Give Me Love
pairing Harry/Louis
rating: PG
word count: 3.2k
The wedding was lovely. Perfect, really.
At least that’s what all the guests told Louis afterward at the reception, endless faces blurring together as they congratulated him. “Wonderful ceremony,” “best of luck to you two,” “you make a beautiful couple.” Over. And over. And over.
Louis was in a bit of a daze as he thanked them, finding it difficult to remember the details of the wedding he had just taken part in.
There were Zayn, Niall, and Liam in their tuxedos, nudging each other and pointing out attractive female guests.
There was Stan, the best man, handing him the slim silver band right after the “I do’s”.
There were the flowers, pale pink roses and soft yellow daffodils placed in bunches artfully around the chapel.
There were his sisters, giggling and making faces at him, fidgeting in their uncomfortable dresses.
There was his mother, waving at him encouragingly with a smile that did not quite reach her eyes.
Then there was Eleanor, looking ethereal in a diaphanous ivory dress, smiling at him shyly as he lifted her veil.
But Louis couldn’t recall the vows, couldn’t picture the church, couldn’t remember the sensation of kissing his new bride. He supposed it was just nerves that left him so disoriented; the wedding planner had told them it was completely natural to be anxious.
He was pulled back to the present by the feeling of slim fingers grasping his arm, squeezing gently. Eleanor pulled him away from yet another guest he had been mindlessly thanking, flashing a dazzling smile to the third cousin or college roommate or whoever it was, apologizing for interrupting but Louis was needed elsewhere.
She drew him across the room, threading through the forest of tables and tipsy guests until they reached the open floor in front of the stage, where the band was playing an acoustic version of One Thing. Louis rolled his eyes. How delightfully cliche. Eleanor turned to face him, brown eyes full of trust and joy. For some reason, Louis’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. Nerves. It was just nerves.
The band stopped playing, and the singer took the mic, clearing his throat to catch the attention of the party. “And without further ado, here’s the first dance for Mr. and Mrs. Tomlinson.”
Louis froze. He had completely forgotten that he would be expected to dance. But as the chords of some unremarkable pop ballad began to waft over his head, Eleanor tugged his hands around her waist and began to lead him around the floor, rhythmically turning with the music.
“Do you like the song?” she whispered into his ear.
“What? Oh yeah, it’s lovely.” He had no idea what it was, but it was pretty enough and at least it was slow so he didn’t have to invest much effort into the dancing.
“It’s our song, remember? It was playing at the restaurant on our first date when we were sharing the cheesecake. You said it was almost as pretty as me and then we had our first kiss. You do remember, right?”
Ugh. Louis mentally retched; had he really pulled that line? Not his best work, that’s for sure. “Of course dear, of course. The Ivy. Of course I remember.” Louis smiled down at her placatingly, hoping she would buy the lie. She did.
Eventually the song changed and other couples entered the floor, swaying and weaving like ships on the sea.
Once six songs had gone by, Louis thought it was an acceptable time for him to withdraw to the buffet. Just as he was about to excuse himself from Eleanor’s surprisingly firm grasp, something caught his eye that made his heart stop.
No. It couldn’t be.
Just as soon as they had appeared, the chocolate curls vanished from sight, leaving Louis reeling.
Noticing the expression on his face, Eleanor cupped his cheeks and forced him to meet her eyes. “You alright, babe?”
“I…I just need some water,” he stammered, lurching out of her grasp and bolting out of the ballroom.
He reached the loo and locked the door, splashing cold water over his face. The icy rivulets streamed down his cheeks, sliding down the column of his shirt, staining his finely-pressed tuxedo. But he didn’t care.
It couldn’t be Harry. Louis hadn’t seen Harry, hadn’t even spoken to him since he up and left six months before.
It had been a long six months.
Louis stared daggers into his reflection, hating the way his skin was suddenly so pale and his eyes so wide. He smeared the water off of his face and forced himself to open the door and return to the party.
It wasn’t Harry. It was probably just one of Eleanor’s cousins. Plenty of them had wavy brown hair. This thought comforted Louis and added a spring to his gait as he retraced his steps back to the party.
