fic: by mistake or design
by mistake or design
nc17 ~4000 words.
liam/louis, liam/louis/liam
time travel / doppelganger written for the liam/louis ficathon
“But, like, where did he come from, shit,” Liam says, dragging a hand over his face and pacing in the cramped space of the bathroom.
The younger version of himself shrugs, glancing back and forth between Liam and Louis, looking just as confused as Liam feels, and scared on top of it. Terrified, actually. “I don’t know,” the younger Liam says, barely above a whisper. “I was just... here? All of a sudden?”
“Just, don’t, okay, just please don’t talk,” Liam snaps, because he can’t deal with this, doesn’t have the first clue how to even begin dealing with this, and hearing a version of himself from two years ago try to explain why he’s just turned up in his hotel room makes him want to throw up a little.
His younger version whimpers a little, and curls his shoulders in further where he’s sitting on the counter, like he’s trying to disappear.
“Hey, shh, it’s okay,” says Louis, petting gently at young Liam’s neck. “Be nice,” he says, directing it across the room at Liam. “He’s just -- you’re just -- he’s scared.” He turns back to young Liam. “So’s he. Er. You. You’re both just scared, yeah?”
“Well it’s fucking weird,” Liam says, again harsher than he means to. “He can’t just turn up like this, it doesn’t, it doesn’t work like that and it’s not allowed and -- and --” He can feel his voice starting to go hysteric, which makes sense, because he feels even more hysterical than he sounds right now, and he sounds absolutely unhinged. But Liam is a person who values order, alright, and this... this whatever it is, this temporal rift or isolated case of time travel or very realistic hallucination, is entirely out of order. He had only been trying to go back to his bed after waking up in the night for a piss, and had been greeted with the frankly horrifying sight of his own self, only younger, already there, knees pulled up to his chin and too-long hair poking out from under his hoodie.
“Shit,” he’d said weakly, and stumbled backwards out of the bedroom and into the living room of the shared hotel suite. He’d stood there, breathing heavily and staring at the door to his bedroom where he’d pulled it shut behind him for a moment, feeling confusion and dread set heavily in his stomach, before scrambling into Louis’ adjoining room and shaking him awake.
He had tried to babble an explanation but it was completely incoherent, and finally settled for pulling Louis bodily out of bed and shoving him towards his closed bedroom door. Louis had looked back at him dubiously, and then shouldered through. The room was empty.
“Oh, fuck, shit,” he’d muttered, and Louis had absolutely stared at him, unused to hearing Liam swear so casually. “He was right here, I swear,” Liam had said, and threw himself down on the mussed up covers, while Louis crossed cautiously to the closed door of the bathroom and toed it open.
“Good Christ,” he’d heard Louis say weakly, and all Liam’s hope that it had been a very realistic dream withered, and he’d forced himself to cross the room and stare at his double, curled up in the bathtub and trying to disappear, and here they all were now, unbelievably.
“Okay, okay,” he says, flexing his fingers and turning to face his younger self. “Okay. We have to figure out how you got here, so we can get you back.”
“But, I mean, I don’t have any idea...” young Liam trails off.
“Well, think, I mean, obviously you’ve done something to get yourself here.”
“Liam,” Louis says warningly. “He didn’t do anything. He’s just as confused as we are.”
“Could you at least pretend to find this as disturbing as you ought to?” Liam asks, willing his voice to be calmer. Louis just shrugs, and the three of them are silent, looking back and forth between each other.
“Alright, fine,” Liam says eventually. “Can we just -- can we just try to deal with this someplace other than the toilet?”
- -
“Here,” Louis says, still in that gentle voice, pulling a pair of sweatpants and an old holey t-shirt that’s gone loose at the collar from Liam’s suitcase and handing them to young Liam. “You can get changed and we can try to sleep, alright? It’s gonna be fine, we’ll figure it out in the morning.”
Young Liam nods, still looking like he’s close to crying or vomiting or both, but he turns towards the opposite wall, glancing back over his shoulder at Louis and Liam hesitantly before moving to unzip his hoodie.
“C’mere” Louis says, pulling Liam into the living room of the suite by his wrist.
“Er, alright,” Liam says, letting himself be dragged.
The door shuts behind them and Louis turns towards Liam. “You have to calm down,” Louis says, now holding both of Liam’s wrists loosely between the two of them. “You’re terrifying him, and he’s already terrified.”
“He’s terrified?” Liam splutters. “I’m terrified! With good reason, Lou, God! This is -- this --”
“Is fucking bizarre, I know,” Louis says slowly, calmly. “Trust me, I’m just as gobsmacked as you are, alright? But, like, he’s young and panicking and we’re not going to help anything if we give him a heart attack, yeah? So just. Shut up a bit?”
Liam breaths, once, tries to steady himself. “How do we fix this?” he asks.
“I don’t know. But we will. This is fixable.”
“How do you know?” Liam asks, unsure, and he feels all his frustration melting away to a cold, tight fear in his chest.
“It happened,” Louis says, measured and reasonable as he leans in and drops his forehead to touch Liam’s. “So it can un-happen. Don’t worry.”
As far as plans go, it’s crap, and it shouldn’t reassure Liam as much as it does, but his stomach settles a little. Louis leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then the tip of his nose, then softly square on Liam’s lips, and the band of panic in Liam’s chest loosens.
