Now shove off, I've got work to do."
---
Harry's presence in his dressing room had temporarily distracted Louis from his earlier bout of exhaustion, but as soon as Louis sets foot in his cage above the dance floor, the weariness from earlier is back in his bones, making him ache before he even starts to dance. He shakes his arms out and takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly.
Someone catcalls and a brilliantly forced smile finds Louis' lips as he winks in the direction of the noise. He holds the bars on each of his sides and starts to move, twisting his hips to the beat. He sees a few erratic flashes from mobile phones below, people eager to take his picture.
It's not long before his eyes find Harry's, locking in on him. Louis can tell, even through the sweat-thickened air that's hazy with manufactured fog, that Harry is in a state of awe. Louis has seen that look from many a boy before. They would shag him in a frenzy after his shift was over, driven to careless lust by the way Louis' hips had gyrated in his cage.
It's not that Louis's up himself or as if he thinks himself completely irresistible, it's just that he's lived through this scenario enough times to know how it goes. Boy meets boy. Boy watches him dance. Boy is reduced to an animalistic desire to fuck him silly.
The club gets hotter and the night darker and the bodies multiply around them, radiating moist heat until it becomes difficult to take a breath without choking on it. When Louis starts to become flushed and damp with sweat, he lets his eyes close against the world.
The glitter on his body catches the red and blue and green lights of the club and his skin glimmers with their vibrancy, reflecting rainbows back into the crowd, almost like he was some form of human disco ball. A shiver goes down his spine at the thought of being a mere object there to serve others, but he brushes it off, remembering with a sharp clarity that dancing like this has always been about his own satisfaction and never the pleasure of others.
Louis doesn't talk much about dancing -- doesn't tell people about the formal training he had as a child, from ballet to classic to tap. He doesn't talk about the fact that his family couldn't afford to send him off to proper classes, so one of the neighbourhood mums gave him private lessons as a favour. He doesn't really discuss any of it, but sometimes after Zayn packs them a bowl and they cough through the smell of weed, Louis lets his tongue loose.
Red-eyed and light-headed, Louis talks about being in his cage and spinning on his tiptoes and feeling physically possessed with music. He talks about sometimes feeling like there were two versions of him: one standing on the dance floor between the crush of bodies and one moving in the cage above him -- the one on the floor watches the one in the cage as he swings his limbs, moving gloriously to the beat.
Zayn should make fun of him for his supposed out of body experiences -- Louis would definitely make fun of himself -- but Zayn is a better person than he is so he just kisses Louis' temple and says, "Sounds brilliant, Lou," as though there was a good chance that Louis wasn't absolutely bloody mad.
When Louis' eyes reopen, the strobe lights assault him all at once and Harry is still watching him, a smile playing on his crooked lips. It might be the sweat pooling between his own lashes, but Louis could swear that Harry's eyes were glimmering in the distance, as though they were made of diamonds -- of emeralds.
Louis huffs out a laugh at the ludicrous thought and Harry seems to catch it because he mirrors it with a laugh of his own. It comforts Louis a little, to think that Harry might be just as overwhelmed by the electricity in the air as he is, that the two of them can snap each other out of it just the same.
Time passes in a strange, distorted kind of way, speeding up and slowing down impossibly until Louis' shift ends and he's climbing down from his cage, taking a breath once his feet hit solid ground. He feels disoriented and on fire, his heart racing, fingers tingling. It's not an unfamiliar sensation, but it's an infrequent one -- one he'd almost forgotten.
Within a beat, Harry's crashing into Louis' chest, taking his cheeks between his palms and kissing him with intent, prompting a small sound of surprise from Louis. Louis curls both his hands around Harry's wrists and pushes up onto his tiptoes, starting to kiss back. Harry keeps hold of his face and the kiss deepens on both ends, their lips all but battling for dominance, bruising in the midst of it.
When they break, Louis lowers himself back to the ground, watching Harry's lips breathlessly. "I'm guessing you liked what you saw."
"You're brilliant," Harry tells him quietly. "Genuinely honoured to be kissing you."
"You talk so much shit," Louis tells him with a soft groan, shaking his head.
Harry quirks a smile. "I don't talk any shit. You're just terrible at taking a compliment."
"I'd rather be showered with alcohol than flattery, to be perfectly honest."