By the time he returned to Eleanor’s side, he was chuckling to himself, drawing strange looks from the guests. How could he have been so ridiculous, jumping at shadows like that? It was pathetic, really.
Once again, Louis blamed it on nerves.
His minor breakdown went unnoticed by those in attendance, and the party continued smoothly as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Louis was sitting next to his bride at the main table, letting her steal sips of his wine as he good-naturedly begged Zayn not to say anything too embarrassing in the upcoming toasts.
He was leaning back in his chair, lazily swirling the wine around his glass while he watched Niall twirl Lottie dramatically about the dance floor, the girl nearly doubled over in laughter from her largely unsuccessful attempts to dodge the Irishman’s clumsy feet. All thoughts of the curly haired figure had slipped his mind, and he realized was actually enjoying himself.
But he could never repress those thoughts for long.
A new song began, and Louis bobbed his head absentmindedly along to the rhythm. Then the singer emitted the first note, and Louis’s whole world stopped.
Harry stood on the stage, handsome, assured, and somehow even taller than Louis remembered, grasping the microphone like it was something precious as he began to sing.
“Give me love like her
‘cause lately I’ve been waking up alone”
Louis wasn’t breathing, wasn’t thinking, wasn’t seeing; the only sensation he registered was his pulse, pounding out a steady chant of harryharryharryharry.
“Paint splattered teardrops on my cheek
Told you I’d let them go.
And that I’ll fight my corner
Maybe tonight I’ll call you
After my blood turns into alcohol
No, I just wanna hold ya”
With no recollection of making the decision to stand, Louis found himself staggering away from the table, shoving past unregistered bodies, failing to notice (or, at least, pretending not to notice) Eleanor calling after him, the concern apparent in her soft voice.
He found himself on the lawn of the estate, the grass still littered with chairs from the ceremony that should have happened there.
Eleanor had so desperately wanted to get married outside.
Pity the forecast called for rain.
Fresh air, fresh air, that’s all he needed. But Louis could still hear Harry’s voice through the open doors, swelling to the climax of the song, ripping through Louis’s skin with every repetition of the line.
“Oh my my, oh my my, oh my my
Give me love, lover”
Drops began to fall on Louis’s tailor-made white shirt, dappling the fabric and raising goosebumps on his flesh. He didn’t notice. Louis was waiting. For what, he didn’t know.
His hair had begun to stick to his face and Eleanor was bound to be worrying by now. The breeze pierced through his soaked shirt and he was risking pneumonia. But Louis was waiting.
He felt, rather than heard, the approach of a figure behind him. Louis was still waiting.
The footsteps stopped no more than two meters away, and suddenly, he realized he could feel the sensation of each individual raindrop running over his flesh.
“Hey, Lou,” a husky voice murmured.
And that’s when Louis began to shiver.
~
The silence dragged on, thickening the damp air and wrapping itself around the tense throats of the two figures huddled in the storm.
Harry felt helpless as he watched the boy in front of him. It was all he could do not to reach out and brush the raindrops off the tanned neck, to pull the trembling body into his arms and shield him from the cold. But that would be impossible. Louis wasn’t his to hold.
Not anymore.
Before that thought could consume him, ruin him like it had the time before, he forced himself to speak.
“Eleanor looks beautiful,” he whispered, so softly that for a moment he feared that Louis had not heard him. But the smaller boy emitted a choked gasp, the first noise he had made since he left the reception.
Louis didn’t reply to Harry’s comment, keeping his back to the intruder.
“Why are you here?” he inquired brusquely, cadence rough with suppressed emotion.
Something in Harry’s chest tightened upon hearing the voice, the achingly familiar sound that had eluded him these past few months.
Harry shoved his hands into his pockets in an attempt to quell their nervous fidgeting. “What, can’t a guy come to his best mate’s wedding?”
Louis winced at the sharp bite of pain as nails dug into his palm. “But that’s not the reason you came.”
It was a statement of fact, but Harry answered anyway.
