Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Louis’ next two days are crammed with appearances and signings and radio interviews. The week before release and the week after are both always jam packed with shit, some of it he loves, some of it he hates. 

This morning, though, he woke up to a note slid under his door in Harry’s scratchy handwriting (because they still haven’t exchanged numbers) saying that it’s been too long since they’ve seen each other (it’s only been two days, the last time had been when Harry came over and partied with Louis and his crew). He left a time and instructions to meet him at the hotel restaurant if he happens to be free during that time, and if he’s not, then to send one of his lackeys — yes, Harry Styles actually used the word lackey in an honest to God note — to let Harry know he wouldn’t be coming. 

Louis checked his iCal and saw, blissfully, that the evening was free for him. So he went through his signings and his in person radio interview with a smaller station just outside the city feeling kind of like he was on cloud nine. 

Because he has dinner (he won’t call it a date, because that’s not casual) with a pretty boy and that’s all that matters, really. 

So now, he’s standing in his bathroom, trying to get his hair to cooperate. He could’ve called and arranged for hair and makeup, but then they’ll accuse him of things like going on dates and trying too hard and why are you trying so hard if it’s only casual, Louis? And he simply didn’t want to deal with any of it. He’s giving himself enough shit about it all, he doesn’t need to hear it from the people around him as well. 

He finally gets it to fall somewhat close to how Krystle makes it fall, and considers that good enough. He buttons up his black shirt finally, leaving the top three undone for a more casual look. Louis wants to look good, but he doesn’t want to look like he’s trying too hard, really. Regardless of whether or not he’s subject to the teasing of his friends and crew. 

Louis brushes his teeth and grabs his phone and wallet before he leaves the room, dressed in black jeans, black shirt, and an old pair of trainers. Not trying too hard. Perfect. He inspects his reflection in the mirror at the back of the elevator, quickly spinning around when the doors open to the lobby. 

Quickly, head down, he makes his way across the lobby and tells the receptionist he’s meeting someone and that the reservation should be under Styles. She looks at the list, confused, before telling him that she doesn’t have Styles, but she does have a reservation in his usual corner under his own name. 

Louis scoffs. “Of course you do,” he mutters to himself, then, cheerily, to the hostess, “That’s perfect, thanks, love.” 

“You can go on back, I’m assuming the man waiting is the Styles you were referring to.” She says with a kind smile, and Louis thanks her again before leaving. 

Harry’s sitting at the seat that faces the restaurant, because of course he figured out that Louis would rather have his back to the room so he’s less likely to get spotted; the back corner is secluded, but it doesn’t make him invisible. He’s staring down at a glass of red wine, spinning it absently in small circles on the tabletop. Louis stops, taking him in for a moment before Harry’s noticed him. 

He’s wearing another one of his blouses, light blue with white polka dots this time, unbuttoned down to just above his weird moth-slash-butterfly tattoo on his stomach. His long hair is falling down around his shoulders, and Louis imagines he can smell it even from here; soft, fresh lavender and something else he hasn’t quite put his finger on yet and hasn’t let go of his pride enough to ask about just yet. 

Louis can see his broken-in brown Chelsea boots under the table, one foot tapping anxiously, his legs clad in his seemingly staple black skinny jeans. Finally, Louis makes his feet move forward. Harry still hasn’t looked up yet, so Louis clears his throat. Harry’s head finally jerks up to look at him, face immediately flooding with relief. 

“Oh!” He exclaims quickly, like he’s trying to cover up the fact that he looked so outwardly relieved and very much Not Casual. Part of Louis is wondering how long they’ll keep pretending that this is all a normal, casual, fling week. He doesn’t let himself dwell on it now, he’ll think about it the next time Harry isn’t looking so drop-dead gorgeous just three feet away from him. 

“You made it,” Harry says, as Louis sits down. “I wasn’t sure if you actually would or not. I didn’t tell you how long I’d wait for you to send someone to tell me that you wouldn’t be coming. Then all of a sudden I was down here, and I ordered wine and asked the waiter to hold off on appetizers and everything else. This is my second wine.” 

Louis laughs softly. “I can tell,” he says, teasing. Harry’s face flushes and he looks down at his glass. His hand grabs it and brings it to his mouth, taking a few gulps like he’s trying to do anything to shut himself up. Louis’ a little bit endeared. “You put the reservation under my name?” 

Harry swallows one more sip of wine and sets the glass down, nodding. “Yeah, I, uh. I wanted to make sure that we could have this table. I don’t have the connections you do, obviously, so I kind of used… Yours. Your connections.” 

Louis opens the drink menu and looks down at it just so he doesn’t have to look at Harry’s stupidly beautiful face. “Very smart, Styles,” he praises. “Resourceful.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Harry pick up and promptly drain what’s left in his glass. “Yeah, I guess. I just thought… It’s been a couple days, and we haven’t seen each other. I figured dinner and drinks could be nice. It was nice when we did it that one time, so.” 

Louis nods slowly, deciding on a wine to order (he would get something different, but Harry’s already ordered wine, so he decides to just follow his lead) and closes the menu. He looks at Harry again, because now there’s nothing to distract him. “That was nice? Me being a pain in the arse over some paperwork?” 

Harry shrugs. He’s flushed down to his neck. “I was kind of an arse, too, I think. Water under the bridge now.” He pauses, ribbing his bottom lip between his teeth absently. “Is that alright? You know, that I used your name?” 

He nods. “Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t really matter. It was… Smart. And thoughtful. You know… Nice, that you thought ahead like that. For me.” 

Harry positively beams. It’s so bright Louis swears he’s about to experience some kind of hot flash. But the waiter comes over, interrupting said hot flash, asking Harry if he wants another glass and taking Louis’ drink order before saying he’ll give them time to look over the food menus now that they’re both present. They open their food menus and sit in silence for a few minutes, until after the waiter has brought them both their wine and left again after Harry says they need more time. 

“I’m glad you’re not bothered by it,” Harry says finally, absently, still staring down. “The name thing. When I first met you, I would’ve thought it was something you’d have bitten my head off over.” 

Louis shrugs and takes a small sip of his wine, making sure it’s to his liking before taking a bigger swallow and setting the glass down again. “Honestly, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I really don’t care what you use my name for. As long as you’re not selling me out to the press, I really don’t care.” 

Harry nods his head slowly, biting his bottom lip again. His eyes are still locked on his menu, but he says nothing. Louis can tell that he’s holding something back, but he doesn’t know what it could be. He’s gotten good at reading Harry in this short amount of time, but Louis won’t pretend he’s an expert. 

He can, however, tell when Harry’s sitting on something that he wants to say. Or something he doesn’t know how to say. He’s surprisingly confident sometimes, but on the rare occasions he’s had a question for Louis that he thinks might be crossing a line, he gets like this.  

Pensive, nervous, quiet. He finally closes his menu and visibly jumps a little when he sees how Louis’ already looking at him. “You’re staring,” he points out, but Louis just shrugs. They’ve both done a lot of staring since they’ve known each other, and always accuse it of happening, but there’s never really much of a defense for either party. 

“I’m getting the veggie burger and crisps, you?” 

“Penne. Can I steal some crisps?” Louis asks hopefully, and Harry nods. He’s spinning his wine glass around again, like a little nervous tic. His nervousness is in his hands and his lips, also restless and always biting, Louis picks up on it easily. He waits patiently for Harry to tell him whatever it is he’s sitting on. 

He humors him with stories of what all the press stuff has been like the past couple days, what he’s been up to since they saw each other last, and in turn, Louis asks Harry the same. Harry’s done three more readings, each one more crowded than the last, and attended a handful more, all of which he says were far more crowded than his own. 

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Louis tells him when he finally gets a chance to interject more than a nod or a hum, and Harry’s blushes again, that same pretty flush he always gets when Louis compliments him. “After we leave this week I might have to, like, Tweet something from your writing or like toss out a Tweet about you or something like that. Get you some proper traction.” 

Harry brings his glass to his lips. They’re already a little darker than usual, tainted just the slightest bit red from almost two glasses of wine he’d drank before Louis even arrived tonight. 

“Can I ask you something?” Harry asks finally, still holding onto his glass. Ready at a moment’s notice for a little more liquid courage. Louis thinks maybe he’ll let Harry get the drinks in tonight. He’ll keep himself more on the sober side just in case Harry ends up a little bit past drunk. 

Louis nods encouragingly, but Harry doesn’t get the chance to ask right away, because their waiter is suddenly back and ready to take their orders. They both rattle them off and he doesn’t write them down, which is something Louis’ always been a little bothered by; he knows most of the time they’re seasoned professionals, but he doesn’t like not seeing it go down on paper. 

Like… What if they fuck up Harry’s order? His special, vegetarian or vegan or whatever the fuck? 

Harry aside, Louis just prefers seeing everything in front of him, on paper, where it’s less likely to be misconstrued. It’s why he likes his songs, his lyrics, his contracts and paperwork where he knows that he can see everything he’s trying to say and everything he might be getting himself into right in front of him. 

He shakes himself finally, focusing his attention back on Harry. He still has no idea what his question could be. Harry still looks a little bit nervous, clutching the stem of his wine glass like it’s going to be ripped from his hands at any given moment. Or like maybe his hands are shaking a little bit and he’s worried he’s going to drop it. Probably more the latter. 

“We talked about, um, the contract and everything. But, like, what’s stopping me from just… Saying something anyway? Anonymously, or something?” 

Louis arches an eyebrow at him. “Are you planning on doing that?” He asks seriously. Harry doesn’t sound anything more than curious, but as Louis has already accepted, he doesn’t know everything about Harry; doesn’t know every tell and quirk and nuance of who he is, even though he thinks he’d quite like to. He doesn’t, and he never will, because very soon, this will all be over. 

All he can do is take Harry’s question seriously, and give him as best an answer as he possibly can. 

Harry shakes his head in response to Louis’ question, and Louis nods. “Okay, um. Nothing, I suppose. If you slipped some kind of tip to the Daily or TMZ or something. Made some anonymous submission to a gossip site. It could go nowhere, it could blow up, a lot of my actual fans tend to take things with a grain of salt, though.” 

“But?” Harry prompts. 

“But, depending on what you said, it might slip some kind of detail. Something that only you would know about me. It could be the smallest thing, but it could give away that it’s you spreading the information. Then you’d be at risk for experiencing any of the very big, very scary things outlined in the paperwork you signed after I accidentally made my way into your hotel room.” 

Harry nods understandingly. “And this small detail? You’d, like, know it?” 

Louis shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. How well do you think I’ve been paying attention? To the things we’ve said, the things we’ve done?” 

Harry swallows hard enough that Louis can see it as it happens. He downs his wine and sets the glass near the edge of the table, stubbornly meeting Louis’ eye. “I like to think you remember it rather well,” he admits, licking his lips. Louis doesn’t react, doesn’t let his eyes leave Harry’s for more than a fraction of a second. “And I’m not going to say anything, I swear, I’ll sign whatever big scary paperwork you want me to. I was just… Curious.” 

Louis smiles fondly. He can’t help himself. “You’re allowed to be curious. You can ask me anything, Harry, really. I’m an open book when it comes to you.” 

The waiter stops by to top off their glasses. Well, top off Louis’, refill Harry’s entirely. Harry takes a few smaller, grateful mouthfuls. “I want to ask you something else, but not here. Will you come back to my room after this?” 

He sounds serious. Looks just as serious, Louis thinks. The look in his eyes right now is scarier than the voice by a long shot. And, still, while that look is piercing, he’s still biting his bottom lip and he’s still nervous, even when he’s trying to be stern and serious. Louis does want to go back to one of their rooms, if for nothing more than to make Harry stop chewing on his lips like that, one way or another. 

“Yeah, I’ll come back with you.” 

Harry breathes out a sigh of relief, finally smiling again. “Good. Perfect. Enough of that stuff now. Tell me more about the release stuff, please?” He asks, and Louis doesn’t know if he bats his eyelashes on purpose or if it’s just the way he… Simply is, but when they do that Louis would find himself agreeing to anything Harry says. 

So he tells him more about the signings and the meet and greets and the no less than million pictures he had to pose for (Harry tells him he’s exaggerating, Louis tells him to give him a ring when Harry finally gets as successful as he is with his writing and he’s the one doing a million of these things every single day). 

And Harry smiles at him the entire time, throughout the entire meal, asking genuine questions and giving thoughtful answers to them all. Louis loves it, more than he should (is it a crime, though, to genuinely enjoy the person you’re fucking? He thinks not), but he doesn’t let himself dwell right now. 

Up in Harry’s hotel room, he pours them each a plastic cup of wine and sits across from Louis on the couch. Harry toes his boots off and leaves them haphazardly on the floor in front of the sofa, crossing his legs beneath himself as he leans back against the armrest. Louis attempts to sit as casually as Harry is, but he can’t bring himself to. 

He feels rigid in his jeans and button down, folding one leg beneath himself and hating the way his fucking skinny jeans pull against him, fighting against the movement. Harry, meanwhile, folds easily, probably wearing jeggings or some stupid fake word for pants, easily bending this way and that. Louis takes a deep breath. 

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for Harry to speak. 

“Who’d you write that song about? No Control?” Harry asks bluntly. Louis’ spine goes rigid. He hasn’t talked about it, not since everything happened, because around all his friends he can talk about it in the most vague terms possible in order to inflict the least amount of pain on himself. 

Harry, though, doesn’t know. He doesn’t know any of it; how could he? Louis hasn’t said anything, there’s nothing on the big bad internet to look up and read about it — what it’s actually about. Who it’s actually about. 

Harry hasn’t said you don’t have to tell me, or it’s okay if you don’t want to, or you can take your time, like he usually does when he asks Louis questions he senses are more intense and loaded than others. Louis swallows hard, his wine trembling as his hands do. 

“I wrote it while I was… Dating this guy. Ryan. I met him last year, on tour, he wasn’t a groupie, he just had a very flexible, well-paying job. He was able to come and meet me at a lot of my tour stops in the states.” Louis says. “And, you know, that qualifies as dating, really, when you’re in my line of work. A weekend here, a weekend there. But we’d talked about it after a while, and agreed that’s what it was. Dating. Long distance, travel dating. Which, like, shouldn’t even be a thing, travel dating, I’m pretty sure I made it up, but that’s what it was.” 