Harry rolls his eyes but lets go of Louis' face, taking his hands in his instead, squeezing them as he pecks Louis' lips. "Have a drink or ten with me."
"Just a couple," Louis says, and Harry kisses him with an appeased nod before leading him to the bar by the hand.
--
The problem with claiming they were just going to have a couple of drinks is that it's a complete and utter load of shit.
By the time they're in the back of a cab at the end of the night, Harry's cheeks have gone as red as the wine he'd devoured and Louis can barely keep his eyes open, body tucked beneath Harry's arm and huddled against him for warmth.
Louis' throat feels raw from talking. In a corner booth of the club, he'd slammed a succession of shot glasses down on the table and told Harry about his family. He'd told Harry about his sisters and his twice divorced mother who's always been his only hero.
He'd told Harry about his aborted English Lit. degree and his current dream job at the bookstore where he can flick through dusty books all day and ignore customers while his boss, Nick, yelled at him from the back. He'd told him all about Nick, about how he can be insufferable at times but is great for banter and a good heart-to-heart when you need it.
He'd told him about the two versions of himself, the one on the dance floor and the one in a cage, the two of them coexisting strangely in this exact club every once in a while.
Harry had taken it all in with big doe eyes, pulling the information out of Louis with simple, earnest curiosity and a series of questions that Louis hadn't been asked in a while.
In return, Harry'd told him about his only sister and his beautiful mother and his nice enough stepfather in Cheshire. He'd told him about being in his third year of sociology and wanting to work in Pro Bono law sometime down the road. He'd told him about the types of girls and boys he usually likes to kiss and the way that liars turn him off more than anything else.
Harry had nudged his nose against Louis and pressed their mouths together and had told him he was having a great time, they should definitely do this again.
They're contently quiet in the back of the car now, listening to the distant sirens of a police van racing down the streets of London in search for one thing or the other. Harry sings below his breath, "Let's follow the cops back home, let's follow the cops back home, let's follow the cops back home and rob their houses..."
The first address they'd given the taxi was Louis', and when they arrive, Harry presses a kiss to Louis' hair and stops him from going for his wallet. "I've got it, babe."
Louis meets his eyes through thick lashes, searching them for something. "Why?"
"I just have," Harry says, pecking Louis' nose.
Louis lets his eyes fall shut, vaguely hearing their driver let out an agitated sigh, his hazard signal ticking loudly as he waits for Louis to get out.
"Come up with me," Louis mumbles, and he's just drunk enough that the words don't terrify him into taking them back. "It's late and it'll be a long drive to yours yet."
"All right, lads?" the driver calls back through the glass divider, audibly impatient.
"Yeah, sorry," Harry says, disentangling himself from Louis to pay the fare.
Louis slips out first and wraps his arms around himself sleepily against the night air, waiting for Harry. Harry follows close behind with Louis' clothes bag swung over his shoulder and Louis leads the way inside and upstairs to his flat.
Louis waits only long enough for them to push off their shoes and set their things down in the entryway before he takes Harry's hand and leads him to the bedroom. When he lets go of Harry, Louis strips off his kit drunkenly, letting out a sigh of relief once he's completely naked, crawling underneath the covers. Harry grins as he watches him, his smile lop-sided and eyes dazed, then starts to undress as well.
"Your job is to keep me warm at all times," Louis grumbles decidedly, his voice raspy with exhaustion, eyes already shut.
"Shouldn't be too hard," Harry tells him, crawling beneath the covers. He wraps an arm around Louis from behind, his hand splaying out over Louis' bare chest as he drops a kiss to his shoulder.
Louis winces and squirms away half-heartedly, reaching behind him to push Harry off by the hip. "Your hand is cold as ice, you absolute arse."
Harry laughs but pulls Louis back against him firmly, fitting them together and kissing his neck. "Don't be a prat. It's because I had to give a particular someone my gloves. You'll warm up in a minute."
"You're a nuisance," Louis mumbles, but he doesn't pull away. He's fairly certain he'll never admit how quickly he falls asleep to the beat of Harry's heart thrumming against his spine, Harry's cold fingertips going warm against his skin.
--
It takes Louis a good three minutes to realize the pesky knocking at his door isn't a part of his ridiculously intricate dream about dinosaurs returning to Earth but being much smaller than he'd expected. He misses his pet T-Rex soon as the noise wakes him from slumber.