When they return to the bedroom, young Liam is curled under the duvet on the bed nearest the door, blankets pulled up over his head.
“Hey,” Louis says, crossing over to sit next to him. Young Liam sits up and the blankets fall to his lap, and Louis pulls him close to his chest. “Alright?”
“M’okay,” young Liam murmurs, glancing over at Liam before returning his stare to Louis.
“D’you reckon you can sleep?” asks Louis. “Not much to be done for this all tonight, I figure, and it’s late.”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” young Liam agrees.
“Mm, alright. I’ll stay here with you, yeah?” Louis asks, reaching over to flick off the bedside lamp so the room goes dark. Liam hears the rustle of young Liam nodding. He gropes across the dark room and settles down into the far bed, pulling back the carefully made sheets and adjusting his basketball short, and tries to breathe evenly, to coax himself back to sleep, although he’s sure it’s a losing battle. He tosses a few times and settles facing away from the other two boys.
“I’m sorry I’m here,” he hears young Liam say after a moment. His voice wavers. “I’m -- he’s -- I know he’s not happy about it. I didn’t mean to do it.” The words hit Liam like they’re solid, and he feels immediately sorry for how he’s been acting towards the boy -- towards himself -- since he turned up.
“It’s alright,” Louis whispers, low and gentle like he’s trying not to spook the younger boy. “I know he seems upset, but he’s just confused, and worried, yeah? He just wants to set this right.” There’s a quiet movement of fabric, and young Liam sniffs precariously, like he’s on the edge of tears, or has just stopped them. “I mean, so am I, me too, but it’ll be okay,” Louis continues. “It’ll get sorted.” He sounds entirely confident, somehow, like returning temporally-displaced boys is a hobby of his.
Liam turns over in his bed, facing the other two in the dark, squinting his eyes into the darkness. He can only just make out their shapes, and he sits up, resolutely, and flicks the bedside light back on.
Louis and young Liam blink over at him.
“Well, we’re kidding ourselves if we think anyone’s actually going to sleep,” he reasons. He sits helplessly for a moment and then reaches over to the remote and flicks the flatscreen on. “Telly?”
- -
They sit, mostly silent, watching whatever channel Liam idles on and moving on when his attention drifts. Louis and young Liam are propped up against their headboard, and Liam leans against the wall of pillows he’s built up on his own bed.
“Two Liams,” Louis says from where he’s draped himself around young Liam’s shoulders. “A bloke could do a lot worse, I’ll admit.” He peers at young Liam, looking for a smile, like he’s checking to make sure that he’s okay, that’s he’s not freaking out too much. Liam is torn between wanting to have a small tantrum because Louis isn’t concerned with how he’s reacting to all this (although he is, technically, and the circuitry of it makes Liam’s head swim and he forces down a hysteric burst of laughter he can feel bubbling over), and a fondness for the careful way Louis looks after the boy who is obviously panicking a little. It’s always been like this, too, he thinks, feeling warm at the back of his neck. Louis has always taken care of everyone, of him especially, even when it’s in strange, Louis-ish ways.
“At least we got the model who’s stopped straightening his hair,” Louis teases, coiling a long curl of young Liam’s hair around his finger. “That was dreadful. But I always did like it long like this.”
Liam sees his younger version blush hard, and squirm a little under Louis’ affection, and his stomach twists a little. Two years ago, he knows, he was suffering from an absolutely paralyzing crush on Louis, absolutely positive that it wasn’t reciprocated, that it was something dangerous and wrong, and he’d been terminally unsure how to react to Louis’ handsiness and easy affection for everyone. And Louis still makes his stomach squirm sometimes, now, but it’s different. He’s not sure if he’s like, allowed to tell his past self anything about the future, unsure of what the rules and etiquette here are, but he wants to gather his younger self up and assure him that it’s not always going to be like that, at least that he doesn’t have to be so tense at Louis’ proximity.
“You look different,” says young Liam tentatively. “Both -- both of you.”
“I look better. Aging like a fine wine, I am,” Louis declares, and pulls young Liam even closer, pressing his face into his chest.
“For Christ’s sake, Lou, don’t smother him, let him breath” Liam says, and offers what he hopes is a reassuring smile at himself. “I think if he suffocates to death, I probably do too.”
Louis gasps in mock horror, but young Liam pales a shade, and Liam regrets saying it. “Hey, no, it was a joke,” he says, trying to sound calming and soft like Louis. He climbs across the gap between the two beds and settles next to his younger self, awkwardly setting a hand on young Liam’s shoulder that he hopes is grounding, but that probably just comes off as unsure. But young Liam leans into Liam’s touch immediately, pressing his nose into the crease of Liam’s neck and breathing shakily.
On young Liam’s opposite side, Louis peers over at Liam, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.
“I’m sorry,” young Liam moans into Liam’s collar forlornly. Liam strokes the nape of his neck, not sure what to do, and feeling uneasy about having his younger version clutched in his arms.