“He was American?” Harry asks, his voice small. 

Louis laughs bitterly. “He was. I… I hooked up with quite a few American guys on that tour, and before then, too, it was always easier to do. I tended to seek out guys over there rather than women, because somehow that was easier, but he was the only one I ever actually… Felt anything for. Like, enough to date him, the way that we had to date, because that takes work. He didn’t care about the secrecy, or the traveling, or the short amount of time that we got to see each other, he said he wanted to be with me anyway. So I wrote No Control one morning after we’d, you know, and it was too much to actually be released, but I performed it at quite a few gigs and the fans loved it.” 

“So what happened?” 

Louis swallows hard. He hasn’t talked about this in a long time. He told his close friends and Lottie (and tasked her on filling in any of the other girls if they’d ever asked), and his therapist. Once. He told her that he knows it’s not necessarily healthy, but he doesn’t know if he’ll ever want to unpack it in depth. They talked about the aftermath a handful of times because they had to — it was essential for Louis to keep going on and doing what he does — but they never said his name. 

“Well, turns out he wasn’t as cool with the arrangement as he said he was. Like, seven or eight months in, I think? I found out he was cheating on me, so that was cool. And when I confronted him about it, he said I was probably doing the same thing. I believe his exact words were, fucking every groupie with a hole to use, which was disgusting and offensive in a million ways. And I told him to get out, I think we were in like, Minnesota or some random shit like that. And so he left.” 

Harry finishes his wine and Louis quickly follows suit. Harry gets up wordlessly, refilling both of their cups. Louis takes a few big chugs before speaking again. 

“I had a show that night. And it was, to this day, the drunkest I’ve ever been onstage. Possibly ever, like, in general. I don’t remember the second half of the show very clearly. I kept it together onstage, but the second I was outside after, I threw up. Then I cried the whole way back to the hotel, and it didn’t stop when I got there, because in the… Six or so hours since Ryan had left the hotel? The timing’s really lost on me. But my team got wind of a scoop one of the gossip sites was going to be posting the second the cycle started the next day. Ryan violated basically… Every single thing in the NDA he’d signed, and even found some loopholes so there were some things he could very well say without consequence.” 

“He was going to out you,” Harry says softly, and Louis nods. “Oh, fuck, Louis,” he breathes out.

Louis shakes his head. “It’s fine. It’s all fine now. That paperwork you signed is one of the most ironclad NDAs I’ve ever seen, which says a lot. So, yeah. Now you know.” 

“I wouldn’t have asked if—” 

Louis cuts him off. “You can’t know if you don’t ask, right? Like I said, it’s fine. If I didn’t want to tell you, I wouldn’t have. But we’re fucking, and you like that song, and you wanted to know. I wanted to tell you.” 

“Just because we’re…” Harry trails off, taking a deep breath. “You don’t owe me anything, Louis. You don’t owe anyone anything, especially not that story.” 

“I’m leaving things out, obviously, because I can’t. I can’t talk about it all,” Louis tells him, and Harry nods understandingly. There’s so much more, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get it all out. But what he told Harry is the gist, and probably more than he told some people closest to him (he thinks he told them something like Ryan’s gone, he tried to fuck me over, he was cheating on me, and that was it). “I wanted to tell you, really.” 

He really can’t believe he hasn’t cried yet. Losing Ryan doesn’t hurt at all anymore, it’s what he almost did that still cuts Louis deepest. Whenever he thinks about how close he was to being outed, to having every single sordid detail of his personal, private life splashed across the front page of every single magazine and the first topic of conversation on every single celebrity news special, he feels like he could throw up.

Even though it’s been a little over a year now, Louis feels like the wound is as fresh as it was the day it happened, the night he got back from that concert and hardly had time to shower and brush his teeth before someone shoved a bottle of water in his hand and dragged him into a meeting. 

He can’t remember the second half of the show very well, but he fully recalls the meeting afterward — barely an hour after puking his guts out and crying all the water from his body. He remembers sitting there, reading the email the rags had gotten. More than one of them, too, Ryan had really covered his bases. He remembers Mark looking at him, trying not to talk down to him, but trying to explain what their next steps had to be. 

They’d roped in the higher ups, of course, in a conference call that was blaring too loudly from the black phone where it sat in the middle of the table. They were angry on the phone, he remembers that well enough. Mark managed to get them to shut the fuck up finally, came over to where Louis was sat in one of the black rolling chairs, staring blankly at the table in front of him, and took the one beside him. 

He’d placed one hand on the arm of Louis’ chair and turned him, slowly, like he was trying not to jostle Louis’ world too fast. Even though everything had already been turned on its axis and he felt nothing but rattled. 

“Louis,” he’d said, gently. “I need to know that you understand what’s happening. I know you’re still a little drunk, and I know you’re upset, but we need to know that you understand what’s happened. What we’re doing.” 

Louis was quiet for a long time. The whole room, even the phone, was silent. He knew what was happening, he knew what they had to do. But he couldn’t make himself nod or say anything. 

“We’re going to buy them out. The papers, the writers, everyone. We have funds specifically for this, we just never thought we’d actually have to use them. He’s been contacted, but there’s no guarantee he’ll stop. We may… Louis, we may have to pay him, too. Do you understand that?” 

Louis finally looked at Mark's face. He looked so, so exhausted. Louis remembers sitting there thinking about how stupid he’d been to get himself and everyone else in this situation. 

“Pay him whatever the fuck he wants,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t care. Do whatever you have to, and I don’t want to hear about it ever again.” 

Everyone had murmured their assent, and Louis left the room without saying another word. No one ever brought it up to him again. 

Right now, Louis gets jolted back into reality by Harry gently coaxing the plastic cup from his hand and putting it on the table. He’s moving closer, and Louis wants to tell him not to, but he opens his mouth and nothing comes out. Frustrated, he swipes a hand over his face, only realizing he’s crying a bit when his fingers come away wet. 

“I’m so, so sorry, Louis,” Harry whispers. “If I had known… I wouldn’t have—at least, not tonight, not like this.” 

Harry’s so close to him now, one leg slung over Louis’ thigh, pocketed between his bent knee and the foot that's flat on the floor. His hands are on his face, wiping away the tears that Louis didn’t give permission to fall. 

“It’s okay, Harry, I’m okay,” he says finally, but Harry shakes his head quickly, his hands shaking against Louis’ face. 

“I shouldn’t have asked— I was just curious about the contracts and the song. I really just wanted to know about the song, I didn’t think… God, I’m such an idiot. I shouldn’t have asked. I’m so sorry. I swear, I’m not going to—I’m not like him, okay? I’m not going to do any of that shit. I can do this with you, and I’m not going to do that.” 

Louis puts his hand over one of Harry’s, stops the movement where it’s continually stroking over his cheek. Harry’s other hand falls to the side of Louis’ neck, only his thumb moving in small, comforting strokes. Louis takes a shaky breath and licks his lips, tasting not only wine but salt, too, which means he’s crying worse than he thought. He shakes his head quickly and brushes his thumb over the top of Harry’s hand. 

“Like I said,” he starts, trying his best to keep his tone even, “I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t want to. I’m not drunk, and I’m not high, and I wouldn’t have said something if I didn’t want you to know. This is… It’s fine, okay? Please, believe me when I tell you that it’s fine. Now, it’s fine.” 

He meets Harry’s eye finally, his heart sinking straight through his whole torso, tearing through his chest and his stomach, when he realizes that Harry’s crying, too. “Baby, please don’t cry,” he murmurs, squeezing Harry’s hand. Harry bites his lip and shakes his own head. Louis breaks free of Harry’s hold and reaches forward, tugging Harry’s lip out from between his teeth. “Please, it’s fine. It was shitty, but it’s fine.” 

Harry huffs frustratedly, standing up abruptly. Louis blinks at the space in front of him, now free of Harry’s presence. He looks to his left, watching Harry move to the other side of the coffee table. He leans over for his cup and his wine, refilling it. He downs the glass in a few gulps, shakes his head and refills his cup again. Harry sets the bottle down and starts pacing. 

Louis turns, resting his back against the couch. He wipes his cheeks and takes in a deep breath, his eyes tracking Harry as he walks the length of the carpet for a beat. Then he takes his paces wider, going from the far window to the other side of the carpet, and seems content with that span. Because then he starts talking, fast. 

“It’s so fucked up! I mean, I know you’re fine with it now, or whatever. But, Jesus, Louis!” He cries, still pacing, tugging his free hand through that long hair of his in exasperation. “He, what… Flew out to meet you because he knew you’d be ready? Willing? For sex and to pay for his dinner? The whole time, he’d go back to wherever the fuck, and fuck other people? While you thought you were both falling in love and staying loyal?” 

Harry stops in front of the window, turning to look at Louis. Usually Louis would laugh at him, because he looks (and sounds) a little crazy right now, plastic cup in one hand and the other pressed to his forehead in frustration. He looks at Louis, pausing for a moment like he’s waiting for Louis to say something, but there’s nothing he can say right now. 

Harry huffs, shakes his head, and resumes his pacing. “I can’t believe someone would do that! I’m out to pretty much everyone I know, and I haven’t exactly hit it big yet so it’s not like it’s that big of an issue in my professional life. I just cannot believe that someone would meet you and know you and fuck you , and still try to do something like that to you!” 

Louis grabs his cup and finishes what’s left. Harry keeps talking. “I’ve known you for, like, a few days, and I wouldn’t do that! I wouldn’t have even done something like that when I first met you, you know? Before contracts and sex and whatever else. Are all the guys— are all the people you fuck like that?” 

Louis stands up, dropping his cup carelessly onto the table. He crosses the room slowly, stopping Harry as he hits the edge of the carpet just before he can continue his trek back to the windows. He grabs both of Harry’s wrists, sloshing wine over the rim and onto his own pants in the act, but he doesn’t care. 

“Harry,” he says calmly. “I know that you would never do that. We would not be here, right now, if I thought for a second that you would. Do that or even something close to what he did.” 

Harry’s fist clenches so hard he cracks the rest of his cup. Wine all over Louis’ socks, the fancy hotel carpet beneath their feet. He doesn’t care. He pries the broken cup from Harry’s hand and tosses it onto the table and immediately grabs Harry’s wrist again. 

He’s not proud of it, not by a long shot, but he does what he does best. He starts to push against Harry, walking him backward to the bedroom. “Louis, what are you—” Harry tries to protest, but stops when the backs of his knees hit the bed and he falls. Louis stands, waits for Harry to scoot up the mattress. He doesn’t lay down, just props himself up on his elbows and looks at Louis. 

Louis crawls up the bed, Harry’s thighs parting for him to kneel between them. “I’m not trying to distract you from it with sex,” he says, even though that’s definitely what he’s trying to do. But he really doesn’t know if he’s distracting himself or Harry from it all. 

It, being this horrible thing that Louis tries not to think about. It being this thing that has scarred him so deeply all it takes is one conversation to reopen the wound. He’s bleeding all over Harry, all over both of them, and if Louis isn’t careful the blood is going to start looking a lot like the wine on his jeans and his socks and the carpet and he won’t be able to tell the difference anymore. 

“We don’t… We don’t have to have sex, is what I meant,” Louis continues finally, after too long in his head, and too long with Harry’s beautiful eyes boring into him, waiting for him to say or do something that makes sense to both of them. 

Harry arches his eyebrows, mouth going slack. “Do you want to? Have sex?”

Weirdly, all of a sudden, Louis doesn’t think he does. He could definitely be persuaded. But it’s not the first thing he wants. “No,” Louis says honestly. “This became… A lot. Very fast. Unless you’re hard up right now, I’m perfectly okay with just… Going to sleep.” 

Harry nods. “Okay,” he says quietly. 

“Don’t just say okay. I think, even before tonight, we can tell each other things. If you want to get off, we can absolutely get off,” Louis says quickly. 

Harry shakes his head this time. “I have a toothbrush you can borrow. And clothes, in my luggage. Very recently cleaned. I do sleep naked, though, even without sex, just a heads up.” 

Louis climbs off the bed. “You also don’t brush your teeth before bed?” 

Harry hums, shoving his jeans down his legs before Louis’ even three steps away. “Not when I know you’ve had my cock in your mouth, which means you won’t complain.” 

Louis laughs, genuinely, for the first time in a long time tonight. He brushes his teeth and strips out of his clothes into a pair of Harry’s pants before climbing into his bed. Harry welcomes him easily, rolling onto his other side and burying his face in Louis’ neck. He wedges his leg in between Louis’ and he’s ready for it, because he’s used to the way Harry likes to fall asleep and it’s like this — all up in Louis’ space, his thigh over Louis’ leg, trapped between his other, hooking his foot behind Louis’ left leg just to keep him close. 

An hour later, they end up sucking each other off. But it’s just because they can’t fall asleep, that’s all it is. 

“Louis,” he hears, through the sleep-slash-blowjob cloud blanketing his brain right now. “Hey, Louis. Phone. Buzzing.” 

Louis moans and buries his face in the crook of Harry’s neck. Harry laughs sleepily, smacking at Louis’ side. “Seriously. Buzzing. Ringing. It’s loud,” Harry groans, hitting him again. Louis rolls onto his back, Harry’s leg still trapped between his own. He rubs his hands over his face and listens. He hears the buzzing first, and then he registers the ringtone, pointedly loud and pointedly different than his regular tone. 

“Oh, fuck,” Louis shouts, untangling from himself and Harry as quickly as he can. Harry sits up too, pushing his hair from his face and watching Louis. 

“Lou?” He asks dazedly. “What?” 

Louis grabs his phone from the main room and answers the call. “I’m coming! How is she?” 

“Six centimeters. Asking for you,” Daisy replies. “Pheebs and I do not want to be present for what’s coming soon, so—” 

“I’m on my way. Okay?” 

“Okay. I’ll tell her.” 

Louis ends the call and comes back into the bedroom. Fuck, pants. He needs to find pants. “My sister’s in labor. Lottie. She’s having her baby and I need to go, like, now.” 

Harry doesn’t say anything. Louis still doesn’t have pants. “Harry!” He snaps. “I need clothes.” 

Harry climbs out of bed slowly. Now is not the time for slow, did he not hear a word Louis said? He steps past Louis and hands him another pair of pants, grey sweats, and a hoodie that Louis is pretty sure is his, even though it was produced from Harry’s luggage. He never should have let his people do laundry, because how else would Harry have ended up with his hoodie? 

