We're drifting, over the edge.
Title: We’re drifting, over the edge.
Pairing: Liam/Louis (unrequited) Harry/Louis.
Rating: PG13
Warning: Angst. Mentions of suicide.
Summary: For Liam, he is destruction.
Title taken from Fall - Ed Sheeran.
“Please.” “I need you.” “I want this.” “I want you.”
Words whispered late at night like terrible secrets, kept from the world. They were said so softly that sometimes it was hard to know whether or not they were real or imaginary. It was always hard to tell with him. The meaningless touches or the heartfelt hugs. Mixed signals sent to confuse him, keep him on his toes. Or so he thought. There was never an explanation when it happened, there probably never would be. It was just a fling, a hook-up. They were fuck-buddies, nothing more or less. Someone to call when you were drunk. That happened a lot too, the drunken phone calls. It was like there was no one else in the world who could deal with a drunken man on a dark night. Maybe there wasn’t, how would you know, with him. If he said that all these things didn’t affect him then he would be lying, so that’s what he did. He lied. He lied to friends, family, strangers, but mostly to himself. If he didn’t lie to himself, if he let the feelings take over, then he would crumble. Every now again he would stop and think about what he was doing. They both had girlfriends, so why did they have to seek something other outside of their relationships? What was it about the man that drew him in, made him cheat and lie and suffer? He couldn’t tell you, all he knew was that when he was called, he would go. Just like that, dropping everything, for a few moments with that man. Was he worth it? Probably not, be he was blinded by a pretty smile and a charming personality and there was no way to stop once they had started. He had tried, so many times that he had eventually given it up for a lost cause. It wouldn’t stop, not until he wanted it to. And when it stopped he would be broken, and he would wonder what he did wrong and how he could let such a small thing affect him so much. He would never find the answers. He hoped he would never have to.
Of course he would though. He wasn’t special enough to keep the attention of one so perfect, one so fascinating. He wasn’t delusional, or maybe he was, thinking that this could ever be something in the first place.
“Ready to go love?” She calls from the hallway, and he fixes his shirt one more time, perfecting a smile in the mirror before he joins her.
“Of course.” He replies, his voice sounding as hollow as he feels, yet somehow not containing any of the guilt that’s eating him alive, he has to keep that to himself. It would destroy her.
He didn’t deserve what he had, and he had a lot. A beautiful girlfriend, fame, fortune, friends. He was throwing it all away for something so fleeting that it would barely span a few lines in his life story, yet he felt that maybe, just maybe, it could fill most of it, if he let it. As always, however, the decision wasn’t for him to make. He wasn’t the one in control. This was the only thing in his life that he could do nothing to change. He would never have the power to change this, that was up to him, but he was so goddamn unpredictable, and it was terrifying on so many levels.
He dumps her after a few more months, and he cries when it happens. He lets all those months of staying strong crumble away into nothing as he tells her that he’s leaving, and he will never forget the look on her face, it’s scarred into his brain. The horror as he couldn’t answer when she asked if there was someone else and he couldn’t answer. He had frozen, the story he had constructed beforehand flying out of his mind as he stuttered.
“I…What…It didn’t…I’m so sorry.”
She never forgave him, and he didn’t blame her. He didn’t forgive himself.
He had always promised himself that the fame would never change him, that he would remain the same as he had always been, but now he realises that it has. He’s more reserved now, a small voice in a crowd, a lost soul in a large space. He had never thought that he would lose himself, but he did.
He didn’t have a purpose; he had always had a purpose. First it was school, and then it was singing; now he’s not so sure. Maybe this is his purpose, to go where he was told, to follow the crowd.
He had never been one to stick out, but he had always thought that the others would stop him from sinking, that they would stop him from becoming a tiny speck of a person, he shouldn’t have expected so much. How were they to know what was going through his mind? How were they to know about him? They weren’t. So he delved deeper into himself and closed off to the world, living for each look, each touch, each kiss.
It happened slowly, a gradual change that he had begun to expect by the end.
It was a short conversation, meaningless to some, but he knew differently.
“I love her, you know.” 5 words, that was all that it had taken to break him, all it had taken for the last shreds of hope and happiness to leave him.
3 weeks wasted while he locked himself distraught in his flat, claiming a contagious illness to relieve himself of any obligations.
Another 6 were spent in a cramped studio, writing and playing and writing some more until his fingers were blistered and bleeding and his throat was red raw with overuse.
The next 4 after that were used to appeal to production people and PR and then planning and designing and all the other things that you had to do when you made music.
2 weeks were needed for the boys to record properly, and then one more on top of that for a string of endless promotion, interviews and performances and photoshoots.
16 weeks in total. 16 weeks to mould all his feeling of despair, and heartbreak, and sorrow, and love, into an album.
When they were asked questions about their love lives in interviews, or asked the meaning of certain songs, no one noticed the looks that he sent out. And maybe that was a good thing, how hard would it be to explain what had passed to the general public? How could you put it into words?
When they broke up, he was there, like any good friend would, with a hug and comforting voice and they got through it, eventually. He never asked the reason, he didn’t want to know. He couldn’t know why he hadn’t worked with her because then he would think too much, and compare tiny little details and it would hurt more than he was willing to, so he kept quiet and held onto his friend when he cried. Because that what they were now. Friends.
The hardest thing was when they came out.
It was obvious, yet he had forced himself not to see it.
Larry Stylinson.
He knew now. Why it hadn’t worked.
It hadn’t worked because he didn’t want Liam.
Why would anyone want Liam?
Of course he wanted Harry.
Perfect Harry, with his shiny curls, sparkling eyes and cheeky smile.
Liam thinks sometimes that if he had to choose, he would pick Harry too.
He never gets over him totally. How could you? He’s Louis. He’s stupid and irresponsible and reckless and spontaneous, but he’s also beautiful and kind and soft and oh so lovely.
Liam holds onto the memories of him when he jumps. He thinks of twinkling blue eyes and messy black hair and stripes and braces and chinos and Toms and nimble fingers and a charming smile. He holds onto all of this and more when he ends it all.
Louis Tomlinson, the cause and the solution, all at once. Perfect, but not for Liam.
For Liam, he is destruction, but it’s so lovely that Liam doesn’t really mind.