“It’ll be okay,” says Louis, directing this at young Liam but still holding Liam’s gaze. Young Liam just moans morosely at this, and an expression of helplessness flickers on Louis face, just for a second. Then Louis leans around young Liam, still buried in Liam’s neck, and kisses Liam. Liam expects Louis to pull away after a moment but he doesn’t, coaxing Liam’s mouth open, and Liam whines low despite himself.
Young Liam looks up at this. “Oh. Oh,” he says, looking carefully at Liam’s lips as Louis finally pulls away. “This -- you --” He falters, and Liam doesn’t know what else to do, so he pulls slightly away from Louis and carefully presses his lips against young Liam’s, just quick and soft. He backs off, doesn’t want to freak himself out, and kisses Louis again because he can’t think of the right thing to do next.
Louis leans into the kiss, parts his lips and licks into Liam’s mouth, and Liam can feel his pulse jump when Louis’ hand snakes around his waist, pulling him in closer. Young Liam moves to shift away from them, but Louis reaches out his free hand and stops him, pulling him back to settle between Louis and Liam’s bodies. “Stay,” he says, low in his throat. “Stay there, okay?” He pulls away from Liam and kisses young Liam lightly.
One of Liam’s hand snakes around to curl on young Liam’s stomach where his shirt has ridden up, and it’s strange how familiar and different the planes of his stomach feel. He’s narrower, less defined, and his skin jumps under the touch. Louis kisses young Liam again, harder, and young Liam makes a noise that catches in his throat. Liam watches his hips shift helplessly as Louis pushes young Liam further down onto the mattress, entranced by the soft noises the two of them are making.
“Is this -- is this okay?” Liam asks his younger self when Louis pulls away, and he feels the surreality of the situation wash over him again. He thinks he knows the answer, thinks that if he remembers how he felt two years ago that he would have done absolutely anything to get to touch Louis like this, regardless of the (admittedly very strange) circumstances. Still, he digs the pad of his thumb into young Liam’s waist, hoping he knows that he can say no if he wants, it’s okay if this is too much.
“Yes, god, yes,” young Liam groans. He wriggles underneath Liam’s palm, and Louis shifts next to them, trying to press closer. “Just -- touch me, yeah?” His cheeks flame at the words, but he gets them out without stuttering, and Liam is almost surprised at his own boldness.
“Of course, love,” Louis croons, and he pushes young Liam’s shirt up, bunching it under his armpits while he moves around to get enough leverage to pull it entirely off. Liam pulls his own shirt off in turn, feeling the artificial chill of the room, and reaches across young Liam to pluck at Louis’ hem, encouraging him to do the same. Louis does, smiling and holding Liam’s gaze, and presses younger Liam flat on his back between the two of them. Louis shifts to kiss young Liam’s neck, pulling a gasp out of the boy.
“God, two of you,” Louis sighs softly into young Liam’s neck, dragging a thumb over the boy’s jawline, his lower lip. The young boy is writhing under the touch, and Liam tries to steady him, runs his hands up his narrow ribs soothingly. “You’ll both be the death of me,” Louis continues, and slowly moves his hands down to press against the bulge at the front of young Liam’s sweatpants. Young Liam whimpers, and Liam stifles the desire to do the same.
It’s just, the sight of Louis, touching -- not him, but it is him -- like that, it’s confusing and makes Liam feel like he’s lost his footing entirely. He’s impossibly hard before he even realizes it.
“Let me -- let me suck you,” Louis says, trailing down young Liam’s chest and tugging gently at his waistband. “Is that okay? Can I do that for you?”
Young Liam makes a sound like he’s choking, but then says “Yes, Jesus, of course,” and Louis stops to look at Liam, like he’s asking his permission too, before he hooks his fingers under young Liam’s waistband and pulls down.
His cock comes free, hard and flushed, and it makes Liam ache even more, sympathetically. Louis is kissing down young Liam’s chest now, going slow and drawing these breathy moans out of young Liam like he might be dying, trailing his hands in the crease of the boy’s hips and flitting along his thighs.
When he first wraps his lips around young Liam’s cock, he groans and bucks his hips. Liam thinks that this must be the first time young Liam has been sucked off by another bloke, and remembers how he felt like he was shattering into a million pieces the first time Louis blew him, and hums in a mix of sympathy and envy.
Louis pulls back for a moment, and says softly to Liam, “You should kiss him,” so Liam does. He leans down and presses his lips against young Liam’s, biting and sucking, pressing his tongue against the boy’s.
Kissing his younger self like this, it’s unlike anything Liam could ever imagine, the sweetest thing and the filthiest thing he’s ever felt all at once. He wants to wrap his arms around young Liam and pin him down while Louis fucks him, wants to pet his hair and suck his cock, wants to do everything he can think of to his younger self, wants to make him come and gasp and melt, boneless and spent and happy.
He only stops to look down at Louis, whose nose is pressed against young Liam’s stomach, cheeks hollowed, and young Liam is gasping and pressing his hips and Liam knows he’s about to come. Liam reaches to shove down his own basketball shorts and strokes his cock, feeling like the sight of Louis sucking the other boy is about to totally undo him.
Young Liam goes silent when he comes, eyes squeezed shut and lips moving noiselessly. “Fuck,” Liam breaths, and bites down a little harder than he means to at the soft skin below the boy’s ear.