“I’m going to need a tank top or something,” Louis tells him. 

Harry nods and takes the hoodie back. “Change. Brush your teeth, splash some water on your face. Give me your phone, I’ll call your car.” 

Louis wants to kiss him, but he can’t, because there’s no time for that. Once he’s in the bathroom, changing and brushing his teeth, he thinks that Lottie’s only six centimeters (but she’s also already six centimeters) so he has a little bit of time at least, but he still doesn’t barge back out there and kiss Harry. He pushes the door open and Harry’s standing there, Louis’ phone in one hand, a tee shirt and hoodie in the other. 

“You know you’re sending me off in entirely your clothes. Except for this hoodie, which is definitely mine.” 

Harry nods. “I know.” 

Louis pulls the tee and hoodie on quickly, then grabs his phone. “You called the—” 

“They’re already waiting out back for you.” 

Louis grabs his jaw and pulls him in for a kiss. “Thank you,” he breathes. “I’ll, um… I’ll let you know how it goes. Somehow. Send one of the lackeys, as it were.” 

Harry laughs. “Yeah. Okay. Go be an uncle!” 

Louis kisses him again. Then he rushes out of the hotel, bypassing the elevator in favor of jogging down the seemingly endless flights of stairs. 

**

It’s the longest labor ever. Lottie and Lewis have proclaimed it so, Louis’ sure his mum would proclaim it so, he’s definitely proclaiming it so. Louis pushes open his sister’s door just after nine in the morning, a fresh cuppa in his hands, and Lewis looks at him like he’s God, kissing Lottie’s forehead and slipping out behind Louis. 

“Were you having sex?” Lottie asks, hardly even waiting for the door to shut behind Lewis. 

“Jesus Christ,” Louis mutters. “What?” 

“I have been, like, seven centimeters dilated for the past three hundred hours, the least you can do is tell me what the fuck you were doing that required a thousand phone calls.” She’s exaggerating. It was, like, ten calls. Maybe a thousand text messages, though, Louis hasn’t even really had a chance to check everything. 

Louis pulls a chair up close enough to her that he can kick his feet up on her bed and also grab her hand if he thinks that’s warranted. He takes a sip from his tea (which sucks, because it’s hospital tea, but he takes it anyway) and pushes his shoes off so his sneakers aren’t dirtying her sheets. 

“God, you’re getting comfortable? I’m never getting this thing out of me.” Lottie groans. 

“I was with a guy,” Louis blurts, and Lottie turning onto her side as best she can, looking at him with those wide eyes. Their mothers eyes. The ones all the girls ended up with. “I was with a boy, but I swear I was actually dead asleep, and now I’m here.” 

She narrows her eyes, looking like a carbon copy of their mother. Louis looks down at his tea, blowing cool air over the rim of the cup. “Are you… Oh, my God! It’s Harry!” 

Louis scoffs. The tea even looks poorly. He needs to find something better to drink, especially if they’re gonna be here for a while. “What makes you say that?” 

“I’ve met him, which is kind of odd. You don’t do that often, willingly introducing us to people, especially anyone… Casual. And you would’ve said anything other than admitting you were with a guy if it wasn’t someone you really liked.” 

He winces. He’s not sure how he feels about someone else assuming that about him, about his and Harry’s situation, so confidently; especially not when he can’t figure out how he feels about it. “Can I get an epidural, too?” 

“Nope,” Lottie sighs, sounding way too satisfied in her answer. “So, like, the clothes you’re wearing. Are they yours or his? They don’t fit quite right. And you can’t lie, because I’m going to push, like, a million pounds out my vagina sometime soon and that means you can’t lie to me.” 

She’s exaggerating weights and time quite a bit. Louis supposes he can’t blame her, and it’s a valid argument. Louis is, however, going to have to run across the street and buy a pack of smokes or else he won’t make it through this. “I am in my own socks, I think, and my hoodie. And I was with Harry, and that’s kind of all I want to say, but you’re going to push the million pounds out your vagina and I’d kind of say anything to get you to stop talking about that.” 

Lottie laughs and puts her hand forward, palm up, waiting for Louis to grab it. He slides his hand into hers and squeezes tightly. She doesn’t have to say anything for Louis to start talking. “We had dinner together, and it was… Nice. Until he started asking questions. About contracts and songs and… I told him about Ryan.” 

She falls silent. Lottie props herself up on an elbow and looks at him. Seriously, Louis needs a fucking epidural right now. “You told him about… The thing we’re not supposed to talk about? And you just called him by his name? And told Harry his name?” 

“He asked. And we’ve been… fucking, so, yeah, I told him.” Louis says, making Lottie laugh. She falls onto her back again. Then she barks at him to raise the bed a little and give her another pillow, because if she’s not sleeping no one is, so he does that, and then falls back to his seat. 

“So, you left his room. And you’re in mostly his clothes. And you told him about that, and… It’s still just a casual thing?” 

“Very casual.” Louis replies easily, throwing his feet up on a pillow his sister deemed unacceptable for her to lay on. That must mean it’s good enough for his feet. 

“But you told him about Ryan.” 

Hearing the name coming out of someone else’s mouth never fails to send a shock down his spine. It’s why he forbade everyone from talking about it any more than absolutely necessary. Louis sits up a little, drinks half his tea before putting it onto the table. It’s not helping him anyway. “I did. He asked, and he’s not going to run to the rags anytime soon.” 

“What’d you say? What’d he say?” 

Louis exhales. They used to pass cigars around delivery rooms, why can’t they start passing joints instead? “I told him that my ex-boyfriend fucked me over and made my team come up with more airtight NDAs. He said he’s sorry that happened, that he’s sorry he asked, that he’d never do that. Then we went to bed, and tried to sleep, fucked, fell asleep. Now I’m here in a fuck-ton of his clothes and I’m waiting for you to have a baby.” 

“When are you done? In the hotel, I mean, with the press.” 

“Supposed to be Thursday, why?” 

“Harry’s done the same day?” 

Louis hums. “Wednesday. He was gonna stay with me, then we’ll go our separate ways.” 

“And here you are, fucking up another person’s schedule,” Lottie drones. 

“Jesus Christ,” Louis mutters. He stands up and kisses her forehead. “Text me, call me, have them announce my name over the PA, make someone find me if you happen to start really having my nephew in the next, like, thirty minutes.” 

He leaves the room before Lottie gets the chance to do anything other than agree. Louis pulls the hood up on his sweatshirt and goes straight out of the hospital, right to the corner store he’d spotted, where he figures he can buy a pack of cigarettes. He pays for that and a lighter, because his lighter is with his smokes, in his jeans on the floor of Harry’s hotel room. 

When he shoves the newly opened pack in the pocket of his hoodie, Louis feels something. A piece of paper, which was not there before. He puts his cigarette between his lips and pulls the paper out. All that’s scrawled on it is a number and a smiley face. Louis scoffs, putting the number into his messages and then putting the paper into the pocket of his sweatpants instead. He feels like he doesn’t want to lose it. 

Louis lights his cigarette and makes his way back to the smoking area outside the hotel, sitting down on the curb and resting his elbows on his knees. He stares at the number he’s committed to starting a new text message to, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. 

Finally he taps something quick out and fires it off, locking his phone and setting it down beside him on the curb. Halfway through his cigarette, Louis’ phone dings with a new text message. 

It took you 5 hours to find my number? Do you not use your pockets? 

Louis smiles at Harry’s reply. He tosses the rest of his cigarette away and stands up, heading inside before he can get spotted by someone. 

He quickly types out a reply to Harry. Cheeky. We get each other’s numbers now?? 

Harry’s response is immediate. Um, yes?? There’s a BABY involved now I want updates!!!! 🤗

There he goes, smiling at his phone again like an idiot. Louis hopes no one in this elevator is looking at him, because he knows he must look ridiculous. He wanders back down to Lottie’s room, glancing up from his rapid fire conversation with Harry every so often to make sure he doesn’t walk into anything or anyone. 

Lottie’s pouting when he opens the door again, making Louis furrow his eyebrows. “What’s wrong?” He asks, taking his previous seat and grabbing his tea. He stops the constant back and forth texting for a moment, putting his phone down to look at his sister properly. 

“Still not fucking dilated,” she moans, turning onto her back, hands pressing her lower belly. “I swear, I love him, but right now I hate him.” 

Louis laughs. She sounds like their mother right now, and he tells her as much, but she just scoffs and shakes her head. “She did it again, multiple times. I will have to be bribed into doing this again.” 

“What the fuck is the epidural for, then?” He asks, sipping his tea, which has cooled off almost to the point of no return. He takes another, bigger sip, trying to get the most out of it before it’s completely fucked. 

“It’s not as bad with it,” Lottie replies, looking over at him. “It’s just, like… Pressure? Kind of feels like cramps, mild ones. Ugh, I don’t know why I’m explaining it to you like that. You can’t know. For Christmas next year, I’m gonna get all the lads the period cramp simulator shit and the rest of us girls are going to sit back and laugh.” 

Louis laughs again, agrees easily. Lottie keeps groaning, rambling about something he doesn’t think he has to pay much attention to — mostly talking about how guys have it so easy, he thinks and he has no defense for that — and he’s not keen on listening to his sister talk about getting knocked up. Louis picks up his phone and reads Harry’s new messages. 

Has she had it yet? 

Wait, is it a boy or a girl? I’m thinking boy, but I only met her once really fast. 

But my baby predictions are not often wrong. Does she know? 

The last text came in just seconds ago. Louis grins when he reads it. Also, do you guys need anything? I have a reading at 10 then I’m free. 

“Is that him?” Lottie asks. Louis just nods and types out his replies quickly. No, she hasn’t had it, yes she knows and it’s a boy, why are you so good at predicting baby genders, and he wouldn’t be opposed to a good non-hospital lunch. 

“You know that you have that… Look about you right now, right?” Lottie asks. Louis puts his phone down and looks at her again. She looks smug, if a little uncomfortable. “I have not seen you look like this over someone in… A long time, Louis.” 

He knows what she’s referring to (it’s the same thing everyone seems to be referring to), what she’s not saying because he begged her not to bring it up and she listens, for the most part, when he’s deadly serious. Which he was, and still is, deadly serious about this, and she’s always been respectful of it. 

“I’m trying not to think about it,” he admits quietly, looking down at the paper cup in his hand. He doesn’t want to look at her right now. He can’t look at her right now. “We’re both wrapping up soon and I only just got his number today. We agreed, though, it would just be… Something to do while we were both in the same place.” 

Lottie sits up a little, grunting as she gets situated again. He doesn’t have to look at her to know the look she’s giving him right now. “You look like mum,” he tells her, “when you look at me like that. Do you know that?” 

“I think you’ve mentioned. How do you know I’m looking at you like that?” 

Louis shrugs. “It’s a talent.” 

“Look, Louis, I know that you know what you’re doing, okay? And I know… I know why you’re cautious. And I don’t want to say anything that will sway you, because the truth is I don’t know enough to push you one way or the other. Even if I did, I don’t think I could sway you that much. But you’re happy right now, Lou, and that… I think that’s worth more than you think it is.” 

He swallows hard, looking over at her again. His younger sister, pregnant and giving him advice partially because she’s nosy and partially because she cares and partially because it distracts her from a number of things; the fact that she’s about to give birth, the fact that their mother isn’t here, the fact that her older brother isn’t always around as much as they both would like. 

Louis sniffs and sets his cuppa aside, standing up. He nods towards the bed and Lottie shuffles over a bit. He rounds the other side, climbing in behind her and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Lottie breathes out slowly, grabbing one of Louis’ hands and putting it over her belly, right where the baby is moving about. 

“You forget that, sometimes. You always have, but you forgot it a lot more after mum died,” Lottie says quietly. Louis’ breath hitches and he buries it in her hair as best he can. “You deserve to be happy, too. I know touring and the music makes you happy, but… You deserve to be happy elsewhere, too. That is worth a hell of a lot more than you have ever treated it, Lo.” 

Louis breathes in deeply, nodding against her. “Thanks, Lots,” he murmurs. 

Lottie hums. “Yes, you’re welcome. I’m smarter than you. Let’s take a nap before someone comes in to shove their hand up my vagina again.” 

He groans, laughing through it, making Lottie laugh too. “Alright, take a nap. Want me to have Harry bring you anything?” Louis asks, she hums, shaking her head. “We’ll get you a nice, big burger when this is all said and done.” 

His sister relaxes in his arms, her hand over his where it still rests on her belly. “You said we,” she murmurs sleepily. 

Louis hopes she doesn’t really remember noticing that. 

**

He paces around outside of the main hospital entrance, kicking a stray rock back and forth across the pavement. Louis ashes his cigarette and doesn’t let himself check the time because it might just make him disappointed for no reason. Harry had shit to do, he knows. There’s traffic, and maybe he doesn’t know where to meet Louis right away. 

Of course, in true Harry-like fashion, he shows up right when Louis’ about to give up and go inside. He doesn’t call out to him, of course not, but he has a smile on his face and he’s wearing painted-on jeans and a Black Sabbath tee shirt that looks strangely like Louis’. He’s carrying a tote bag and a takeaway from wherever he picked up lunch. 

When he reaches Louis he’s flustered. “Sorry, the seminar ran long and then the food took forever. Then I didn’t know how long you’d be staying here but figured you wouldn’t want to leave, so I kind of went through your clothes for some stuff. I threw your toothbrush and stuff in too.” 

Louis wants to kiss him. He gets rid of the butt of his cig and nods towards the doors, Harry following him in. “I don’t—I know I offered to bring you lunch, but I don’t have to stay—” 

“We have a room upstairs,” Louis says, cutting him off. “One of the family rooms on Lottie’s floor. We can eat there, I’m pretty sure everyone’s either busy or fawning over her.” 

Harry agrees quietly, following Louis onto the elevator with a few other people. They’re quiet until Louis shuts the door to the room, which is blissfully empty. He takes the tote from Harry, which is dotted in flowers and books and he smiles, telling Harry that it’s cute, which just makes him blush beautifully. 

“What’d you bring?” 

“Um, I just picked up some stuff from the restaurant at the hotel? I thought it’d be easier and faster there, so. I got you a buffalo chicken wrap, because I think I remember hearing you say something about how you like theirs.” 

