your maze is your maze (a series of unfinished universes)
title: your maze is your maze, but i know you'll get through it fine
fandom: one direction
pairing: liam payne/harry styles
word count:729
note: part of the "a series of unfinished universes" project
universe: empath!harry, mindreader!liam
Liam is an explosion.
They all are, really, in their own way. Pushed and pushed and pushed like a piece of coal everyone wants to turn into a diamond. They’re poked and prodded and while maybe they’ll turn into something beautiful, they’re more likely to combust in the process. That's the problem with being as close as they are is that when one of them goes off, that it takes the rest of them down with the explosion, leaving them falling over each other in a mushroom cloud of emotion.
Harry feels it before anyone else does, but that’s an unfair advantage that he doesn’t want. He’s tired of being able to look at a person and tell how they’re feeling. He doesn’t want a flicker of sadness or hatred or loathing just by accidentally brushing a stranger in a crowd. He hates the feeling of foreign emotion under his skin, swirling in his belly, combining with an uncomfortable feeling of invasion that he knows is no one’s but his own.
It’s bad with all of the boys, because he’s closer with them than he is with anyone else in the world, but it’s the worst with Liam. Liam, for as quiet as he is, feels the strongest of all of them, Harry thinks, and it scares him. He doesn’t want to feel the twinge of stress every time he brushes Liam’s wrist in an interview. He doesn’t want to be worried that when he hugs Liam goodnight that he’ll be able to feel every ounce of pressure building inside him and around him.
Harry stands just on the edge, waiting to feel the heat from Liam, the passion and the fire the spreads from him right before he collapses, a star folding in on itself. He feels the heat, the unnerving pressure just outside his skin, hot like he’s going to burst or explode or cry.
Liam screams at him, and Harry knows how upset he is, how angry, can feel it pricking at his him like some sort of inverted needle, poking and prodding at him until the foreign emotion can finally seep beneath his skin. He doesn’t need the scratch of Liam’s voice or the booming echoes through the acoustics of the rehearsal room.
You don’t need to scream. Harry thinks pointedly, crossing his arms protectively over his chest, trying harder than anything not to let the frays of Liam’s anger affect his own standing. I can feel everything you do, remember.
A surge of annoyance shoots across the room like a lightning bolt. Harry flinches, but his arms remained crossed, determined to remain the constant in this situation.
Don’t you think I’d like to yell, too? Liam backs off a little bit at that remark, but it may very well just be confusion. Harry bites the inside of his cheek, frustrated. Liam’s anger is wearing at the edge of his resolve and it looks so tempting to just give in and scream back at Liam and tell him what an idiot he’s being. The raw anger and passion would be refreshing, almost.
Liam’s rage swirls back to life, but now there’s an edge of desperation, and Harry completely shuts any idea of yelling back. He knows that won’t do any good, just the same way he knows that Liam needs a constant in the situation right now, needs something to focus on and understand and be able to center all of his energy on.
Listen to me, okay. Harry doesn’t speak. That’d be too easy. Liam needs to focus to hear him think, and Harry knows that all he needs right now is something to focus on. Focus right on me.
The tension in the room falters, like Harry’s hit a crack, and he digs at it, thinking steadily in the calmest tone his mind can handle. It’s alright, just focus on me, c’mon Liam, you know this.
The coming down bit is the worst, because Liam feels so much, feels so much with everything in him, and Harry’s not used to feeling that way, not used to giving it all and having it thrown about like a tornado. It hits him like an oncoming truck when Liam finally collapses in on himself, a small boy curled on the floor, wrecked with sobs.