Louis pulls off and moves closer to them, licking his lips obscenely, and bites at young Liam. Liam’s hand moves faster on his dick, and he whines low in his throat, which gets Louis’ attention.
“Don’t, don’t come yet, let me,” Louis whispers, reaching for Liam and pressing his hand away. He fumbles for a moment in the bedside stand and pulls out Liam’s lube, and Liam falls back, lets his head hit the pillow. He shuts his eyes and feels Louis pushing his legs apart.
“Here,” he hears Louis say to young Liam. “Help me, alright? Just... hold his legs like that, yeah?”
Young Liam breathes in shakily and then Liam feels his fingers curl around his knees, pressing them up and back, spreading him out on display. “Jesus,” Liam breathes out.
And then Louis’ fingers are pressing into him, one and then two, slick and hot and perfect. Liam feels Louis working him open in all directions and he forces his eyes open to look down at the two of them, Louis kneeling between his legs and young Liam next to him, looking awestruck and gazing at the spot where Louis’ fingers are disappearing into Liam. It’s almost too much, but not enough, and he presses back on Louis’ fingers.
“You should--” Louis starts, and then Liam feels young Liam’s finger trail tentatively up his thigh, and press slowly in alongside Louis’. Liam gasps, grinds down. He is going to explode, his heart is going to stop, he knows it. “You like this?” Louis asks quietly. “You like feelings us both at once?”
Liam jerks out a nod and closes his eyes again. When they pull out he feels empty, hears himself say “please, come on,” without meaning to, but then Louis is there, cock pressing in slowly, and Liam has to bite down a sob of pleasure, has to look.
“God, Liam,” Louis whispers, and then, with a hint of laughter in his voice, correct, “Liams.” Liam sees Louis pull young Liam in for a kiss, somehow not losing his balance as he pulls he younger boy in close and thrusts all the way into Liam at once. Liam spares a thought to wonder when Louis suddenly became so coordinated, but either way, he’s not complaining now.
Young Liam and Louis pull apart and Louis starts thrusting into him in earnest, pressing his lips against Liam’s hard. Young Liam lays down next to him and reaches for Liam’s cock, jerks him in an eerily familiar way, and Liam tries not to laugh because it’s not funny, it’s not, it’s possibly the best thing he’s ever felt but it’s also so surreal. It’s too much, between watching Louis blow his younger self and the feel of Louis’ cock hitting his prostate now and the noises they’re all three making, he’s going to come, he knows it, thinks he might never stop coming, and when Louis digs a thumbnail into his hip Liam’s hips jerk and he sees silver, spilling over young Liam’s hand, white-hot and breathless.
Louis fucks into him deeper a few more times and then groans, spilling deep, filling Liam up the way he loves it. Louis collapses with an “oomph” on top of both the boys. “Christ,” he says, and then a moment later, “Really, Christ.”
They lay like that for a while until they’re all cold and sticky, a pile of too-familiar limbs and hair tangling together. Liam feels lips on his collar bone and isn’t sure who they belong too, but for once, he’ can’t find it in himself to worry about it.
- -
When Louis gets up to go to the bathroom, young Liam slides into Liam’s side, wrapping an arm around his waist and nuzzling close.
“You love him,” young Liam says, barely audible from where his face is pressed into Liam’s neck.
“So do you,” says Liam, and he feels another surge of pity for the boy. He knows all too well how sick he was over Louis, especially at the beginning when everything was so precarious and uncertain and earth-shatteringly important.
“So you two... do this?” young Liam asks, hopeful and unsure. Liam just nods, doesn’t care if he’s maybe revealing too much about the future. The rules of time travel or whatever can get fucked, in his current opinion, he’s tired and confused and still feels his orgasm tingling in his toes, and he just could not be less arsed about it if he tried.
“Are you, like... together?” young Liam continues slowly.
“No,” Liam admits. “I mean, it’s not like... he’s not like my boyfriend or something, but.” He struggles to put this thing between him and Louis into words anyway, and this is even harder. “He’s Louis. He’s my Louis. It’s different. It’s... better.”
“And you’re happy?”
“Yeah,” Liam says definitively. “Absolutely. And so are you, right, even with... everything you feel right now, you know, with Louis.”
Young Liam nods, smiling. “I am, I know,” he admits. “It’s just. I feel like I’m about to be consumed by it sometimes, y’know?”
“I know,” Liam says, and leans down to press a kiss at his younger self’s temple. Young Liam tilts his head up, meets Liam’s lips and kisses softly, doesn’t pull back.
“No fair, boys, you’re meant to wait for me,” Louis says from the doorway to the bathroom. There’s something unusually soft in his voice, though, and Liam glances up to catch his eye. The look on Louis’ face makes his breath catch in his throat a bit, and Liam wonders how much he heard.
“Come on, then, you great diva,” Liam replies, just as fondly. “Plenty of room.”
Louis bounds across the room and snuggles in next to young Liam, trailing his fingers over both their necks simultaneously, and they breathe quietly together for the next few moments.
“D’you really think I’ll get back?” young Liam asks softly from where he’s wedged between the two boys.
“Yes,” says Louis firmly.
“If Louis says so, then yeah,” Liam agrees. “Couldn’t say how, but we’ll... we’ll figure it out. It’ll be fine.”