Harry sits in one of the chairs, setting the takeaway bag down on the table and pulling things out. “I got crisps, too, because they have some of the best ones I’ve ever had? For me I just got a salad. I was eating at the meetings earlier so I’m not that hungry.” 

Louis nods, taking the seat across from him and grabbing the box with his wrap. “Did you put it on my tab?” 

Impossibly, Harry blushes more. “No,” he says firmly. “I bought this one, thank you very much.” 

He opens the container and picks up a half, taking a bite before he replies. “You could’ve just put it on mine.” 

“I wanted to get this one. Since last night’s went on your tab.” 

Fair enough. But Louis likes treating him to things. Dinners and sex and concerts. Short term, casual things. “Fine,” he agrees, watching Harry as he pours dressing over his salad and makes sure the container is closed before shaking it. 

The silence is comfortable. Strikingly so, as it usually is. Louis just focuses on his wrap and tries not to watch the stupidly obscene way Harry eats. He doesn’t speak again until Louis’ done eating, setting aside half his wrap for later as long as one of his sisters don’t get to it first. Harry closes his salad and sits back in his chair. 

“How is she? Your sister, I mean.” 

Louis huffs. Who else? “She’s good. Pushing soon I think, so this lunch was very well timed. Or, maybe poorly timed, depending on how much I see.” 

Harry grins, shaking his head at Louis’ attempt at a lighthearted joke. “You seem a little stressed.” 

“Yeah, my sister’s having a baby and our mum isn’t here and no matter how hard I try I can’t be her, can’t fill that space. Stress doesn’t begin to cover it.” Louis replies honestly. 

Harry glances at the door, then he stands up and comes around the table to stand in front of Louis. “Is this okay?” He asks quietly, and Louis nods. Harry sits on the arm of Louis’ chair, hooking his leg over Louis’ knee and leaning down, his elbow against the back of the chair. 

They’re so close Louis can practically taste him. He shuts his eyes, just for a second, taking a deep breath before opening them again. Harry’s staring at him, big green eyes intimidatingly close, and Louis swallows hard. Harry rests his palm on the center of Louis’ chest, feeling him breath steadily in and out. In and out. 

“You’re doing a really, really good job,” he says quietly. “But you need to get back. If she has that baby and you’re not there, you’ll never forgive yourself.” 

Louis whimpers. “What if it’s gross?” 

“It might be. But the father will be taking the brunt of it, so… You’re kind of just there for her to squeeze the life out of your hand while she pushes. Just don’t look, love.” 

Love. Louis’ chest tightens again. “Right,” he murmurs. “Can I get a kiss? For my admirable and brave and loving brotherly efforts?” 

Harry pulls his head back a little, like he’s just realized how close they actually are. “We can do that here?” 

Louis looks over his shoulder. The blinds are nearly closed, the door is shut, and he thinks Harry is worth taking the risk. So he looks back at him and nods. “Like, thirty seconds.” He says. “Then I have to go.” 

Harry nods, his hand sliding up to cup Louis’ jaw. He brings their lips together sweetly, waits for Louis to grab his leg and pull him down into his lap. Harry doesn’t laugh, surprisingly, keeps kissing Louis smoothly. His thumb strokes over Louis’ jaw and his tongue is familiar and warm and hot in Louis’ mouth and he wants so, so much more than thirty seconds. 

“I should go,” Louis murmurs against his mouth, feeling Harry smile against him, nodding slightly in agreement. “Thanks for lunch. I know you’re probably busy even though you say you’re not.” 

Harry laughs softly, pressing another gentle kiss to Louis’ lips. “No problem. I’ll stick around for a little bit, just in case you need something.” 

“You don’t have—” 

He gets cut off by Harry’s finger pressed against his lips. Harry’s smiling at him, amused and charming and… Something that looks a hell of a lot like fond, Louis thinks. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll hang with the twins. And I happen to love hospital pudding.” 

Louis makes a face. “Gross. But if you say so.” 

Harry clambers off his lap and holds a hand out to haul Louis up. Louis takes a second and kisses him once more before he has to make himself leave the room. Walking down the hall to his sister’s room, Louis wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and checks his reflection in a passing window before reaching her door. 

The doctor is setting up at his sister’s feet, and Lewis is diligently on Lottie’s left side. She’s talking to him, definitely complaining or freaking out (likely both). He lingers in the doorway for a moment, until the doctor notices him and asks if he’s staying or going. Lottie and Lewis both look at him, but he just stares at Lottie, waiting for her to decide. 

“Do you think…” She starts, then pauses, wincing as another contraction hits. Louis would take the pain away if he could, in a heartbeat and without hesitating. “I know it’s not ideal, but you don’t have to, like, look. Maybe just… Stand here with me?” 

Louis smiles, nodding. “Of course, Lots. If that’s what you want.” 

She gulps, nodding her head quickly. “Please. I’m kinda fuckin’ scared.” 

He crosses the room, wiping his increasingly sweaty palms on his pants before she snatches his right hand and smiles nervously at him. He tries to keep his gaze steady, but he’s kind of already tearing up and he knows they’re not making it through this without a handful of tears. 

Louis takes his other hand and pushes her sweaty hair off his sister’s forehead, doing his best to smile reassuringly at her. “I’ve got you, love,” he says softly. “You’ve got this.”

Lottie is staring up at him with her big, sad eyes, looking both shockingly like his mother and shockingly far from her at the same time. He kisses her forehead and leans in closer. “Just squeeze the fuck out of my hand, Lots, and Lewis’ too, I know you were pissed at him earlier.” 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she says, and then the doctor is moving in and she’s screaming at him not to look. Louis just directs his eyes on her face and lets her squeeze the fuck out of his hand. It’s what he can do, it’s what he has to do. 

What feels like an eternity later, Louis is officially an uncle to a beautiful boy named Lucky. He cried, Lewis cried, Lottie cried (a lot. And she yelled. And cursed. The miracle of life, he figures). He leaves to find the other girls and let them know how it went, and let them know Lottie and the baby will be ready for visitors in a couple of hours. 

Daisy and Phoebe are sitting in the room, talking to Harry. Louis opens the door slowly, but it captures their attention right away. All three of them immediately start asking questions, all at the same time which makes Louis laugh. He’s amused and in shock and probably delirious, but he’s laughing instead of crying, which is good.

“She did amazing,” he says. “She has a very healthy baby boy named Lucky. They’re both doing really, really well. She’ll be ready for visitors in a few hours, they gotta perform an exam on him and give her a little time to rest.” 

There’s more crying and even more hugging, for a brief (naive) moment he thought he’d have exhausted all of that in the delivery room. Harry grabs him last, pulling him into a fierce hug. Louis rests his cheek against Harry’s shoulder, sighing in comfort or relief or something a lot more complex that he doesn’t have the capacity to think about right now. 

“Didn’t think you’d stay the whole time,” he murmurs, hoping Harry can’t hear how immensely glad he is that Harry’s still here. He didn’t know how relieved and glad he’d be to still see Harry waiting in the room with the twins until after it happened. “Thanks,” he adds, and Harry shrugs. 

“Don’t mention it.” Harry replies easily, letting Louis go after leaving a featherlight kiss at his temple. Louis raises his hand, rubbing gently over the spot that Harry kissed. 

He pulls his phone out and quickly reads the text updates from Mark — they’ve rescheduled an interview for tonight, and the signing that was supposed to happen today for tomorrow instead, thus pushing back tomorrow’s radio interview as well. He’d obviously rather be with his family for as long as possible, but Louis knows this isn’t exactly enough to reschedule everything. He’s lucky he’s in England, at least, because if he were anywhere else, rescheduling would have been a nightmare. He certainly would’ve missed the birth entirely, had he not been in London. 

Lottie probably would’ve killed him with her bare hands had that been the case. 

He sighs upon seeing when Mark had texted him and what time it is now, looking at Daisy. She reads it all over his face immediately, nods solemnly. She crosses the room and wraps her arms around his torso, hugging him tightly again, burying her face against his chest. 

“It’s okay, Lou,” she whispers. “We’ve got her, okay?” 

Louis nods, pressing his cheek against the side of her head. “I know. Just sucks, that’s all.” 

“It’s okay.” Daisy says again. He kisses her head and takes a step back, she’s looking up at him with glassy eyes and a smile. Their mother’s smile. He kisses her cheek and moves to pull Phoebe into a hug instead. 

She does the same thing her twin just had, face pressed to Louis’ chest. “We really like Harry, for what it’s worth,” she says quietly, and Louis nods. Yeah, he knows. He is very well aware. He kisses Phoebe’s head and moves to stand by the door, waiting for Harry to say goodbye to them before he catches up. 

Harry asks that they really can’t see Lottie and the baby on their way out, but Louis assures him that the baby is getting checked out and Lottie is either crying or complaining or sleeping, so it’s not an option. Harry says that any of those are more than valid, and Louis agrees, but then Harry pouts for the whole elevator ride down to the lobby. Louis wants to kiss it off his face every second, but he refrains. 

Outside, Louis lights a cigarette as they walk. Harry glances at him when Louis starts following him toward the lot, laughing softly. “Oh, would you like a ride back to the hotel?” He asks sarcastically. 

Louis inhales on his cig and spares a glance himself. Harry’s smiling wickedly, he can tell because he can see the dimple on Harry’s cheek, even with his quick glance. “If you’re offering,” he replies, making Harry laugh again. “I could get one myself, but, you know. If you’re offering.” 

“My company covers car rentals. So I drove here myself.” Harry replies. “You can hitch a ride.” 

“My hero,” Louis croons. Harry giggles this time, a sound Louis has not (and will not ever) get used to.  

They’re quiet for a moment, Harry tugging his key out as they (apparently) get closer to the car. Louis’ just following him blindly, in a haze. He can hardly make sense of the events of the past, like, twelve hours? Twenty four hours? He doesn’t even know. All he knows is he’s in Harry’s clothes, walking to Harry’s car, and his sister just had a baby. That’s all he has. 

Harry shuts his door and turns the car on, turning the radio down quickly. Louis glances at the screen; Harry had been listening to one of Louis’ songs on his way here. Louis smirks and turns the volume back up again, just a little bit, just to tease. 

“Sorry,” Harry murmurs. “I was in a bit of a mood after my meetings.” 

Louis angles his body toward Harry, leaning against the door with an amused look on his face. “And my music… Gets you out of the mood?” 

“Kind of,” Harry admits, clearly fighting back a grin. He puts the car in reverse and pulls out of the spot, weaving slowly through the lot. “You can ask, you know?” 

Louis hums, not knowing what Harry’s talking about. Harry rolls his eyes briefly, shaking his head. “My reading went well enough, but afterward some hotshot publisher came up to me and was asking all sorts of questions about my former agent. I switched a couple of years ago because, well, uh, my old agent and I kind of… Had a thing? And this publisher had heard about it, which isn’t surprising because my ex has kind of a big mouth, and he was asking all these really rude questions.” 

“Oh,” Louis says quietly. Harry shrugs. “I’m sorry, Harry.” 

“It’s whatever. It was a long time ago, and I’m not sleeping with my current agent, so he was wrong about everything, really. Except the fact that I did sleep with my old agent. The reading went well otherwise, which is all that really matters.” 

Louis doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say, really. He keeps his eyes focused on the road ahead of them, thinking about how they’ve revealed rather hefty bits of information about themselves to each other over the past several hours, and been present for a baby being born (Louis’ nephew, nonetheless). 

“Louis?” Harry prompts. “Are you thinking about the fact I slept with my agent? I’m not a slag, I promise, it was kind of a really stupid decision. And we knew each other before he became my agent, so… I don’t know. It was stupid. Like I said, I’m not sleeping with my current one. Or, you know, anyone else. Besides you.” 

Louis smiles a little. “I wasn’t thinking about that, and I definitely don’t think you’re a slag. I was just… Thinking. Don’t worry about it. Any of it.” 

Harry exhales a little sigh of relief. “So,” he begins, “does it feel different? Being an uncle?” 

Louis hums, considering. “I dunno. I think I might be too fucking exhausted to actually process anything.” 

“You can take a nice nap at the hotel.” 

“Will you join me?” 

Harry laughs. “Maybe. You’ll have to see.” 

Harry, of course, joins him in his hotel room for a nap. Louis passes out almost the second his head hits the pillow, Harry curled up in his arms. He dreams something odd and nonsensical, about babies and books and long, curly brown hair. He sleeps soundly for nearly three hours, waking up only when he feels Harry’s fingertips tracing his stomach beneath his sweatshirt. 

Louis smiles tiredly, reaching his own hand under the hoodie and grabbing Harry’s wrist. Harry gasps quietly, his head moving a bit on Louis’ chest. “You’re awake,” he whispers. “Can I ask you something?” 

Louis hums, not opening his eyes. He'll probably agree to just about anything Harry asked for right now. “When she had the baby, did you have to, like, do anything?” 

He snorts. “Do anything? No, Harold, I didn’t deliver the baby, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

Harry pinches his stomach, making Louis laugh. “That’s not what I was asking, idiot. I mean, like, did you see anything?” 

Louis opens his eyes and angles his chin to look down at Harry. Harry’s not looking at him, gaze set on the windows across the room. He looks beautiful as ever, Louis finds himself thinking, even without giving his brain explicit permission to do so. “Harry,” he says slowly, curbing the thoughts of Harry’s beauty for the time being. “Have you been laying here… Thinking about my sister’s…” He trails off, not even allowing himself to finish the sentence, it’s too gross to think about. 

“No!” Harry exclaims, sitting up abruptly. His hand digs into Louis’ stomach as he pushes himself upright, making Louis groan. “Oh, sorry! Sorry,” Harry’s hand slowly strokes to spot he just applied an immense amount of pressure to, apologizing again. 

Louis grabs his hand and tangles their fingers together, shaking his head. “I was not thinking about that. Well, not explicitly, I guess. I was just curious, what it was like. I’ve never been in the room with someone who’s having a baby.” 

“I did not see anything,” Louis confirms. Harry moves while Louis speaks, straddling his waist and sitting his arse down fully on Louis’ crotch. He puts his other hand on Harry’s thigh, thumb stroking gently. “It was… Loud, and painful. More for her than me, obviously, but the girl is strong. Stronger than she looks, my hand hurts quite a bit. And there was lots of crying, lots of yelling. She was even yelling at me, telling me not to look because it was gross and hurt and she didn’t want to scar me.” 