It's nearly two in the afternoon and the incessant banging won't bloody stop, no matter how much Louis stubbornly wills it to. A moment of hopeful silence... and then it's there again, louder and harder.
Louis moans and drags himself out of bed begrudgingly. He groans once he stands and his feet hit the cold tile, then again when he hears ruffling from behind him and turns around cautiously to find Harry splayed out on his sheets, dead asleep.
"Why, Lou? Why do you do this?" he whispers to himself.
His room doesn't even smell like sex and there's a warm, preposterously inviting body in his bed. What was his world coming to? He takes a deep breath and turns away from the lanky eighteen year old with a mess of sheets slung obscenely low on his hips. He'll worry about it later.
Louis pulls on his pants blearily, shuffling to the front door, and when he cracks it open, he comes face-to-face with a very annoyed looking Zayn. Louis wants to be more concerned, he really, really does, but instead of that he rubs the sleep from his eyes and lets out an involuntary yawn.
Zayn doesn't seem impressed, if his sharp tone is any indication. "So you're alive, then? Jesus fucking Christ, Lou. I could punch your teeth in right now."
"Morning to you, too, sunshine," Louis grumbles dryly, leaving the door open and making his way into the kitchen.
He's guessing there's no hope of him trying to get back to sleep when Zayn is In a Mood, so he may as well go for a cuppa. He starts the kettle and hears Zayn click the front door shut, kick off his shoes and follow behind him.
"Ever heard of a mobile phone?" Zayn asks. "It's great -- people call you on it to check up on you and you bloody answer them so they don't have to worry you're passed out in a ditch somewhere."
"Is that what it's for?" Louis quips half-heartedly, pulling two mugs down from the cupboard. "Huh. Always thought it was more to send dirty photos when you've had a drink too many."
Louis knows he's being unfair. Him and Zayn have an unspoken agreement that Louis texts him when he's finished dancing on Saturdays to let him know he's okay -- he's in an apartment on Baker St. because he'd pulled a fit lad in white trainers who looked a bit like Bon Jovi and Channing Tatum's bastard lovechild or he's at home alone and very moodily going to bed.
The club isn't in the safest neighbourhood and there was a scare in the area when a lost person poster had gone up last month, but Louis has to remind Zayn that it's London -- nowhere he goes is going to be a playpen and there's always a chance that something completely shit could happen to him.
"I called all morning," Zayn goes on. "No answer and then it went straight to voice mail. Are you still cross with me from yesterday or something? You could've at least answered and told me to fuck myself."
"I don't even remember what we'd fought about." He's not lying. He thinks it may have had something to do with Louis comparing Liam to the Virgin Mary, but he can't quite remember. "I was just asleep, is all. My phone must've died in the night. Nothing dramatic, I'm afraid."
Louis picks up the two mugs of tea and walks over to Zayn, pressing one against his chest. The look in Zayn's eyes is one he'd expect to see from a puppy whose owner got hurt in front of him.
Louis sighs, his voice becoming gentler. "I'm fine, Zayn. No one's kidnapped me and I woke up in my own bed like a champ. The horny, insufferable club patrons didn't win this time."
Zayn drops his forehead to Louis', eyes falling shut. "I'm gonna have a smoke," he tells him quietly and Louis rolls his eyes.
"Don't," he mumbles, pecking Zayn's lips. "The smell will stick to everything I own."
"Febreze," Zayn says simply, accepting the mug of tea and wrapping his arms around Louis' shoulders, holding him close.
Louis nuzzles Zayn's neck, eyes falling shut. "You're a pain."
"A pain who's willing to love you, so you'll have to live with it."
A cough from the doorway forces them to break apart and look up, and of course, there's Harry with his sleep-mussed hair and pants hanging even lower on his hips than the sheets had been minutes ago. He's scratching at the back of his neck and looking incredibly confused and concentrated as he studies Louis and Zayn, endearing red indents pressed into his cheek where it had hit the pillow.
Louis doesn't know who of Zayn or Harry he's going to need to explain this situation to more direly, so he just walks back to the kettle as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He pulls down another mug and chirps, "Morning, Harry. Fancy a cuppa?"
"Yeah, sure," Harry says, but Louis can tell it's aloof and distracted. "Sorry. I didn't realize you were over."