The thing is, that time, he believes it.
nc17 ~4000 words.
liam/louis, liam/louis/liam
time travel / doppelganger written for the liam/louis ficathon
“But, like, where did he come from, shit,” Liam says, dragging a hand over his face and pacing in the cramped space of the bathroom.
The younger version of himself shrugs, glancing back and forth between Liam and Louis, looking just as confused as Liam feels, and scared on top of it. Terrified, actually. “I don’t know,” the younger Liam says, barely above a whisper. “I was just... here? All of a sudden?”
“Just, don’t, okay, just please don’t talk,” Liam snaps, because he can’t deal with this, doesn’t have the first clue how to even begin dealing with this, and hearing a version of himself from two years ago try to explain why he’s just turned up in his hotel room makes him want to throw up a little.
His younger version whimpers a little, and curls his shoulders in further where he’s sitting on the counter, like he’s trying to disappear.
“Hey, shh, it’s okay,” says Louis, petting gently at young Liam’s neck. “Be nice,” he says, directing it across the room at Liam. “He’s just -- you’re just -- he’s scared.” He turns back to young Liam. “So’s he. Er. You. You’re both just scared, yeah?”
“Well it’s fucking weird,” Liam says, again harsher than he means to. “He can’t just turn up like this, it doesn’t, it doesn’t work like that and it’s not allowed and -- and --” He can feel his voice starting to go hysteric, which makes sense, because he feels even more hysterical than he sounds right now, and he sounds absolutely unhinged. But Liam is a person who values order, alright, and this... this whatever it is, this temporal rift or isolated case of time travel or very realistic hallucination, is entirely out of order. He had only been trying to go back to his bed after waking up in the night for a piss, and had been greeted with the frankly horrifying sight of his own self, only younger, already there, knees pulled up to his chin and too-long hair poking out from under his hoodie.
“Shit,” he’d said weakly, and stumbled backwards out of the bedroom and into the living room of the shared hotel suite. He’d stood there, breathing heavily and staring at the door to his bedroom where he’d pulled it shut behind him for a moment, feeling confusion and dread set heavily in his stomach, before scrambling into Louis’ adjoining room and shaking him awake.
He had tried to babble an explanation but it was completely incoherent, and finally settled for pulling Louis bodily out of bed and shoving him towards his closed bedroom door. Louis had looked back at him dubiously, and then shouldered through. The room was empty.
“Oh, fuck, shit,” he’d muttered, and Louis had absolutely stared at him, unused to hearing Liam swear so casually. “He was right here, I swear,” Liam had said, and threw himself down on the mussed up covers, while Louis crossed cautiously to the closed door of the bathroom and toed it open.
“Good Christ,” he’d heard Louis say weakly, and all Liam’s hope that it had been a very realistic dream withered, and he’d forced himself to cross the room and stare at his double, curled up in the bathtub and trying to disappear, and here they all were now, unbelievably.
“Okay, okay,” he says, flexing his fingers and turning to face his younger self. “Okay. We have to figure out how you got here, so we can get you back.”
“But, I mean, I don’t have any idea...” young Liam trails off.
“Well, think, I mean, obviously you’ve done something to get yourself here.”
“Liam,” Louis says warningly. “He didn’t do anything. He’s just as confused as we are.”
“Could you at least pretend to find this as disturbing as you ought to?” Liam asks, willing his voice to be calmer. Louis just shrugs, and the three of them are silent, looking back and forth between each other.
“Alright, fine,” Liam says eventually. “Can we just -- can we just try to deal with this someplace other than the toilet?”
- -
“Here,” Louis says, still in that gentle voice, pulling a pair of sweatpants and an old holey t-shirt that’s gone loose at the collar from Liam’s suitcase and handing them to young Liam. “You can get changed and we can try to sleep, alright? It’s gonna be fine, we’ll figure it out in the morning.”
Young Liam nods, still looking like he’s close to crying or vomiting or both, but he turns towards the opposite wall, glancing back over his shoulder at Louis and Liam hesitantly before moving to unzip his hoodie.
“C’mere” Louis says, pulling Liam into the living room of the suite by his wrist.
“Er, alright,” Liam says, letting himself be dragged.
The door shuts behind them and Louis turns towards Liam. “You have to calm down,” Louis says, now holding both of Liam’s wrists loosely between the two of them. “You’re terrifying him, and he’s already terrified.”
“He’s terrified?” Liam splutters. “I’m terrified! With good reason, Lou, God! This is -- this --”
“Is fucking bizarre, I know,” Louis says slowly, calmly. “Trust me, I’m just as gobsmacked as you are, alright? But, like, he’s young and panicking and we’re not going to help anything if we give him a heart attack, yeah? So just. Shut up a bit?”
Liam breaths, once, tries to steady himself. “How do we fix this?” he asks.
“I don’t know. But we will. This is fixable.”
“How do you know?” Liam asks, unsure, and he feels all his frustration melting away to a cold, tight fear in his chest.
“It happened,” Louis says, measured and reasonable as he leans in and drops his forehead to touch Liam’s. “So it can un-happen. Don’t worry.”
As far as plans go, it’s crap, and it shouldn’t reassure Liam as much as it does, but his stomach settles a little. Louis leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then the tip of his nose, then softly square on Liam’s lips, and the band of panic in Liam’s chest loosens.