Harry giggles at that, letting go of Louis’ fingers. He motions with his own hands, palms up, gesturing for Louis to do the same, which he does. Harry settles his palms underneath Louis’ hands, smiling. “Which hand was she holding?” 

Louis hums, looking down at where his hands rest palm up on top of Harry’s. “The right one. My left was behind her head or patting her down with a cool cloth. Which I don’t think helped that much, all she did was yell at me.” 

Harry smiles, and lets his left fall down again, taking Louis’ right hand in both of his own. He bends his wrist gently, digging his thumbs into Louis’ palm. Louis hums again, his head lolling back against his pillow. A few moments of silence pass between them, Louis’ brain far from thinking about anything other than how good Harry’s fingers feel, delicately working his hand. 

“D’you know you talk in your sleep?” Harry asks finally, voice soft. 

“No I don’t,” Louis protests, looking up at him again. Harry’s smirking, like he knows something Louis doesn’t. “What are you on about?” 

The smirk doesn’t leave his mouth. “You do. You said something about, uh, how you didn’t want to do something. Called it shit. Then said something about someone waiting for you, how you didn’t have time.” 

“I did not,” Louis insists. That is way too specific, there’s no way he talks like that in his sleep. He tries not to think about Harry listening to him, though, on the off chance that he does say shit like that when he’s asleep.

“I’ll have to record you next time,” Harry says simply. “Feel good?” 

“Mhm. Feels really nice,” Louis replies. He bites on his lip, debating what to say next. He doesn’t really have a proper argument for the sleep talking comment, because he doesn’t know for sure, no one’s ever said it to him before. “You talk too, sometimes. Not sentences, just mumbling. And, remember when I told you that you don’t snore?” 

Harry nods, an amused grin on his face now in place of the smirk. Louis huffs. He seems all too smug for Louis’ liking right now. “You do snore. Really bad sometimes, actually.” 

Harry snorts. “You’re full of it.” 

Louis claims his hand back, putting both on Harry’s hips, fingers sneaking up the hem of the tee shirt to rest on bare skin, stroking gently. “This my shirt?” He asks. Harry shrugs, looking down at it. 

“Dunno, maybe. Why? You’re in all my clothes,” he points out. Louis scoffs at that. “It might be. I can give it back to you this afternoon. How much time do you have?” 

Louis groans, tipping his head back and blinking at the ceiling. “I dunno. What time is it? I have a radio interview at, like, seven.” 

“It’s, like, five thirty.” Harry says, adopting (mocking) Louis’ unsure, petulant tone. Again, Louis groans, squeezing his eyes shut. He wants nothing more than to lay here in bed, getting up only to open the door for the room service they order, but that isn’t an option right now. 

He feels it when Harry bends down, his chest pressing against Louis, his mouth coming to leave gentle kisses all over the side of his neck. Louis smirks. “I suppose I have enough time. But I cannot take that call with you around again, babe, because you were way too distracting.” 

Harry pouts against his neck. “What if I wear all my clothes?” He asks. Louis shakes his head slowly, because it wouldn’t be good enough, and they both know it. “What if I wait in the other room? I have some writing to get done, anyway.” 

“What’re you working on?” 

“Nothing. Some poems.” 

“Poems, prose,” Louis says whimsically, opening his eyes again. He’s still staring at the ceiling, Harry still leaving warm, wet kisses all over his neck. “Don’t leave a hickey, Styles, you know better.” 

“We have time, then? And you don’t have to leave?”

Louis sighs. Pretends it’s a hardship, just to be a pain. He knows he’s not going anywhere, and Harry does too. “Yeah. You’re not fucking me an hour before I have to be on radio, though,” he negotiates, and Harry licks the side of his neck in response. “Gross,” Louis mutters, snaking a hand between them to wipe at his skin. 

It’s not gross, they’ve done a number of gross things to each other, both sexual and not, over the past week. Just a few days ago Louis watched Harry drop an entire mouthful of sauce-covered pasta on his sweatpants, pick it up with his hands, and eat it without hesitating. He knows it’s not really that gross, but his mum would’ve had his head about it, and she’s passed that down to him. Louis also has vague recollection of Harry listening to a slightly drunk (very drunk) burping contest that may or may not have been Louis’ idea. 

Point is, they’ve done gross non-sexual stuff, too. Honestly, Harry licking his neck is kind of more weirdly hot than it is gross. 

He moves finally, toppling Harry onto his back and settling between Harry’s spread legs. They don’t have a lot of time to talk, not when Louis has to be on the phone soon. Not like he’d need convincing to get into Harry’s pants, deadline or not, anyway. 

“You’re just finishing up a stint in London, aren’t you? Any plans for after that?” The interviewer asks. Louis’ been hard-pressed to remember the poor guy’s name, and that’s no fault other than his own. Harry has been in the so-called living room, presumably diligently working on his own shit, for the past thirty minutes that Louis’ been on the phone. 

“I am, yes. I have some downtime after this, then I’m back on the road again. We’re starting in the UK this time, taking a break for the holidays, and then we’ll be in the US for the summer. We’re looking to add more dates in other countries, to make sure the tour gets spread around as best we possibly can.” 

“We’ll be giving away tickets to a few of your UK shows, so I’m sure plenty of listeners will be prepared to listen in for those,” the interviewer says with a laugh, and Louis laughs too. 

The bedroom door cracks open slowly, Louis’ eyes darting to look as Harry pokes his head in. He’s wearing an apologetic look, nearly a wince, as he slides in and points at the bedside table, where Harry’s been keeping various books and notebooks and loose sheets of papers. Louis nods and asks the interviewer to repeat his question, laughing it off with him. 

Harry’s hair is pulled up into a bun, and he’s wearing — well, clothes, but not a lot of them. Black briefs and a crewneck that’s far too big for him, coming down in line with the hem of his briefs, Louis wonders where he got it, but now isn’t the time. 

“I’ll just be spending time with family, seeing some old friends. Not much to get up to in Donny, but we always managed to find our fair share of trouble. Me sister just had her baby, so I’m sure there will be plenty of family time.” Louis answers finally, not taking his eyes off of Harry as he creeps across the room, bending down to quietly open the nightstand drawer. 

“Oh, wow, that’s amazing, mate! Congratulations!” 

“Yeah, it really is. Thank you, I’ll be sure to pass the congrats onto her, she’s the one who did all the hard work.” 

The interviewer laughs again. Harry takes what he needs and mouths sorry, more than one time, as he sneaks back out of the room. Louis laughs softly. “It’s been a pleasure talking to you, man, thank you so much for taking the time.” 

“Of course. Thank you for having me.” Louis answers easily, automatic now. Now he’s just thinking about what Harry’s working on, he wants to know. 

“Wanna introduce our next song for us?” 

“I’d love it. I’m Louis Tomlinson, and this is my newest single, Silver Tongues.” 

Once they’re off air he says his final goodbyes to the interviewer and hangs up, tossing his phone onto the nightstand and making his way into the living room. He enters just as slowly as Harry had just a few minutes ago, his socked feet not making a sound on the ground. He’s dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a black crewneck, also a bit big on him, from his own merchandise collection.

Harry glances up from his laptop when he hears the door, smiling. “Hi, sorry. Did I cut you short?” 

“Nah, was wrapping up anyway.” 

Harry nods, looking back down at his laptop. He’s sitting up on the couch, computer perched on his knees. He has notebooks and papers on either side of him, a few things on the coffee table, closed. Louis moves slowly, sitting down on the other side of Harry’s… Whatever this is. He grabs a bottle of water that’s sitting on the table and cracks the seal, which earns him a side eye.

“It’s brand new,” he says defensively. “And we’ve been swapping a whole lot more than spit these past several days, you know.” Like, really, if they didn’t wear condoms when they fucked Louis would have to be heavily persuaded not to finish inside him. Anything else has been fair game, which means there’s been a lot worse than spit swapped.

Harry rolls his eyes and looks back down at his computer. Louis is fighting the urge to peek at the papers right next to him. He sits back, curling his feet up under himself as he drinks from the water bottle, watching Harry. 

His bottom lip is pulled between his teeth, and his perfect hands are poised over his keyboard. He types for a minute, then stops and sighs. He scrolls back up, his free hand now pinching his bottom lip. Louis puts the cap on his water and drops it onto the couch beside himself. 

Harry sighs again, shaking his head. “You’re really distracting, too, you know that?” He asks, but he doesn’t sound as frustrated by it as he probably should be. Harry clicks a few keys, then moves the mouse around, then shuts his laptop and moves it onto the coffee table. 

Louis watches him gather everything up, all the notebooks and papers from the couch that Louis didn’t get a chance to look at because that felt wrong, even though it was tempting. He puts it all on top of his laptop and looks over at Louis once that’s all done. 

“I should probably, like, separate myself. To actually get shit done. But I don’t know if I want to.” Harry tells him. “But you’re really distracting, too.” 

Louis glances down at his own outfit and then looks at Harry. “I have all my clothes on. You don’t. Who’s sweater even is that? It’s big, even on you, which is mental.” 

Harry laughs softly, looking down at his own clothes. “Uh, I think the pants are yours, honestly. The sweatshirt is, like, ancient. Stolen from a guy in my uni days, ancient.”  

Louis hums, amused. “Really? Who was he?” 

Harry shrugs. Louis lowers his legs, one foot on the floor, the other stretching out enough to touch Harry’s thigh. Harry smiles and moves right away, crawling up and laying his stupidly pretty, stupidly hot, stupidly large body over top of Louis’. He rests his chin on Louis’ chest to look up at him. 

Louis runs his fingers through Harry’s hair, gently tugging knots loose. “He was just a guy. I dunno, he was nice, studied English. The sex was alright, nothing crazy, but I got this from him one morning and then I never saw him again. So I kept it.” 

“Huh,” Louis muses. It’s weird to think of Harry doing things like that, being in uni and having one night stands and whatever the fuck. Louis never went to uni, he didn’t get the experience like that. 

“Is that, like, I probably shouldn’t be telling you that?” Harry says, hesitant now, as if Louis hadn’t spilled his entire soul to him, about Ryan and contracts and paying off tabloids. Louis doesn’t say anything about that now. Harry’s chin is digging into Louis’ chest every time he speaks and somehow it doesn’t even bother him. “It’s a good sweater, though,” Harry says, cheeky and sheepish all at the same time. It’s in his dimples; when he’s being cheeky they both come out, but when he’s sheepish and shy, the less prominent one is the only indent on his face. 

Louis rolls his eyes. “It is. I’m not sure pants and a sweater count as clothes, though. You should take some notes from me.” 

“It’s not your clothes that are distracting,” Harry mumbles, turning his face suddenly. He rests his cheek on Louis’ chest, his hand moving to absently toy with the collar of his crewneck. Every time his fingertips brush Louis’ bare skin he feels a little jolt. It’s terrifying and exciting and pathetic, and he chooses not to comment on it. Harry touches his skin and keeps playing with Louis’ sweatshirt. 

“I’m trying to write. They want more stuff from me, sometime soon, and I’m afraid now that you know who I am, after we leave here you’re going to stumble across it and see something that’s all about you.” 

Louis doesn’t say anything. He just keeps stroking Harry’s hair and keeps trying (and failing) to ignore anything else. “It wouldn’t have anything, like, actually about you. Your name or anything really defining like that. But if you read it, you’d know it was about you.”

Louis wants to see his face again. He brings a hand up and puts two fingers underneath Harry’s chin, coaxing him up again. Harry sighs and rests his chin on those fingertips, looking at Louis. “Will I get to see it before you publish?” Louis asks, and Harry hums. Louis brushes his thumb over Harry’s jawline gently. 

“Do you want to?” Harry replies. “Like, seriously want to?” 

Louis nods. “Yeah, if you want me to.” 

Harry heaves a sigh. His eyes dart to the table, where all of his paperwork and his laptop now reside, then he looks back at Louis. “I don’t really show stuff to people before it gets published. This stuff I haven’t even sent to my editor yet.” 

“You don’t have to,” Louis reminds him gently. He adds, jokingly, “I’ve got you under a pretty heavy contract, you know. They’ll come after you if you write about my magic cock or anything like that.” 

“I promise, I’m not writing anything about your cock. And it was mega, not magic,” Harry says, smiling for a brief second before it disappears and he sobers up. “I’ll show you before we have to leave, maybe.”

Louis pauses, waiting to see if Harry realizes on his own or if Louis will have to remind him. Harry’s brow furrows a little, confused at Louis’ silence, but then it softens with the realization. Harry bites down on his bottom lip, ribbing his top teeth over it as he considers. Tomorrow is Harry’s last day at the conference; he’s staying in Louis’ room on Wednesday night because he has to check out in the morning, even with a slate of things to attend.

“You’re still okay with that?” Harry whispers. Louis reaches his thumb up and gently tugs Harry’s lip back out. “With me staying in your room tomorrow? I’d have to bring all my shit in.” 

“Well I wouldn’t expect you to leave it on the curb,” Louis replies, trying to keep it lighthearted. 

It shouldn’t be anything other than lighthearted, is the thing, but somewhere along the way Louis got everything all tangled up and now he isn’t sure what he feels, or what he’s supposed to feel. It was what they agreed on when they first got into this, and Louis can’t decide what’s worse; that he feels this confused, or that he doesn’t know what Harry’s thinking or feeling. 

His sister certainly didn’t help matters earlier, and Louis couldn’t even tell her off, because she was on the verge of pushing out a baby, and still being all caring and borderline philosophical so Louis couldn’t even tell her off for meddling. 

“You’re thinking a lot today,” Harry says. His hand comes up and he touches between Louis’ eyebrows, smoothing over the lines Louis is well aware of developing when he thinks too hard. 

“It’s been quite a day. Did I thank you properly for it yet?” 

“Um, an hour or so ago, when you made me come so hard I couldn’t stop shaking,” Harry deadpans, making Louis bark out a laugh. Harry kisses his thumb and smiles, cocky. “I think that’s thank you enough, isn’t it?” 

Louis shakes his head. “No, I mean, like, properly thank you. Though I’m glad you’re content with an orgasm.” 