"Didn't exactly think you'd be here, either," Zayn says, and Louis wonders how much magic he'd require to abracadabra the floor open so he can fall right through.
"Great coincidence for everyone, it's true," Louis says, walking back and handing Harry his mug. "You wanna grab a shower?"
Harry nods slowly. "Yeah, all right."
"Great," Louis says, setting his own tea aside and walking to the doorway. "I'll set you up with a towel and toothbrush and all that. Come with me."
Harry furrows his brows deeper and stares at Zayn for just a moment longer before following behind Louis into the bathroom. He's uncharacteristically quiet, even for someone who rarely strings more than a handful of sentences together at once.
Louis sets a clean towel and toiletries down on the closed toilet lid. "If the shower head whistles, just pull at that little thing on the faucet and it should quiet down."
"Am I missing something?" Harry asks, meeting Louis' eyes, and Louis can hear the unspoken question about Zayn and Louis' relationship tucked right in there.
Louis glances over at the pile of things he'd left out for Harry and then meets his eyes again, deciding to take the cowardly way out by playing stupid. "I don't think you're missing anything. I could get you a clean pair of pants, if you'd like."
Harry nods small, looking a bit wounded at Louis' unwillingness to acknowledge his question. "That'd be good, yeah. Thanks."
"No worries. I'll set them down in front of the door for you."
Louis walks out and does as he promised before padding back into the kitchen, finding Zayn smoking a cigarette by the windowsill. Zayn's tea is steaming beside him and a soft, cool breeze is coming through the small crack in the window. A spread of goose pimples finds its way over Louis' arms, but he's not sure if it's the cold or Zayn's curious gaze that does it.
They're both silent for a while before Zayn finally speaks up, voice even. "I love you, Lou, but no. You've got to end whatever you've started with him and I hope to God you've not fucked him up already."
Louis swallows hard, taken aback by the severity of the sentiment. He feels Zayn's words like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, sobering him up in an unexpectedly ugly way.
"Right," he says eventually and clears his throat, nodding. He holds himself together. "Right, of course."
"You knew he was off-limits, Lou. The one bloke I told you to stay away from. God. If Liam knew?"
"He won't know," Louis says. "Just forget what you saw. I wasn't planning to have anything with him anyway."
"Of course you weren't, Lou. That's the problem. You shag them, break them and then leave them to pick up the pieces. Except Liam will end up putting him back together and resenting me for it."
"Zayn," Louis interjects firmly. "None of that will happen. Just forget what you saw. Go back to your boyfriend and let me handle this myself, all right?"
Zayn shakes his head and turns to the window, putting his cigarette out on the sill before pushing the butt of it out of a tear in the mesh netting. "Charge your mobile, all right? We'll talk later."
"I will," Louis says, watching as Zayn walks over and puts his tea down in the sink, walking past Louis wordlessly.
Louis bites his lip and stands there, listening to the sounds of Zayn tying his shoes and slipping out the flat without so much of a goodbye. Louis takes a deep breath and does the few dishes left in the sink before heading into his living room.
He curls up on the couch with his tea and a blanket thrown over his folded body, feeling warm and sleepy in the yellow light that pours in from between his curtains. He watches the telly on low volume, the shower still running in his washroom for another good while before Harry dresses and comes to join Louis, sitting down on the couch next to him.
"This was a mistake," Louis tells him after a moment, eyes trained on the telly. "I shouldn't have let you come up here last night."
Harry doesn't seem to react at all, but Louis can feel his eyes on his face. "You're very intent on shutting me out, aren't you?"
Louis rolls his eyes. "It's not about that, is it?"
"I think it's exactly what it's about, really. I don't know about you, but I had a wonderful time last night. And I really enjoy your company, Lou. I enjoy it a disgusting amount even though I know nearly nothing about you. Except that you very well might be in love with my best mate's boyfriend. And if that's true, just tell me."
Louis takes a breath. "Harry. You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?"
"Zayn and I are friends. Good friends. We've had... things in the past, but he likes Liam. A lot. And that's why you and I fucking around like this is not a brilliant idea."
"I'm not looking to fuck around, Lou," Harry pleads, his exasperation becoming audible. "I've told you. I want to get to know you. I like you. I like your friends. I like your stupidly nice apartment and the fact you've got two entire bookshelves filled with poetry and I like the pictures you've got of your family everywhere and I like the feeling of butterflies in my stomach you give me every time I see you. I don't know if you know how hard it is to meet someone who makes you feel comfortable these days, but you do that for me."