“No.”
The other boy visibly tensed while Harry’s gaze raked over his form, taking in the undone bowtie, fitted jacket, lingering on the glittering silver band on his left hand. Harry’s own hands clenched at the sight.
Green eyes lifted slowly to meet Louis’s own once again. “You know why I’m here, Lou. Please don’t pretend that you don’t know, I’m too tired for that.”
Louis was clearly trying to stay calm but his words came out like knives, dripping with bitterness and hurt. “Really, Harry? Well, I haven’t seen you in half a year, you may just have to refresh my memory.”
“Fine,” Harry shrugged in defeat. “Six months ago, I told you I was in love with you. I said that you were all I wanted, all I ever would want, and that I would love you ‘til the day I died. And then you told me that I was too young to be sure of that. You said that I’d barely lived, barely seen the world, and that you couldn’t bear the thought of being the one to hold me back from all those things.” He flickered up to the older male’s face, taking in the tight lips and dilated pupils. Taking a breath, he continued, “And so I left. I got on a plane, I traveled, I experienced the most amazing things I couldn’t even have dreamt of. Ever seen the sunset falling behind Mount Kilimanjaro? Because I have. Did you know that the nightlife in Tokyo is simply unparalleled? Because it is. It was incredible, Lou. I could have kept going forever.”
“And?” Louis’s question was nothing more than an exhalation of quiet air, but Harry heard it. Of course he heard it, he could have picked up that voice from across an ocean; it was the voice he had been yearning for all this time, the sound that haunted him every time he fell to dreams.
“And so I’m here now. I came back. Because even when I was waking up in a houseboat on Sydney Harbor with the most spectacular view you’ve ever seen, all I wanted was you to be there to share it with me. I’d rather wake up beside you every morning and make you tea with no sugar and just a splash of milk, even if it meant never leaving our flat for the next sixty years.” Harry reached out to the other boy, pleading to be understood. “None of it means anything, Lou, not without you.”
The groom’s features contorted into some unpleasant emotion, and it hurt Harry just knowing that Louis was suffering. But what pained Harry even more was that Louis made no move to close the gap between their fingertips; the Cheshire boy let his hand fall back to his side listlessly and scraped abstract patterns into the wet grass with the toe of his shoe.
Much to his surprise, Louis began to speak, softly at first, but with growing conviction. “I called you, you know. I called you at least five times a day for the first few weeks. Even after Zayn told me you didn’t want to be found. But eventually I stopped calling, because I can only handle so much rejection.” Harry opened his mouth to object, but Louis threw up an arm to silence him.
“No, you know what Harry? Don’t try to pin this on me. How was I supposed to know that you would do something so daft as to run off without so much as a fucking note? Do you know what that seemed like to me?” His breath hitched and his voice dropped an octave. “I thought that I had been right. That you weren’t ready for commitment, and you realized you didn’t-you didn’t want me.”
Harry felt something in his chest shatter at the confession, and before he could stop himself he was wrapping his long arms around the smaller boy’s cold torso, whispering comfort and stroking the pain away.
His arms were full of Louis, all Louis, and it was just like the time apart had never happened, except now Louis was crying and Louis never cries. Harry thought back to the only time his friend had ever cried; it had been two years ago when Lottie had gotten into the accident. Harry had held him close, pressing kisses into his head until the tears dried and his breaths evened and Louis was Louis again.
And that’s what Harry did now, cradling the boy impossibly closer, physically holding him together. The Cheshire boy noted in the back of his mind that he had grown to the point where he could rest his chin on Louis’s head, and the thought tugged morosely on his heartstrings. It had been too long.
“I never wanted you to leave,” Louis breathed into his shirt, sending tendrils of fire into Harry’s skin that cut through the evening chill.
“But it’s too late, Haz, I’m married now, I love her,” he babbled even as he burrowed deeper into Harry’s warmth. “I’m happy.”
But his voice cracked on the last word, and Harry’s heart lurched.