When they return to the bedroom, young Liam is curled under the duvet on the bed nearest the door, blankets pulled up over his head.
“Hey,” Louis says, crossing over to sit next to him. Young Liam sits up and the blankets fall to his lap, and Louis pulls him close to his chest. “Alright?”
“M’okay,” young Liam murmurs, glancing over at Liam before returning his stare to Louis.
“D’you reckon you can sleep?” asks Louis. “Not much to be done for this all tonight, I figure, and it’s late.”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” young Liam agrees.
“Mm, alright. I’ll stay here with you, yeah?” Louis asks, reaching over to flick off the bedside lamp so the room goes dark. Liam hears the rustle of young Liam nodding. He gropes across the dark room and settles down into the far bed, pulling back the carefully made sheets and adjusting his basketball short, and tries to breathe evenly, to coax himself back to sleep, although he’s sure it’s a losing battle. He tosses a few times and settles facing away from the other two boys.
“I’m sorry I’m here,” he hears young Liam say after a moment. His voice wavers. “I’m -- he’s -- I know he’s not happy about it. I didn’t mean to do it.” The words hit Liam like they’re solid, and he feels immediately sorry for how he’s been acting towards the boy -- towards himself -- since he turned up.
“It’s alright,” Louis whispers, low and gentle like he’s trying not to spook the younger boy. “I know he seems upset, but he’s just confused, and worried, yeah? He just wants to set this right.” There’s a quiet movement of fabric, and young Liam sniffs precariously, like he’s on the edge of tears, or has just stopped them. “I mean, so am I, me too, but it’ll be okay,” Louis continues. “It’ll get sorted.” He sounds entirely confident, somehow, like returning temporally-displaced boys is a hobby of his.
Liam turns over in his bed, facing the other two in the dark, squinting his eyes into the darkness. He can only just make out their shapes, and he sits up, resolutely, and flicks the bedside light back on.
Louis and young Liam blink over at him.
“Well, we’re kidding ourselves if we think anyone’s actually going to sleep,” he reasons. He sits helplessly for a moment and then reaches over to the remote and flicks the flatscreen on. “Telly?”
- -
They sit, mostly silent, watching whatever channel Liam idles on and moving on when his attention drifts. Louis and young Liam are propped up against their headboard, and Liam leans against the wall of pillows he’s built up on his own bed.
“Two Liams,” Louis says from where he’s draped himself around young Liam’s shoulders. “A bloke could do a lot worse, I’ll admit.” He peers at young Liam, looking for a smile, like he’s checking to make sure that he’s okay, that’s he’s not freaking out too much. Liam is torn between wanting to have a small tantrum because Louis isn’t concerned with how he’s reacting to all this (although he is, technically, and the circuitry of it makes Liam’s head swim and he forces down a hysteric burst of laughter he can feel bubbling over), and a fondness for the careful way Louis looks after the boy who is obviously panicking a little. It’s always been like this, too, he thinks, feeling warm at the back of his neck. Louis has always taken care of everyone, of him especially, even when it’s in strange, Louis-ish ways.
“At least we got the model who’s stopped straightening his hair,” Louis teases, coiling a long curl of young Liam’s hair around his finger. “That was dreadful. But I always did like it long like this.”
Liam sees his younger version blush hard, and squirm a little under Louis’ affection, and his stomach twists a little. Two years ago, he knows, he was suffering from an absolutely paralyzing crush on Louis, absolutely positive that it wasn’t reciprocated, that it was something dangerous and wrong, and he’d been terminally unsure how to react to Louis’ handsiness and easy affection for everyone. And Louis still makes his stomach squirm sometimes, now, but it’s different. He’s not sure if he’s like, allowed to tell his past self anything about the future, unsure of what the rules and etiquette here are, but he wants to gather his younger self up and assure him that it’s not always going to be like that, at least that he doesn’t have to be so tense at Louis’ proximity.
“You look different,” says young Liam tentatively. “Both -- both of you.”
“I look better. Aging like a fine wine, I am,” Louis declares, and pulls young Liam even closer, pressing his face into his chest.
“For Christ’s sake, Lou, don’t smother him, let him breath” Liam says, and offers what he hopes is a reassuring smile at himself. “I think if he suffocates to death, I probably do too.”
Louis gasps in mock horror, but young Liam pales a shade, and Liam regrets saying it. “Hey, no, it was a joke,” he says, trying to sound calming and soft like Louis. He climbs across the gap between the two beds and settles next to his younger self, awkwardly setting a hand on young Liam’s shoulder that he hopes is grounding, but that probably just comes off as unsure. But young Liam leans into Liam’s touch immediately, pressing his nose into the crease of Liam’s neck and breathing shakily.
On young Liam’s opposite side, Louis peers over at Liam, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.
“I’m sorry,” young Liam moans into Liam’s collar forlornly. Liam strokes the nape of his neck, not sure what to do, and feeling uneasy about having his younger version clutched in his arms.
“It’ll be okay,” says Louis, directing this at young Liam but still holding Liam’s gaze. Young Liam just moans morosely at this, and an expression of helplessness flickers on Louis face, just for a second. Then Louis leans around young Liam, still buried in Liam’s neck, and kisses Liam. Liam expects Louis to pull away after a moment but he doesn’t, coaxing Liam’s mouth open, and Liam whines low despite himself.