"Harry--"
"I know what you're thinking and it's not shit, Lou. It's not. It's how I feel."
"Okay." Louis nods, quiet. "Okay, well. You should go home, all right? It's been a long few days and I think it's probably best if you go home."
"Right," Harry says, nodding slowly, the wrong kind of smile finding his lips. "Right, Lou."
Louis watches with a pain in his chest as Harry gets up from the couch and walks over to the door. He slips on his shoes and jacket all too gracefully before finally making his way out, slamming the door shut behind him.
Louis goes back to bed.
***
For a week, Louis avoids nearly everyone he knows. He's an uncertain mix of hurt, embarrassed and tired by the events of his weekend and decides to take some time to piece his life back together into something remotely coherent.
He goes into work at the bookstore the next day feeling haggard and Nick starts strong with a kind enough "Morning, darling!" then quickly deteriorates with a comment on how spectacularly shit Louis looks. Louis quips that now he knows what Nick must feel like everyday and he has to block the water bottle that Nick throws his way.
Louis stocks the new arrivals until his headache fades. He drinks two mugs of coffee behind the counter with a worn copy of Siken's Crush opened in front of him, pulling him into another world.
"Oi! I'm not paying you to look pretty," Nick chides as he comes out of the back with two boxes stacked in his arms. "You're not even doing a good job of that. Run a comb through your head, why don't you."
Louis rolls his eyes, flipping the page. "For that, I'm going to stay on break for another two hours."
Nick's voice is distant from between the bookshelves. "I forget why I've not fired you, to be honest."
"Because my arse sells more books than your face could ever?"
"Fair point," is the only reply Louis gets and he smirks small to himself around the rim of his mug.
When he goes home that night, Louis calls his supervisor at the club to tell him he needs the weekend off to see his family. He's due for a visit to Doncaster and the timing is perfect for him to get away. Louis is so eager to escape London that he starts to pack for the trip as early as Tuesday.
On Friday morning, Louis reads Killing Yourself to Live on his way to Doncaster until he falls asleep, lulled by the steady sway of the train on the tracks. When he gets in, his mother has already baked him Shepherd's Pie as a welcome treat. He slides her a wad of money after they eat and she refuses it just like always, but they both know he's going to stuff it into the biscuit barrel for her to find when he leaves.
Stan comes over for a beer and a standard round of football in the backyard and Louis' sisters make him give them matching French braids before they go to bed. Everything is fine for a while, everything is great until his phone buzzes on Sunday evening and Zayn's name flashes on the screen.
All right, Lou? x
Louis considers ignoring it altogether -- it's just three words and he can't be bothered to do whatever this is over text -- but it's all too easy to slide his thumb across the bottom of his phone to unlock it and type back.
Yeah, alls good. In doncaster. Yourself? x
Still in london, im afraid. Li & I are having a get together for his bday tues night come by? xx :)
Louis hesitates.
Dunno, you sure that's a good idea?
'Harry will be there' goes unsaid and his phone buzzes an instant later.
Yeh, bring some wine and well make dinner. 7pm. Miss you love to jo from me xx
--
As expected, Harry looks unnaturally and nauseatingly beautiful at Liam's birthday.
It doesn't take more than a few drinks for Louis to ponder the likelihood that Harry was actually made in a factory. He becomes briefly hopeful at the idea that Harry was mass produced and distributed worldwide. There could be dozens of him that don't come with the drama of being his best friend's boyfriend's best friend.
Harry's clad in a navy blue flannel button up and his black jeans look painted on his endless legs. He's barefoot and there's a glass of wine held delicately between the web of his fingers while he laughs at something someone says. Louis hates how much he wants to go over and snog him in a completely and utterly domestic, albeit slightly possessive and inappropriate, way.
Instead, Louis sits on the couch with Niall looking through pages and pages of Justin Bieber's Twitter feed (Niall's idea), drinking rum with a dash of coke (his idea) until his skin is buzzing with it. He does a good job of ignoring Harry and getting smashed and pretending to be interested every time Niall looks up from his phone and says, "He's cool as fuck, isn't he, Lou?"
Zayn doesn't say much to Louis, the air still tense between them, but once Liam is distracted talking to a few cousins visiting from Manchester, Zayn asks if Louis wants to join him on the balcony for a smoke.