“You do this thing with your tongue, I swear, it’s incredible,” Harry says through laughter — through giggles, Louis is so fucking awed by him — his lips brushing against his thumb. “It’s a very thorough way of saying thank you, that’s all I’m saying.” 

Louis hooks his foot beneath Harry’s knee, moves the other one off the floor to rest over the back of his thigh, effectively tangling them together on top of the couch. Harry smiles at him, that sheepish yet somehow cocky half-smile that makes only one dimple pop out. Those dimples make Louis want to do irrational, out of character things. 

Shouting from rooftops and tattooing names on his body and saying fuck labels, fuck NDA’s, fuck it all, are all things that come to mind. None of which he can do. But Louis would do them, honestly. 

“While I’m glad for the positive review,” Louis starts, instead of any of the other things. He scratches at Harry’s scalp and he leans into it, and Louis thinks he would purr like a kitten if he could. His eyes slip shut a bit and he hums mindlessly before gaining his wits back, opening his eyes fully to peer up at Louis again. 

Harry licks his lips, his head still cradled in Louis’ palm like he’d never rather be anywhere else as he waits for Louis to speak. (Seriously. Very conflicting thoughts. Louis doesn’t know how to approach them, so he won’t.) 

“Aside from sexually, did I thank you?” Louis asks, clarifying. He touches Harry’s chin now, feeling the little stubble that’s beginning to make its way through. “Have you ever grown a beard? Or, like, facial hair, past this, I mean.” 

“Which question do you want me to answer?” 

Louis considers, still stroking Harry’s chin. “Both, honestly. Since I do that thing with my tongue, I think I deserve both.” 

Harry laughs. “I have. Don’t like it all the time, but I hate shaving,” he replies, and Louis nods understandingly. 

“I have a guy. I could get you his number.” 

“Are you telling me you don’t shave yourself?” Harry asks, picking his head up quickly in his shock. Louis laughs and cups his jaw, coaxing him back down. “That’s embarrassing.” 

“I shave myself. When I feel like it. I was just curious about you. My other question?” 

“You don’t let up, do you?” 

“From the sounds of it, neither did my tongue.” 

“You’re fucking unbearable, has anyone ever told you that?” Harry asks, sounding awed. Louis just shrugs. People have. His team, his family, some people he’s been with. Everyone else pisses him off when they say it, but when Harry says it, somehow Louis isn’t bothered. He’s trying not to think about it. 

Harry sighs, his chin digging into Louis’ ribs again. Before he speaks, he moves his own hand, putting it under his chin, big palm splayed on Louis’ chest. Louis shifts to hold the back of his neck instead, stroking his bare skin with his thumb. “You did say thank you,” he says, and Louis vaguely remembers saying it. He just doesn’t think he said it right. 

“It was…” he trails off, trying to figure out what to say. He remembers how he felt when Harry showed up, the relief and confusion and how conflicting it was, because it felt so natural. “It was really, really kind that you came like you did. With food and that you…. That you stayed. With me and with my sisters, God help me. I hope they didn’t say anything fuckin’ stupid. But I am really glad that you were there. So thank you, seriously.” 

Harry is looking at him fondly, curiously, cautiously. Waiting. Louis wants to kiss him so badly he can feel it in his bones, a deep seated ache that feels like it might never let up. “I mean it, H, you kind of know how big of a deal that is for me, we talked a little about it. And I knew you for, like, a couple of days. I don’t know. It just… Meant a lot, having you show up like that. So thank you, and I’m sure you can expect a fruit basket or something from my sister in the near future.” 

Harry blinks those big, stupid, pretty eyes at him and Louis melts. “You’re welcome. The food was the least I could do,” he murmurs. “And I should probably send Lottie a fruit basket, because she did all the hard work.” 

Louis laughs, tipping his head back. He stares at the ceiling. “You can send baskets back and forth until you die, then, I won’t be part of it,” he says, and Harry’s fingers move, clenching over Louis’ chest briefly before they let up and they go flat again. 

“I might have to,” Harry says softly. “D’you know what kinda stuff she likes?” 

Louis shrugs, his eyes still glued on the ceiling. “I could do some digging. I’ve had to send packages and stuff a time or two. I’ll text you what I find.” 

Harry hums. Louis doesn’t know how he knows to figure out that that little sound means Harry wants him to look down again, but he does. Louis tilts his chin down again, meeting Harry’s eye. “D’you think that’s weird?” Harry asks, and Louis hums questioningly. “Like, we’ve been around each other for almost a week, and soon it’s just going to be, like, occasional texting?” 

Louis swallows hard. He absently plays with the curls at the nape of his neck that have gradually begun falling loose from his bun, considering his answer. He isn’t sure what Harry wants to hear, but he also knows that he shouldn’t really be tailoring his answers like that anyway. Harry’s question has a couple implications, none of which Louis was ever anticipating becoming possible realities just a few short days later. 

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Considering we didn’t have each other’s numbers until literally today, it’s kind of crazy.” 

“Good thing you had lackeys to get messages to me before today,” Harry smiles, but it’s only with half of his mouth this time and Louis has to change the conversation topic quickly, because if he didn’t know any better Louis would think Harry’s starting to get a little sad. That simply won’t do. 

Louis sighs softly, smiling when the puff of air over his face makes Harry scrunch his nose. “What d’you say we get up? We’ll take a quick shower, then we’ll go get dinner.” 

Harry tilts his head curiously. “In the lobby?” 

Louis shakes his head slowly. “Uh, no. I know a few places around here that are good for, like, my privacy. As well as food. I can make you a list and you can look at the menus while I shower?” 

Harry pouts at that. Louis wants to kiss him again, right now, so badly it’s almost impossible to resist. “I thought you said we’ll take a shower,” he says, almost whining, and that just makes Louis want to kiss him even more. Wants to swallow those sounds up directly, draw more out of him using his mouth and tongue and hands just to swallow them all up just as greedily as he wants the ones he doesn’t directly cause.

It’s in this moment that Louis fully, undeniably, realizes that he doesn’t know that this is something he wants to let go of. Just a handful of nights in a hotel, learning so much about this man who was a stranger just five days ago, knowing that there’s still so much more to learn. Louis doesn’t want to stop learning. 

And until he figures out if that’s something he can even say to Harry, Louis will grapple with two very different things: the thought of saying it, and the thought of coping with walking away at the end of this with nothing. Which, the latter was the plan, but Louis has never really been one to follow plans. 

“If we shower together I’ll end up wanting to take you apart all over again, and then we’ll never make it to dinner.” Louis tells him, and Harry pouts even more, which Louis didn’t think was possible. “I’m afraid my cock can’t take anymore.” 

Harry wiggles his lower half pointedly, smirking like he’s just doing it to piss Louis off. Louis rolls his eyes and moves his hand down to Harry’s hip, squeezing firmly. Harry arches his eyebrows, but Louis doesn’t let his own expression change. “Fine. I’ll go get in the shower,” Harry grumbles, clambering off of Louis. 

Louis stares at his body as he gets up; first the pout on his face, then his torso, wearing a sweatshirt that isn’t Louis’, then his hips, clad in a pair of Louis’ Calvin’s (which are definitely his because they’re too small), then his long, bare legs. 

“You’re staring, Tomlinson,” Harry says, tugging down one of the legs on the shorts slightly. 

Louis eyes the massive tiger tattoo on his thigh. “I’m gonna grill you on your tattoos over dinner.” 

He looks at Harry’s face again, just in time to see him bite his lip in an attempt to hide a smirk. Harry dangles his hand closer to Louis purposefully, giving Louis the chance to snatch it and kiss his knuckles. He tugs on Harry’s arm and Harry takes the hint, ducking down and kissing Louis quickly. 

It’s not enough, though, this is never fucking enough. Louis grips his chin and holds him for a longer kiss, parting Harry’s lips and licking into his mouth just to make Harry hum, that sweet little sound in the back of his throat that lets Louis know he’s kissing him well. 

Louis lets him go with the smack of their parting lips, Harry with a lazy smile on his face .”I’ll have a list of places for you to pick when you come out, love. After you pick, I’ll make the call once I’m done.” 

Harry nods, squeezes his hand, and scampers off to the bathroom. 

Louis compiles his list, looking closely at each menu so he can be sure there’s plenty of vegetarian options for Harry. He uses a blank piece of paper and pen Harry left laying around but uses his own laptop to browse. After he hears the shower turn off, Louis leaves his laptop and list of restaurants on the coffee table so Harry can look and make his choice. 

Harry comes out a minute later, white towel wrapped around his waist, long hair dropping over his shoulders and collarbones. Louis only catches glimpses of him as he goes back and forth from the bedroom and the bathroom, which is probably for the best. Finally, Harry peeks his head out and tells Louis that the bathroom is all his. 

Harry’s looking at his pile of clothes that have accumulated with Louis’ stuff, wearing a pair of grey briefs this time. Louis pinches his hip on his way by and doesn’t turn to look at Harry’s reaction. 

By the time he gets out of the shower, Harry has settled on sketch (a personal favorite of Louis’) for dinner and has pulled on a pair of black skinny jeans and a soft-looking blouse Louis can’t remember seeing but must have, if it ended up in Louis’ laundry. 

“Gimme your keys,” Louis says as they reach the door. Harry hands them over without questioning. This feels… Strikingly date-like and Louis is already crafting ways to combat it when his brain starts getting a bit too wrapped up in that feeling. 

His hand twitches the entire car ride, wanting to reach over and grab Harry’s. 

“Before you start grilling me about tattoos,” Harry starts, opening his menu, “why are we here?” 

They’re in the private room at sketch, Louis is wearing black slacks and a button down and he feels like he’s sweating at the sight of Harry alone, combined with his question. Louis needs a glass of something, like, yesterday. 

“It’s, like, kind of our last night to do anything, isn’t it?” He asks, staring at the menu instead of staring at Harry, though it doesn’t really make it easier. “You have a full day tomorrow, and I have interviews and shit, and then I check out on Thursday morning. Figured we could use a change of scenery.” 

Harry hums. “It’s nice. Do you come here a lot? With, like, people.” 

Louis laughs. He’s not even looking at the menu. He’s going to copy Harry’s drink order and pick the first thing that comes to mind. “No, not really. I mean, I come here pretty frequently when I’m in town, but not… With anyone special. My family, maybe. Why?” 

Harry slaps his menu shut. Louis looks up, watching him slide it onto the table and then takes a sip of his water. Louis closes his own menu and does the same. “I’m just curious, that’s all. You asked about my sweatshirt and everything.” 

“I also recall bearing my soul to you about the douchebag who tried to make a dime off me, so I think the sweatshirt was kind of small in comparison,” Louis retorts, biting, immediately regretting it. He takes a breath and looks at Harry’s face. “Sorry. You obviously don’t owe me anything.” 

Harry’s smiling. Louis didn’t fuck up that badly. The relief floods his entire body right away. “I know that,” he says, meeting Louis’ gaze. “It’s nice. And also, like, kind of crazy. That you can just… Make a phone call and slip some people some money and get a whole fuckin’ room to yourself.” 

Chuckling, Louis nods. “Yeah, it took a bit of getting used to. I fucked myself over a few times at the beginning, but now I know how it works and I reap the benefits.” 

“All the benefits.” 

“Don’t make me sound like a whore, Harold.” 

Harry gasps, sitting back in his chair. “I would never. I just don’t even want to know how you got to be that good at… stuff.” 

Louis wants a drink. He wants a drink, wants to get drunk, but he won’t let the last days with Harry become clouded by alcohol. Just a drink would help. He doesn’t look away from Harry’s face when he speaks again. “I’d tell you everything, you know.” 

“It’s fine. It’s not like we were doing it raw.” 

That concept alone makes Louis feel like his brain is bursting. The fact Harry says it out loud makes him want to laugh. The fact that their waiter shows up a second after, as Louis is staring at him in stunned silence and Harry looks like he wishes he couldn’t speak at all, that’s fucking hilarious. 

Harry orders a few appetizers and a highball, which Louis echoes. He doesn’t really care for highballs, but he can’t gather enough brain power to figure out something else to order on a moment’s notice. 

“A fucking highball, seriously?” Louis asks, once the waiter has left. “You’ve been preaching tequila all week.”

Harry grins. “This felt like a special occasion. Last night out and all.” 

Louis stares at him, trying to figure out how whiskey would be Harry’s drink of choice, and he comes up empty. So fucking much to learn. “I just… I never would’ve picked whiskey.” 

Harry shrugs. “It’s nice, sometimes. And you’re driving, so. No need to hit the tequila that hard, right?” 

Louis wants to call him baby, wants to lean across the table and kiss him, wants to say how he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to walk away from this without suffering. Seriously, Louis is writing vague songs in his head right now for an album that does not exist yet. 

He doesn’t do anything like that. Instead he laughs and forces himself to relax, mirroring Harry’s laid back position. “Do I get to ask now, then? About your tattoos?” 

Harry shrugs, his gaze somewhere over Louis’ shoulder. Louis suspects he’s eyeing the drinks coming over, and that suspicion is confirmed a second later when their drinks are set down in front of them. Harry grabs his right away and takes a big sip. He’ll need another (maybe two more) before their appetizers even come. 

Louis is just amused, because the highball seems so random and out of character. Louis wants to learn it all.  

“I have a lot. You’ve seen them all,” Harry says after he’s swallowed. Louis nods, picking up his own and taking a sip. He’s not a fan of whiskey, but he drinks it anyway. “Some of them have meaning, some don’t.” 

“The tiger?” Louis asks, largely because it’s fresh in his mind (not because he thinks he saw a flash of it in a dream the other night, definitely not). 

Harry does that cute little giggle and Louis is fucking losing it. He might have a nervous breakdown in this nice restaurant. It’s fine. “It looks cool.And, um, it’s kind of funny, too? Tiger on my thigh, thigh-ger? The jokes write themselves.” 

Louis snorts. “You should’ve stuck with saying that it just looks cool, love,” he says, not negatively, just teasingly. Harry’s flushing anyway, shaking his head. “What about the birds?”

Harry ducks his face now, which means he’s blushing even more. Louis wants to say fuck dinner, fuck everything else, let’s go back to the hotel room and spend our time there. Doing, like, literally anything. Sipping drinks, talking in the living room. Laying in bed, talking quietly. Having sex and then waking up an hour later, talking quietly, Harry’s voice all raspy from sleep (and cock, honestly, which is coincidentally Louis’ favorite way to hear his voice). 