Young Liam looks up at this. “Oh. Oh,” he says, looking carefully at Liam’s lips as Louis finally pulls away. “This -- you --” He falters, and Liam doesn’t know what else to do, so he pulls slightly away from Louis and carefully presses his lips against young Liam’s, just quick and soft. He backs off, doesn’t want to freak himself out, and kisses Louis again because he can’t think of the right thing to do next.
Louis leans into the kiss, parts his lips and licks into Liam’s mouth, and Liam can feel his pulse jump when Louis’ hand snakes around his waist, pulling him in closer. Young Liam moves to shift away from them, but Louis reaches out his free hand and stops him, pulling him back to settle between Louis and Liam’s bodies. “Stay,” he says, low in his throat. “Stay there, okay?” He pulls away from Liam and kisses young Liam lightly.
One of Liam’s hand snakes around to curl on young Liam’s stomach where his shirt has ridden up, and it’s strange how familiar and different the planes of his stomach feel. He’s narrower, less defined, and his skin jumps under the touch. Louis kisses young Liam again, harder, and young Liam makes a noise that catches in his throat. Liam watches his hips shift helplessly as Louis pushes young Liam further down onto the mattress, entranced by the soft noises the two of them are making.
“Is this -- is this okay?” Liam asks his younger self when Louis pulls away, and he feels the surreality of the situation wash over him again. He thinks he knows the answer, thinks that if he remembers how he felt two years ago that he would have done absolutely anything to get to touch Louis like this, regardless of the (admittedly very strange) circumstances. Still, he digs the pad of his thumb into young Liam’s waist, hoping he knows that he can say no if he wants, it’s okay if this is too much.
“Yes, god, yes,” young Liam groans. He wriggles underneath Liam’s palm, and Louis shifts next to them, trying to press closer. “Just -- touch me, yeah?” His cheeks flame at the words, but he gets them out without stuttering, and Liam is almost surprised at his own boldness.
“Of course, love,” Louis croons, and he pushes young Liam’s shirt up, bunching it under his armpits while he moves around to get enough leverage to pull it entirely off. Liam pulls his own shirt off in turn, feeling the artificial chill of the room, and reaches across young Liam to pluck at Louis’ hem, encouraging him to do the same. Louis does, smiling and holding Liam’s gaze, and presses younger Liam flat on his back between the two of them. Louis shifts to kiss young Liam’s neck, pulling a gasp out of the boy.
“God, two of you,” Louis sighs softly into young Liam’s neck, dragging a thumb over the boy’s jawline, his lower lip. The young boy is writhing under the touch, and Liam tries to steady him, runs his hands up his narrow ribs soothingly. “You’ll both be the death of me,” Louis continues, and slowly moves his hands down to press against the bulge at the front of young Liam’s sweatpants. Young Liam whimpers, and Liam stifles the desire to do the same.
It’s just, the sight of Louis, touching -- not him, but it is him -- like that, it’s confusing and makes Liam feel like he’s lost his footing entirely. He’s impossibly hard before he even realizes it.
“Let me -- let me suck you,” Louis says, trailing down young Liam’s chest and tugging gently at his waistband. “Is that okay? Can I do that for you?”
Young Liam makes a sound like he’s choking, but then says “Yes, Jesus, of course,” and Louis stops to look at Liam, like he’s asking his permission too, before he hooks his fingers under young Liam’s waistband and pulls down.
His cock comes free, hard and flushed, and it makes Liam ache even more, sympathetically. Louis is kissing down young Liam’s chest now, going slow and drawing these breathy moans out of young Liam like he might be dying, trailing his hands in the crease of the boy’s hips and flitting along his thighs.
When he first wraps his lips around young Liam’s cock, he groans and bucks his hips. Liam thinks that this must be the first time young Liam has been sucked off by another bloke, and remembers how he felt like he was shattering into a million pieces the first time Louis blew him, and hums in a mix of sympathy and envy.
Louis pulls back for a moment, and says softly to Liam, “You should kiss him,” so Liam does. He leans down and presses his lips against young Liam’s, biting and sucking, pressing his tongue against the boy’s.
Kissing his younger self like this, it’s unlike anything Liam could ever imagine, the sweetest thing and the filthiest thing he’s ever felt all at once. He wants to wrap his arms around young Liam and pin him down while Louis fucks him, wants to pet his hair and suck his cock, wants to do everything he can think of to his younger self, wants to make him come and gasp and melt, boneless and spent and happy.
He only stops to look down at Louis, whose nose is pressed against young Liam’s stomach, cheeks hollowed, and young Liam is gasping and pressing his hips and Liam knows he’s about to come. Liam reaches to shove down his own basketball shorts and strokes his cock, feeling like the sight of Louis sucking the other boy is about to totally undo him.
Young Liam goes silent when he comes, eyes squeezed shut and lips moving noiselessly. “Fuck,” Liam breaths, and bites down a little harder than he means to at the soft skin below the boy’s ear.