Louis agrees and they lean over the railing and stare down at the street that's far too bright and alive for a night like this. Louis is in the middle of counting taxis when the repeated hiss of Zayn's lighter breaks the silence, the wind fighting against the flame.
"I'm sorry," Zayn says finally, seeming to have successfully lit his cigarette. He watches Louis through a cloud of smoke and Louis furrows his brows inquisitively until Zayn goes on. "What I said the other day about you and Harry. It wasn't fair. He spoke to Liam about you and he really does like you, Lou."
"Oh," Louis says uselessly, because that's not what he was expecting out of this conversation at all, and he hadn't really come prepared to hear that Harry had spoken about him to someone, let alone to Liam.
"It was fucked of me to talk to you that way. It's not right of me to be angry with you for the fact that you and I -- for the fact that it never worked out the way it could've."
Louis swallows hard, wetting his dry throat. "You can still be angry with me. For as long as you like. I did sort of cheat on you."
Zayn shakes his head. "That was ages ago, Lou. We were young and we weren't even really together, were we? We just had too much on our plates and things happened and it's in the past now. You've always been my best friend through it. I love you more than anyone I know. I really hope you get that, yeah?"
"I know," Louis says under his breath, and suddenly he wishes he hadn't had so much to drink, because he's a bit queasy and overwhelmed and imbalanced and he feels like he's either going to cry or be ill. He takes a deep, calming breath and says, "I feel the same."
Zayn nods, taking a pull of his cigarette and exhaling slowly. "I know."
There's a stretch of silence before Zayn glances over at him, scanning the profile of his face. "And what about Harry, then? Do you like him?"
Louis huffs out a humourless laugh. "How truthful am I required to be?"
"You can lie, but I know you well enough to know the difference," Zayn says, still watching him, but this time with the beginnings of a smirk playing on his face.
Louis parts his mouth, watching the street lights bleed together in the distance as he gathers his thoughts, but Zayn's phone startles him out of his own head with a succession of buzzes.
"Fuck, sorry," Zayn says, checking his messages and putting out his cigarette moments later. "They're bringing out the cake. Come on, then. We'll talk after."
Louis nods. He follows Zayn back indoors and the lights go dim around them before he can readjust. Everyone breaks into song as soon as Harry comes in with the cake, candles lit up along with his smile.
Louis hugs himself tightly and stares at Harry through the flickering fire and hazy smoke, forgetting to sing along. He moves his gaze to Liam's hand as it curls into Zayn's fingers. When Liam blows out his candles, he jokes that he'd wished for the cake to have ice cream inside and the resulting laughter brings Louis out of his trance.
He takes a tremulous breath, finally recognizing the pressure that's settling heavy in his chest and thrumming in his fingertips. It squeezes at his lungs until his eyes start to sting and he finds himself turning back to the balcony to slip outside quietly, needing more air than a room full of people could provide.
It's a few minutes before the door opens and Louis turns to say, "I'm fine, Zayn, just give me a second--"
But it's not Zayn. It's Harry, stepping outside gingerly in bare feet, his face twisted in concern. "You looked like you were about to be ill."
"Not a fan of ice cream," Louis quips. "The mention of it brings back traumatic childhood memories of being a clumsy kid who fed his ice lollies to the hot asphalt on a regular basis."
"Louis," Harry says, taking a few steps closer, curling his fingers around his wrists. "You're shaking. Are you cold?"
Louis doesn't realize it until Harry mentions it, and even when he sees his own fingers shivering he doesn't think he's cold at all. He could use a cuppa, maybe -- tea always has a way to calm his nerves when anxiety creeps up on him and if he was somehow actually cold without knowing it, a hot mug of tea would do just the trick. He's going to ask Harry for tea. Tea will help.
"I think I like you," he blurts out instead, and Harry furrows his eyebrows worriedly as if Louis were concussed or bleeding profusely from the head.
"Now I'm really worried about you," Harry says, sounding gratingly earnest even through the pounding of Louis' heart in his ears. "Did you take something? Let me see your eyes."
"Don't be a wanker, Harry." Louis takes a shaky breath. His eyes are wild and red-rimmed with intoxication as they settle on Harry's. "Against... all better judgement, I think -- I think I like you. In a stupid, ludicrous sort of way that gets me shaking on a balcony at a birthday party. I think I may be having a crisis, Harry."