“They’re swallows. They mate for life,” Harry says, his tone even, effectively jolting Louis back to where they are now. When he looks up at Louis again, he’s miraculously not blushing anymore. His eyes kind of look like they’re sparkling, which is a wonderful and painful thing for Louis to notice. “They also symbolize good luck, which I needed a lot of at the time, when it felt like I was talking at walls during uni about my writing and stuff.” 

Louis nods slowly, swirling his drink around in its glass just to listen to the ice clink. “What about the butterfly?” 

“S’more of a moth, I think,” Harry comments, pouting down at his own torso, like he’s imagining the tattoo beneath the fabric of his button down. “But I just liked it, I dunno.” 

“Butterflies in your stomach?” Louis asks teasingly. Harry’s cheeks flush pretty pink and he ducks his head, trying to hide his smile before Louis can catch a glimpse. “What about the, um, the ones on your hips?” 

“The laurels?” He asks, and Louis nods. He can picture them clearly without even seeing them, can remember what it felt like when he was leaving marks there, biting, pressing down with his fingertips, can remember exactly what sounds he was able to pull out of Harry from that alone. 

Harry’s smirking like he knows exactly what Louis is thinking about. Louis swallows a mouthful of his highball. “I dunno. Laurels symbolize, like, victory or whatever.” 

“So you put them framing your crotch?” Louis asks jokingly. 

Harry snorts. “No. I wanted something, like, pretty. Delicate, I guess. They worked really well there, it was mostly the artist’s idea.” 

“Oh. That’s lovely,” Louis says, surprised by the simple honesty of Harry’s answer. It makes sense, though. “They look great, really well done. Who’s the artist? Are they based in London?” It’s been awhile since he’s gotten one, but Louis is always open to the idea of getting another tattoo if he finds something he likes enough. 

Harry pauses. He swallows the last of his drink and sets the glass down on the table. “Zayn did them. He’s done a lot of mine, actually.” 

Louis blinks at him. “Zayn did those? On your hips?” 

Harry’s blushing again, furiously this time. He looks, Louis thinks, almost like he does when Louis’ got him close to finishing, holding out and a little embarrassed by how desperate he is. He has that same redness, except they’re talking about something completely different.

When Harry speaks again, he sounds almost nonchalant, “yeah. He’s really good. He did a lot of my sillier ones when he was just starting out, then once he got really good I let him do a few of my bigger pieces.” 

The gears are turning slowly in Louis’ head. He’s pretty sure Harry assured him that there’s nothing going on between them, never has been, but it plants an ugly thought in Louis’ mind anyway, one that spreads to his gut and forms a knot in his stomach alarmingly quickly. The thought of Zayn hunched over Harry, for hours, tattooing such sensitive skin, such an intimate part of his body. 

“Are you jealous?” Harry asks, sounding amused. The waiter comes back and takes Harry’s glass to get him another, and Harry thanks him when the glass is right back, like it never left, hardly a moment later. Harry’s gaze hardly wavers from Louis’, not even when he thanks the waiter. 

“I’m not jealous,” Louis scoffs, breaking their stare to look down at his glass. “I’m just, like, surprised, that’s all. I know what you’re like, and I have a theory that would make getting tattooed by anyone, let alone a friend… Interesting.” 

He knows Harry’s pretty into pain. It gets him going. He wonders if the same thing happens when he gets a tattoo. Specifically, a tattoo on that soft stomach, near those plush hips. 

Harry arches his eyebrows. “I think… I think you’re asking something that probably isn’t appropriate to be discussed in a nice restaurant,” he says carefully, pointedly. Louis shrugs. Harry huffs, leaning forward and lowering his voice to whisper, “are you asking me if getting tattoos turns me on?” 

Louis downs his drink and shrugs again. Harry stays leaning forward. “I’m not—Zayn’s really just a mate. And you’re kind of… Not wrong about that assumption, if that is what you were assuming. It’s usually not that bad, but with some of them I’d rather it be done by a friend than by some random artist or even my regular artist. And he did a great job.” 

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just curious,” Louis placates, mostly the truth. 

“And you’re a little jealous. It’s kind of hot,” Harry remarks, sipping his drink. “If we had more time I’d say maybe you could come with me for a tattoo. I have a couple things that I wanna get soon.” 

There it is again, the reminder of time that they had and suddenly hardly have any more of. 

Louis shakes himself, refuses to dwell right now, and leans forward as well. Harry’s lips turn up at the corners, fighting off a grin, and Louis could lean just a little farther and kiss him if that was something he really wanted to risk doing in such a public place. 

Like he can sense it, the proximity and how it might be too much for their setting, Harry sits back. He exhales a quick breath, picks up his drink and looks at Louis with that thousand-watt, dimpled grin of his. 

Louis is pretty sure not seeing that grin at least twice a day is going to fucking kill him. 

“So. Can I ask you about some of yours?” 

“Most of them are pretty boring, honestly.” Louis admits, sitting back himself. “But I’ll still tell you anyway.”

The rest of the evening passes by easily. The conversation never dies, never seems empty, and it never really has in the short time that Louis has known Harry. He asks about Louis’ tattoos, and Louis tells him what he can remember of the silly ones, and elaborates on what he can. When they actually have stories worth telling. And Harry opens up the same, talking more about his own, more about himself and his writing and his family. 

He also comes from a mostly-single mother and has a sister, just an older one, which is why he found all of Louis’ so jarring upon first meeting them, and then meeting all of them properly (and soberly) at the hospital. 

Harry drinks two more highballs and gets that gorgeous, permanent flush on his cheeks and he laughs just a little bit louder than usual, a little more freely. And he talks a lot more and a lot faster than usual, and Louis loves it. 

In the car on the way back to the hotel, Harry rolls his window down a little bit and folds a leg under himself, leaning over so he can look at Louis. Louis rolls his own window down and glances over at Harry. 

“Can you do me a favor?” He asks, and Harry hums. “My smokes are in the console. Can you grab them? If you don’t mind me smoking in the car.” 

Harry leans forward and opens the console, knocking Louis’ arm off it. He hands Louis a single cigarette and the lighter, which Louis manages to light one handed, before passing it back to Harry. 

“Smoking’s really bad for you, you know?” Harry asks, making Louis snort. Yeah, he’s aware, but it’s not something he’s going to give up any time soon. “I feel guilty, sometimes, when I watch you smoke.” 

Louis risks another glance. “Oh? Secondhand guilt for my damaged lungs?” 

“No. You look so fucking hot doing it and it’s not something I should find hot,” Harry blurts, and Louis wishes he could look at him. He knows Harry’s not that drunk, and this sounds like something he’s been sitting on for a bit. “I mean, seriously, once I watched you light up on the balcony and it was a little windy and you did it, like, inside your shirt? Seriously, it’s not fair.” 

The laugh that escapes Louis’ mouth surprises him, because it’s more like a giggle than anything else. Which is very unlike Louis. He clears his throat and takes a drag on his cigarette, but can’t even find room to be embarrassed because it makes Harry giggle, too, a little drunk off four highballs and a good meal. 

Louis can’t drive back to the hotel fast enough. They go in through the side door, that little smoking area Harry found Louis in just a handful of days ago, just before they went to lunch and Harry gave him the signed papers. 

Louis thinks he’s had pretty much nonstop sex pretty much since then, and is really quite surprised his dick hasn’t fallen off yet. 

They get inside and on the elevator, and when Louis turns to ask Harry if he has his room key, the words die in his throat. Because, like, Harry’s standing there, leaning a shoulder against the wall of the elevator, looking cool and flushed and hot. There’s one other person on the elevator with them, which prevents Louis from standing too close or speaking too loudly or closing the wide distance between them and snogging him senseless. 

Louis clears his throat and finally musters up the energy to ask his question. “You have your key?” He asks, barely above a whisper. Harry meets his eye and nods. “Cool. I’ll walk you?” 

Harry smirks, his eyes flitting to the other man in the elevator. He makes a face like, you seriously think this guy is listening, let alone cares? and Louis just shrugs. “Yeah, sure,” Harry murmurs, amused. 

Louis can’t believe he thought for a second his dick could possibly fall off. It’s no wonder he’s so ready to go — one look at Harry and Louis is already plotting out no less than ten ways to take him apart and put him back together. 

The elevator pulls to a stop, dings, the doors open. It’s their floor, Louis realizes, when the man moves out of the way for them to get through the doors. He steps off, waiting for Harry in the hallway. Louis glances around, thankfully they’re the only people in it for now. He grabs Harry by the wrist and leads him down the hallway, stopping abruptly in front of Harry’s door. 

“Key?” He asks, looking up at Harry’s face. Harry’s biting his bottom lip and nodding his head, tugging his wallet from his jeans in what Louis is convinced is slow motion. He huffs and snatches the wallet from him, flipping it open and tugging out the key card. 

Louis snorts at Harry’s license photo, shooting him a look as he taps the card. “What are you in that photo, twelve?” 

Harry squeaks and grabs Louis’ forearm as they enter the room, trying to get his wallet back. “I’m, like, twenty-two! I had to get a new one because I lost it and—I don’t have to explain myself to you. Give me back my wallet.” 

Louis hums, continuing to walk forward despite how hard Harry’s trying to get him to stop. He stares down at the license, brushing his thumb over Harry’s picture. “Your hair looks so different. Hard to imagine it short.” 

“I found I prefer it long,” Harry says, and that makes Louis bark out a laugh. “Stop it! I meant my hair, I prefer my hair long.” 

“Mhm, sure you did. Megacock is a phrase you’ve definitely never used,” Louis muses. Harry does look quite adorable in the photo, young but he definitely doesn’t look twelve, but he’s just so easy to rile up. 

“Louis!” Harry cries. “Ugh, you’re so ridiculous.” 

He releases his hold on Louis and backs off, storming off to the bar. He pours himself a cup of wine, Louis alternating between staring at his back and the silly little picture in his hand. Harry turns around, taking a sip from his plastic cup. Louis sighs and flips the wallet closed, tossing it onto the nearest table. 

“Sorry,” he says, approaching Harry slowly. “I’m just teasing, you know.” 

“Doesn’t mean you’re not annoying,” Harry grumbles. “Stupid tequila. Never should’ve told you about those texts, now you’re just gonna use it against me all the time.” 

All the time. They don’t have all the time. Louis swallows hard. “Um, to be fair, it’s entirely Oli and Zayn’s fault, so. Still, I’m sorry. And you don’t actually look twelve in your photo. Y’look cute.” 

“I’m aware.” Harry says firmly, staring hard at his cup. He rests his arse against the fridge and looks up at Louis. “Lemme see yours again.” 

“Seriously, baby?” Louis asks, but he’s already pulling his own wallet out of his back pocket. “Mine is also more recent, I’ve lost it more times than I can count. Half the time I’m not even allowed to hold onto it while we’re out.” 

He pulls the license out and hands it to Harry. He only stares at it for a beat before holding it back out. “You don’t look twelve. Or twenty-two. You look handsome.” 

Louis rolls his eyes and takes it back. “Thanks, I guess. I’m twenty-eight in it, actually. This is the longest I’ve had one ever, I think.” 

He slides it back into his wallet and tosses it, along with his phone, on top of the minifridge behind Harry. He steps closer, bracing his palms against the fridge on either side of Harry’s hips. Louis leans in, brushing a kiss to Harry’s collarbone over his shirt. 

“I didn’t mean to piss you off.” 

“You didn’t.” Harry answers quickly. “Also, it’s okay anyway. I kind of told a little white lie earlier, so.” 

Louis arches his eyebrows, bringing one hand up to brush Harry’s hair behind his ear. “Care to elaborate?” 

“Nothing’s, like, actually happened with Zayn. But I did let him eat a candy thong off me once. I mean, I was wearing jeans, too, but still. He has eaten a candy thong off of me before. Which is arguably worse than giving me a tattoo that may or may not turn me on.” 

Louis thinks he’s jealous. No, Louis knows that he’s jealous. He shouldn’t be. But Louis is wondering how fast Oli can track down a candy thong. He cups the back of Harry’s neck and kisses him hard, Harry’s free hand immediately going to his waist and tugging him closer. Louis has half a mind not to crush the cup of wine between them, thankfully. 

He takes it from Harry’s hand, not breaking their lips for more than a second as he sets it on the fridge behind Harry. Louis’ hands go for the buttons of Harry’s shirt, starting to walk backward as he begins undoing them. Harry follows easily, his own hands tugging Louis’ shirt out from his pants, their lips hardly breaking even to breathe. 

They manage to make it to the bed, Louis falling down onto it first, Harry quickly following suit. He straddles Louis’ waist as Louis pushes his shirt off his shoulders, quickly leaning up to suction his mouth to one of Harry’s pecs. 

Harry stops his actions with Louis’ shirt as his lips part with a gasp. “Louis,” he sighs. “I’m supposed to pack.” 

“Sex first, pack after.” Louis says, kissing across his chest to leave a mirrored mark on the other pec. 

Harry whimpers. “You’re a bad influence.” 

That makes Louis pick his head up again, grinning wickedly. “I know.” 

Harry rolls his eyes and ducks down to kiss him again. Louis quickly flips them over and makes his way where he wants to go, and Harry doesn’t have anymore silly, sensible protests like packing. 

**

Louis lights a cigarette and steps off the balcony, lingering in the doorway while he watches Harry meticulously place the last piece of clothing in his suitcase before zipping it shut. Harry sighs, satisfied, and looks up.  

“Louis!” He gasps. “You shouldn’t be smoking that here. You’re going to set off the fucking fire alarm.” 

He shrugs. “It’s fine. I’m right by the door.” 

Harry rolls his eyes. “Will you just smoke it outside, please? This is my room. You can do whatever the fuck you want in yours tomorrow.” 

Harry seems tense. Which, he shouldn’t be, because they fucked and usually that mellows him out. Louis doesn’t know if he can ask, or if he should ask, if it’s his place or something they should even get into right now. So Louis does what Harry asks and steps onto the balcony again, shutting the door behind himself before sitting down in one of the chairs there. He kicks his feet up on the table and resists the urge to turn around and watch through the doorway as Harry continues gathering his stuff up. 