“We both know that’s a lie, Louis,” he said and cupped the older boy’s tearstained cheeks, angling Louis’s face upward. Harry tried to read the emotion churning behind the cerulean irises, but the proximity was too much for him to bear and suddenly his resistance was crumbling all around him.
Louis’s mouth felt like home, from the way he gasped when Harry kissed him to the way he melted into the embrace. Even his body felt the same when Harry rucked up his tuxedo jacket to slide the pads of his fingers over the tanned flesh underneath. The younger boy felt his pulse stutter in his throat at the sensation of Louis’s muscles jumping beneath his touch. And Louis was returning the gesture with a passion, tugging Harry’s hips flush against his own and sucking on the other boy’s bottom lip until it was bruised blood red.
Everything was Louis and Harry didn’t know anything except the taut body and the sweet wine-flavoured mouth that was moving against his own. Never mind that rain was sheeting through his clothes and the lights from the ballroom were hardly visible through the torrential downpour, because Louis was here and Louis was his and Louis would keep him warm.
Harry tore himself away from the kiss at last, moving to the other boy’s throat to sign his ownership in purple lovebites. “Come with me,” he panted, nipping against the stubbled jawline. “We can go now, get on a plane, go anywhere, just you and me.”
The tendons under his teeth tensed, and then Louis was pulling away, shaking his head as if to block an unpleasant sound, showering an already-soaked Harry with crystalline droplets. The spell was broken.
“No, Harry, I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry, I shouldn’t have done this, I should go back inside, El will be wondering where I am, but stay for awhile, the boys will be dy-” his babbling was cut off by a large palm.
”Stop, Louis, just stop. This isn’t about sorry, this isn’t about should.” Harry was pleading now, removing his hand from Louis’s mouth and raising it to brush adoringly against the delicate cheekbones. “This is about you, no one else. Don’t you dare think about me, or Eleanor, or the boys. What do you want?”
Louis just mouthed silently, eyes locked to the green that bore into him.
Voice dropping to a whisper, Harry presses his thumbs to Louis’s temple, gently, gently. “Look me in the eye and tell me you aren’t in love with me, because I sure as hell can’t do the same to you. Say it and I’ll let you go right now, I’ll never bother you again. But only if you say it.”
“I-I-I ca-Harry,” Louis stammered, begging for something, but neither of them knew quite what. He wrenched himself from Harry’s grasp, stumbling backwards over the slippery grass toward the door of the ballroom. Toward stability, toward ease, toward assurance.
“I have to go,” he blurted, and bolted back to the grand doors.
Harry watched the retreating figure fading rapidly through the grey blur of the rain. It was over.
When Louis left, he took Harry’s heart with him.
The boy didn’t move. His curls dripped down his cheeks and his clothes were a sheath of ice against his skin, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to walk away; there was nowhere to go.
Emptyemptyempty the wind sighed into his ear. Gonegonegonenothingnothingnothing.
Harry stared blankly at the light emanating from the ballroom, not caring that the chill had settled itself deep into his bones. Louis was gone. His lungs was being crushed, slowly and surely, and Harry thought that maybe he would let it happen, just let himself suffocate out on the rain soaked lawn. Louis was gone, and there was nothing left, just cold and dark and a void where his heart used to be, and he was slipping into it, too hollow to save himself…
The screech of tires cut through the air, ripping through Harry’s reverie. He spun on his axis and shielded his eyes from the headlights that pointed right at him.
Like a moth to a flame, his feet carried him toward the light until he was standing by the passenger seat window, watching blankly as it was rolled down.
“Get in the car.”
And then he was sitting next to Louis and Louis was smiling at him nervously and there was something burning in those blue eyes, the same fire and ra need that shone behind Harry’s. Louis pushed his foot onto the gas, accelerating away from the lawn and the crowds and the expectations, and slipped his fingers through the hands of the person didn’t expect anything, only wanted to give.
Harry met Louis’s grin, the corners of his own mouth tugging painfully at his cheeks. There was a word for the sensation filling him up, threatening to burst his very seams and swallow up the both of them in heat and hope and make them whole.
Love.