Harry's lips are suddenly twisting upwards into what looks like a fond yet disgustingly smug smile, as if he'd known they were going to get to this conversation sooner rather than later. Louis wants to smack or possibly snog the self-assurance off his face.
There's a playful lilt to Harry's voice when he says, "Are you always this insufferable when you let yourself, like, feel emotions?"
Louis groans, because is that what it is? Is he having a feelings fest over a teenager? Surely that can't be the state of things. Louis makes a mental note to knee Liam in the nads for inadvertently turning his world upside down.
"This doesn't change anything," Louis says belatedly. "I'm still going to not date you."
"Is that right?" Harry asks, eyes sparkling.
"I'm in control of my life," Louis insists weakly, and Harry huffs out an infuriatingly charming chuckle as he steps in closer, fingers curling tighter around Louis' wrists. He holds their hands between their chests as he drops a kiss to Louis' lips.
"I think I'm going to enjoy not dating you," Harry murmurs into it.
"I hate you," Louis mumbles back.
Harry nudges their noses together. "You're glowing."
"I've not got any glitter on."
"Not like that." Harry's face has settled into something soft and open. "You look happy."
Louis rests his forehead against Harry's as his eyes fall shut, sighing against his lips. "I'm well and truly fucked, aren't I?"
Harry laughs under his breath, kissing Louis again and again until Louis takes it as his answer.
***
It's been three weeks of them not dating when Harry stutters and stammers and invites Louis to watch him sing.
Harry, bless his eighteen year old heart, is lying next to Louis in bed when he blushes furiously and ducks his head to avoid Louis' amused gaze and says, "You don't have to, really, it's just a thing."
It's hilarious to Louis, because just minutes ago Harry had fucked him until his cheeks were flushed pink, his hair stuck to his forehead and his skin on fire. Louis had been keening Harry's name like a mantra that was keeping him from bursting out of his skin, squirming beneath him and grabbing desperately onto any part of him that he could reach.
Louis' eyes and the jut of his cheekbones are wet now, because he'd been so over-sensitized he'd cried from the pain and the pleasure of it all, letting out a sob when he'd come. Harry had finished off on Louis' heaving stomach, running his long fingers through the warm mess afterwards so Louis could lick his hand clean, sucking between the webs of his fingers diligently.
"Look at you," Louis teases, eyes lit up with a playful wickedness. "You'll throw me into a wall without batting a lash but it takes you ten minutes to get out that you've got a gig. Why is that? Are you a terrible singer? Tell me honestly, love, I must prepare myself if I've got to lie about how good you are."
Harry rolls his eyes, and Louis is frighteningly endeared by how well Harry has come to know him and how well he takes Louis' constant abuse. "I'm a perfectly fine singer, thanks very much. I'm like John Mayer only good-looking."
Louis squints at him, intrigued. "Really? You think you're better looking than John Mayer?"
"You don't?" Harry squawks indignantly.
"Besides the point, Mr. Humble over here," Louis says dismissively. He picks up Harry's hand from where it's splayed on his chest, entangling their fingers mid-air. "Am I going to have to dress up for this? Am I going to have to like, meet your friends?"
"Gosh, you're so romantic," Harry says. "Please, it's unbearably sweet, you're giving me a toothache just listening to you."
"I'm just saying, Harold. I'm too old for like, gritty rock gigs. And I'm too... not classy for anything jazz related."
"It's pop rock stuff. Me and my mate Aiden. You'll like it. Just come. If you hate it, you can get unbearably drunk until we sound spectacular."
"Will you pay my tab?" Louis teases.
Harry rolls his eyes. "I'll pay your tab, you twat."
"Oi, now, don't be cheeky. No one told you to pursue an emotionally unstable go-go dancer. You did that all on your own."
"What can I say, babe," Harry says with a small smirk. "Sounded like a bit of mayhem."
Louis laughs and Harry dips his head to capture Louis' lips in a kiss, snogging him breathless amidst their chuckles.
--
The whole lot of them come out to cheer Harry on after having pre-drinks at Zayn and Niall's.
The show is two quid on entry and Louis teases that he's indignant he has to pay for it. He makes as if he's going to leave as they approach the venue, but Harry seems to have gathered up some liquid courage already because he tugs Louis against him sharply by the hand, looks him in the eye and says, "I need my boyfriend's support tonight."