Louis pulls off and moves closer to them, licking his lips obscenely, and bites at young Liam. Liam’s hand moves faster on his dick, and he whines low in his throat, which gets Louis’ attention.
“Don’t, don’t come yet, let me,” Louis whispers, reaching for Liam and pressing his hand away. He fumbles for a moment in the bedside stand and pulls out Liam’s lube, and Liam falls back, lets his head hit the pillow. He shuts his eyes and feels Louis pushing his legs apart.
“Here,” he hears Louis say to young Liam. “Help me, alright? Just... hold his legs like that, yeah?”
Young Liam breathes in shakily and then Liam feels his fingers curl around his knees, pressing them up and back, spreading him out on display. “Jesus,” Liam breathes out.
And then Louis’ fingers are pressing into him, one and then two, slick and hot and perfect. Liam feels Louis working him open in all directions and he forces his eyes open to look down at the two of them, Louis kneeling between his legs and young Liam next to him, looking awestruck and gazing at the spot where Louis’ fingers are disappearing into Liam. It’s almost too much, but not enough, and he presses back on Louis’ fingers.
“You should--” Louis starts, and then Liam feels young Liam’s finger trail tentatively up his thigh, and press slowly in alongside Louis’. Liam gasps, grinds down. He is going to explode, his heart is going to stop, he knows it. “You like this?” Louis asks quietly. “You like feelings us both at once?”
Liam jerks out a nod and closes his eyes again. When they pull out he feels empty, hears himself say “please, come on,” without meaning to, but then Louis is there, cock pressing in slowly, and Liam has to bite down a sob of pleasure, has to look.
“God, Liam,” Louis whispers, and then, with a hint of laughter in his voice, correct, “Liams.” Liam sees Louis pull young Liam in for a kiss, somehow not losing his balance as he pulls he younger boy in close and thrusts all the way into Liam at once. Liam spares a thought to wonder when Louis suddenly became so coordinated, but either way, he’s not complaining now.
Young Liam and Louis pull apart and Louis starts thrusting into him in earnest, pressing his lips against Liam’s hard. Young Liam lays down next to him and reaches for Liam’s cock, jerks him in an eerily familiar way, and Liam tries not to laugh because it’s not funny, it’s not, it’s possibly the best thing he’s ever felt but it’s also so surreal. It’s too much, between watching Louis blow his younger self and the feel of Louis’ cock hitting his prostate now and the noises they’re all three making, he’s going to come, he knows it, thinks he might never stop coming, and when Louis digs a thumbnail into his hip Liam’s hips jerk and he sees silver, spilling over young Liam’s hand, white-hot and breathless.
Louis fucks into him deeper a few more times and then groans, spilling deep, filling Liam up the way he loves it. Louis collapses with an “oomph” on top of both the boys. “Christ,” he says, and then a moment later, “Really, Christ.”
They lay like that for a while until they’re all cold and sticky, a pile of too-familiar limbs and hair tangling together. Liam feels lips on his collar bone and isn’t sure who they belong too, but for once, he’ can’t find it in himself to worry about it.
- -
When Louis gets up to go to the bathroom, young Liam slides into Liam’s side, wrapping an arm around his waist and nuzzling close.
“You love him,” young Liam says, barely audible from where his face is pressed into Liam’s neck.
“So do you,” says Liam, and he feels another surge of pity for the boy. He knows all too well how sick he was over Louis, especially at the beginning when everything was so precarious and uncertain and earth-shatteringly important.
“So you two... do this?” young Liam asks, hopeful and unsure. Liam just nods, doesn’t care if he’s maybe revealing too much about the future. The rules of time travel or whatever can get fucked, in his current opinion, he’s tired and confused and still feels his orgasm tingling in his toes, and he just could not be less arsed about it if he tried.
“Are you, like... together?” young Liam continues slowly.
“No,” Liam admits. “I mean, it’s not like... he’s not like my boyfriend or something, but.” He struggles to put this thing between him and Louis into words anyway, and this is even harder. “He’s Louis. He’s my Louis. It’s different. It’s... better.”
“And you’re happy?”
“Yeah,” Liam says definitively. “Absolutely. And so are you, right, even with... everything you feel right now, you know, with Louis.”
Young Liam nods, smiling. “I am, I know,” he admits. “It’s just. I feel like I’m about to be consumed by it sometimes, y’know?”
“I know,” Liam says, and leans down to press a kiss at his younger self’s temple. Young Liam tilts his head up, meets Liam’s lips and kisses softly, doesn’t pull back.
“No fair, boys, you’re meant to wait for me,” Louis says from the doorway to the bathroom. There’s something unusually soft in his voice, though, and Liam glances up to catch his eye. The look on Louis’ face makes his breath catch in his throat a bit, and Liam wonders how much he heard.
“Come on, then, you great diva,” Liam replies, just as fondly. “Plenty of room.”
Louis bounds across the room and snuggles in next to young Liam, trailing his fingers over both their necks simultaneously, and they breathe quietly together for the next few moments.
“D’you really think I’ll get back?” young Liam asks softly from where he’s wedged between the two boys.
“Yes,” says Louis firmly.
“If Louis says so, then yeah,” Liam agrees. “Couldn’t say how, but we’ll... we’ll figure it out. It’ll be fine.”
The thing is, that time, he believes it.