Louis didn't realize that's what they were calling it now, but he doesn't have an overwhelming urge to tell Harry to bite his tongue or stick a bar of soap down his throat, so he just curls a hand against the side of Harry's neck, pushes up on his tiptoes and kisses his lips.
"You've got my support, babe," he says, knocking their foreheads together. "You've just also got my undivided sarcasm and quick wit."
Harry smiles dopily at that, and Louis knows for a fact it's because Harry's excited to finally have gotten Louis to admit that they are, in fact, maybe sort of dating.
Inside, Zayn stands with his back to the bar, his arms looped around Liam from behind, the two of them sharing a Sprite. Niall sits on a stool with Jamie perched in his lap, already halfway through his second pint. Louis leans on the counter and nurses a vodka cranberry, watching as Harry and Aiden set up on stage.
The venue is admittedly not as rank as he thought it was going to be. In fact, Louis would feel perfectly hygienic getting on his knees in the toilets after to give Harry a congratulatory blowjob, but he supposes he'll have to wait to see if Harry's any good first.
When Harry takes the mic, he introduces their duo as Harry Styles and Aiden Grimshaw of Omnibus, and Louis makes a mental note to have a talk with Harry about his tragically hipster tendencies. He soon forgets all about their pretentious name, though, because, well, Harry is actually good.
Harry is unbelievably good. Harry is so good that Louis is shocked that Harry hadn't just sung Louis' pants off him when they'd first met rather than try to awkwardly flirt while employing his lone dimple. Singing could've saved them a ton of time during foreplay, Louis supposes, because he already feels arousal stir low in his stomach, mixed in with something else.
Louis feels his chest tighten when he realizes that that something else is pride. He feels a swell of adoration as Harry sings, having a visceral reaction to his low, soothing voice, Harry's eyes closed and lips pressed into the microphone.
"Your boy's good," Zayn says to Louis as Harry thanks the audience and Aiden tunes his guitar between songs. "Really good."
"Yeah. He's all right, isn't he?" Louis says, eyes meeting Harry's briefly while Harry talks nonsense to the crowd, still a bit breathless and sweaty from his last number. He looks perfectly in his element.
Harry introduces the next song as a Beatles cover, dedicating it to all the new lovers in the crowd who had to work hard to win their birds, and Louis very nearly rolls his eyes at how obvious Harry is.
"Imagine I'm in love with you, it's easy 'cause I know," Harry croons, a smile on his face. "I've imagined I'm in love with you many, many, many times before. It's not like me to pretend, but I'll get you in the end. Yes I will, I'll get you in the end, ohhh yeah."
Harry peers over at Louis, his smile growing, nearly splitting his face in half. "I think about you night and day, I need you and it's true. When I think about you, I can say, I'm never, never, never, never blue."
Louis rolls his eyes and looks away, but it's not long before he's watching Harry again, his own smile starting to reach his eyes, cheeks aching from the effort to downplay it.
"So I'm telling you, my friend, that I'll get you, I'll get you in the end, yes I will, I'll get you in the end. There's gonna be a time when I'm gonna change your mind. So you might as well resign yourself to me. Imagine I'm in love with you, it's easy 'cause I know... I've imagined I'm in love with you, many, many, many times before."
Louis sighs dramatically, as though having an eighteen year old boy (with a surprising legion of local fans screaming his name) sing a love song to him was such a burden, but in reality, he can't push away the feeling of warmth buzzing just beneath his skin throughout the entire set.
He waits impatiently for Harry to finish up, and when Harry's done, he comes down from the stage and straight to the bar. Harry's black shirt sticks to him with sweat, his curls smeared over his forehead, cheeks splotchy red and eyes a bright, wet green. He curls his hands around Louis' hips, presses into him and says, "All right?"
Louis wonders if Harry's asking about the quality of the performance or about his little dedication to Louis, but either way Louis grins and says, "Yeah. Yeah, good."
Harry smiles so wide it makes Louis' jaw ache just seeing it, and when Harry presses a giddy kiss to Louis' lips, Louis wraps his arms around Harry's neck and pushes up on his tiptoes, meeting him halfway.
FIN
Hope you enjoyed the read! ♥ Title borrowed from Baby You're a Rich Man by the Beatles.