It’s not even midnight yet, they still have the whole night tonight and whatever time they can steal during daylight tomorrow, and tomorrow night, but most of the following day will be spent sleeping or working. Louis feels like he wants to drink Harry in for as long as he can, but he can also see that Harry is tense and Louis clearly wasn’t helping with that right now, so he keeps to himself for the time being. 

Louis’ phone is in the pocket of his sweatpants, so he tugs that out and checks his text messages. A bunch of messages from his friends, asking what he’s up to and if he wants to come drink or smoke or both, but Louis only replies to Oli and says he’s busy but he’ll be back in his room early tomorrow morning to get ready for the day. 

The more important messages are in the groupchat with his sisters; countless pictures of the baby and of all of them with the baby. The most recent one is from Phoebe, saying they’ll have to get a picture of Louis with the baby ASAP, and Daisy replied jokingly saying hopefully it happens sometime before the baby turns one. 

Louis snorts, saves a few of the pictures, tells them to fuck off (then says that he misses them and he’ll see them as soon as he can) and then sets his phone aside. It’s chilly out, and he’s only wearing a tank top, but his cigarette is almost down to the filter and Louis is pretty sure he’s going to have another one. 

The door slides open a couple of minutes later, then closes. Louis drops the butt of the cigarette in the ashtray and picks up the pack to pull out another. As he lights it, Harry drops a hoodie into his lap. 

“Mind if I sit?” He asks quietly, and Louis shakes his head. Harry drags the other chair closer, sitting down right beside him. “I’m sorry. Packing stresses me out.” 

“S’okay, love. If you leave anything I’m sure we can get it sorted out tomorrow or Thursday morning. D’you mind holding this for a sec?” He asks, nodding towards his cigarette. Harry hums and takes it from him, holding it between two fingers while Louis tugs the sweatshirt on over his head. 

He looks down at it, a kind of ratty, grey hoodie with the strings pulled out. It’s Harry’s. Louis smiles and looks over at him, plucking the cig back. “It’s gonna smell like smoke, you know,” he points out, and Harry shrugs. 

“It’s fine. You kind of smell like smoke most of the time I’m around you, and I’ve tolerated that.” 

Louis gasps. “Do I?” 

“Smoke and cologne most of the time, yeah. Your sisters don’t complain about it?” 

He shakes his head, leaning forward to ash. “No. They’re probably, like, used to it, I dunno. Did you get most of your stuff together?” 

Harry nods. He kicks a foot up and places it in Louis’ lap, black socks tucked over his black Adidas trackies. Louis rests a hand on his ankle and squeezes gently. “Everything but, like, my bathroom stuff. But I’ll get that together tomorrow. There’s a pile of your clothes next to my suitcase, I managed to sort everything out without much of an issue.” 

“I’ll go through my stuff between interviews tomorrow, make sure I haven’t accidentally kidnapped anything.” 

Louis is also going to be sending Harry home with a gift basket of sorts, he’s decided, a bunch of merch and CDs and whatever else. Louis still has to text someone to get all the shit together, but he thinks he’ll end up just asking him about it tomorrow morning. 

“Are you tired?” Harry whispers. Louis shakes his head. He is, but he doesn’t want to be. “You should be. You’ve had a really long day.” 

“It was a good day, though.” Because, really, it was. His sister had a baby, he got to have lunch and sex and dinner and sex with Harry, and it’s hard to complain when all of those things happen (and, like, his album is apparently doing really well amidst all this chaos and babies and sex). Louis definitely can’t complain.” Don’t you think it was a good one?” he asks, and Harry hums. 

“Yeah. A really good day,” he echoes, nodding. He looks so soft, the smaller dimple coming out with his tired smile, eyes bright, face lit up by the lights surrounding the hotel. Louis thinks he’d look quite lovely bathed in moonlight, but it’s always too fucking bright in London to actually see if the moon makes any difference. He wishes they had enough time to for Louis to find out what Harry looks like when he’s dipped in moonlight; he suspects it’s something beautiful.

Louis inhales and looks away. “I have a radio interview at Capital tomorrow morning. I dunno exactly what your schedule is, but maybe you can come with me? Hang on the other side of the booth with Oli? Get a tour, whatever. I took all the girls to one back when this all started, and they loved it because it’s like seeing the behind the scenes of the stuff we listened to all the time growing up.” 

“Are you giving me the same spiel you gave tween girls?” Harry asks, and Louis laughs, shrugging his shoulders indifferently. He might be giving a similar spiel. All that matters is that it works. “That sounds fun, what time?” 

“Um, the arse crack of dawn.” 

“Will we be back by ten?” 

“Baby, when I do these things if I’m not back in bed by ten, I become the most unbearable person in the world.” 

Harry smiles. “Well I can’t get back in bed, I have a reading at ten thirty.” 

Louis nods understandingly. “I won’t invite myself to that one. I wouldn’t want to hear anything before it was ready.” 

“Thanks,” Harry says, that soft smile still on his face. Louis takes one final drag and puts the rest out in the ashtray. He carefully sets Harry’s foot flat on the ground and stands up, holding out a hand. “Where are we going? I didn’t think you were done.” 

“I am,” he says, and that doesn’t rid Harry’s face of confusion. “Let’s go get in bed. It’s been a really long, really good day.” 

Harry slaps his hand into Louis’ and rises to his feet. Louis wraps his other arm around Harry’s waist and presses a soft kiss to his lips, just to make that smile remain on his face for a little while longer. “We should get to bed, if we have to be up so early tomorrow.” 

“Exactly.” Louis says. “Go start getting ready, I gotta grab my phone and lock up, I’ll be in there in a sec.” 

Harry kisses him again and then slips from his grasp. Louis tries to wipe the grin off his own face but finds that he can’t, feeling ridiculous as he picks up his phone and heads inside. He shuts the door and locks it before pulling the curtain closed. He then double checks the door, listening to the sounds of Harry getting washed up and ready for bed in the bathroom. 

He joins him a moment later, after putting his phone on the charger that’s plugged in on one of the bedside tables. Louis bumps Harry’s hip to get him to make room before grabbing the spare toothbrush that’s had a home here the past few days, just in case. Is that something he’ll just… Throw away after he uses it tomorrow morning? Louis can’t think about it right now. 

Harry finishes up a little bit before Louis himself does, leaving the bathroom with a kiss to his cheek and a smile that barely meets Louis’ gaze in the mirror. 

Louis is going to show him the baby pictures when he gets into bed, he thinks to himself as he spits into the sink a final time. He leaves his toothbrush on the edge of the sink and swipes at his mouth with the same towel Harry had used. 

He should probably shave, but Louis knows he won’t have time for it tomorrow morning, so his scruff will have to stay for another day at least. Louis sighs, flicking off the bathroom light and making his way to the bedroom. It’s far warmer in here than it was outside, and he knows Harry’s a furnace when they sleep, so he quickly takes off the hoodie and tank top before crawling into bed beside him. 

Harry’s shirtless as well, the one lamp that’s still on gives Louis enough light to see that. Not that he’d miss it even if it were pitch black, probably. Louis hits the switch on the lamp and beckons Harry closer. He shuffles across the sheets as Louis lays down, pressing himself right against Louis’ side as they get comfortable together. 

It will be weird, Louis thinks, sleeping by himself for the first time on Thursday night, alone in his flat. Maybe he should get a cat. That seems like something Harry would do. Maybe he has one, actually, Louis has never asked, he’s never mentioned. Louis doesn’t even know exactly where Harry lives, which is a good thing, and he won’t ask that. But he can ask about a cat. 

“Do you have a cat?” He asks into the darkness, and Harry giggles. He tips his face up, as if he’d be able to see in the pitch-darkness of the hotel room. “Seriously. Do you have a cat?” 

Harry strokes his thumb absently over Louis’ rib cage. “Not technically. My mum has two, but I don’t. I’d like one, though. I’ve been thinking about it recently, actually. Why? Do you?” 

Louis shakes his head. Harry’s thumb is prodding between two of Louis’ ribs right now, carefully feeling the dip out every time his lungs fill and empty, and Louis doesn’t think he’ll ever forget how it feels. Harry’s touch is so gentle, but every time his thumb moves, it feels like he’s carving his own name right into Louis’ skin. Right over his rib cage, dangerously close to his heart. 

“I don’t,” he says. “I was just wondering. You seem like a cat person.” 

Harry giggles again. “I dunno if I should be offended by that or not.” 

Louis lifts his hand and cards through Harry’s hair, which is still down even though usually he puts it up to fall asleep (Louis will wake up in a few hours to a mouthful of curly hair and he will only complain a little bit. At least it’s clean hair, Harry will tell him, just like always). “It’s a good thing, I think. You’re soft. Gentle.” 

“Only until I have to be otherwise,” Harry says, and the infliction of his tone makes it sounds like he means for it to be dirty. Louis chooses not to acknowledge it, despite how difficult that is, instead just hums and keeps stroking his soft (clean) hair. “I’d get a cat. Of my own, I mean.” 

“That’d suit you.” Louis whispers. 

Harry kisses his chest. “We should get to sleep.” 

“Yeah. Stop talking, then.” 

“You were the one who asked me the question in the first place, jackass,” he pinches Louis’ skin, like he’s trying to counteract the fondness in his tone with something a little more biting, but it doesn’t really work. 

Louis presses his lips to the top of Harry’s head. “Goodnight, Harold,” he muses. 

“Goodnight, jackass.” Harry murmurs. 

**

Louis is a fucking idiot. It’s something a lot of people have told him, something he’s known even when they haven’t told him. Most recently, he’s told Harry Styles that he should come with Louis, at the arse crack of dawn, to get behind the scenes and whatever during Louis’ Capital interview. 

Now Louis is paying for his actions, because he’s sitting in the studio, half-assing his answers, live on air. He’s too distracted by Harry on the other side of the glass, talking and laughing with Oli and Mark and the Capital guys. He keeps stopping and looking at Louis, listening intently as he answers questions that he probably already knows the answers to. 

He woke up a little earlier than he had to this morning to the sounds of laptop keys clicking, he’d rubbed his eyes and murmured Harry’s name, asking him what the fuck he was doing sitting up and typing so furiously at that hour. Harry had said something about how he had an idea he had to write down, and offered to move into the other room. Louis grunted and moved closer, draping his arm over Harry’s torso and telling him not to move, but to come back to sleep soon because he was cold. 

Now, Roman asks another question and Louis is glad he was at least half paying attention, enough to give an answer. “We’re hitting the road next year, it’s gonna be great. I haven’t decided on a setlist yet, but we’re tossing some ideas around, for sure. We’re all just excited to get on tour again, I think. We just wanna put on a good show for the fans.” 

“You always do, mate.” Roman says, grinning at Louis across the desk. “Any big plans for the time off?” 

Louis casts a glance over to the booth, sees Harry, looks back at Roman. “Nah, not really. A lot of family time, probably, my sister just had a baby, so. I’m also insanely far behind on my Holiday shopping, so I have to get to work on that.” 

“Of course, mate, of course. Congrats on the baby, that’s incredible.” 

Roman asks a couple more questions about his family and the baby and cracks a joke about Holiday shopping, and then sits up a little straighter. “Well, we’ve got our next song queued up here and, of course, it’s one of yours, would you do us the honor of introducing it for us?” 

“The honor is really all mine,” Louis assures, perfectly rehearsed and on script and practiced (as long as he’s not looking at Harry). “I’m Louis Tomlinson, you’re listening to Capital Radio, and this is my latest single Silver Tongues.” 

Nobody speaks again until the On Air light flicks off, and they both take their headsets off. Roman shakes Louis’ hand and over the table and thanks him, and Louis says he’ll be around for a little while longer and also says thank you just in case they don’t run into each other again. 

“You’ve got quite the crew out there,” Roman tells him, nodding toward the window. “Who’s the, uh, other guy? He’s new, yeah?” 

Louis looks out the window. Harry and Oli are laughing at something on Oli’s phone. Louis has no doubt it’s something embarrassing pertaining to himself. He looks at Roman again. “Just a mate,” he answers, but he’s smiling and Roman’s looking at him, amused. ”We’re giving him a little tour of the place.” 

“A mate,” Roman echoes. “I’ll have to try to find you guys later and say hi.” 

Louis nods. “Yeah, he’d love that.” 

“Awesome. Good luck with the tour, if I don’t see you again before you start.” 

Louis’ sure they will run into each other again, someone else would better know his later schedules and parties and whatever, but that’s not important right now. They say their final goodbyes and Louis makes his way out, finding Harry and Oli in one of the back hallways, still chatting quietly. Louis slides up next to them, pinching Harry’s hip. 

Harry gasps and looks over at him, swatting his hand away. “You did well, Lou,” he says, and Louis just smiles. “Oli was just telling me all about how much you hate these things.” 

“Yeah, that’s not exactly a secret,” Louis replies. “I’m just not a morning person. C’mon, let’s get this tour over with so we can get you back in time for your lecture.” 

Some interns show them around the place, explaining what every room is and all the offices and everything. Harry’s asking about a million questions, Louis would feel bad for the poor kids, but toting Louis and his crew around, they all kind of seem like they’re having the best day of their lives. 

Harry stays close to Louis the entire time, but not too close just in case, asking Louis curious questions that the tour guides don’t cover (though Louis doesn’t really know what the answers are either, so he finds himself making stuff up, which makes Harry just as happy). 

After it’s done, the crew heads out the back door to the line of cars. Louis drags Harry with him into the backseat of one of the towncars, pulling him close. Harry settles a hand on Louis’ thigh, leaning back against the seat. 

Louis looks over at him, dressed in jeans and a nice shirt because this morning he’d said something about how it would make him less inclined to climb back into bed with Louis after the interview was over. The outfit makes Louis wish they were getting back in bed together, if only because that would mean that Louis would get to slowly peel it off him. 

“Did you like it?” He asks quietly. Harry turns, blinks in surprise when he realizes how close they are. Louis smiles and puts his hand over Harry’s. “The tour, I mean. I know you didn’t like having to wake up at the crack of dawn.” 

“I did. Both, honestly. Usually I’m up early anyway, you’ve kind of disrupted my routine this week.” 

Right. Harry’s a gym rat. It shouldn’t be hot. Somehow it is. Louis squeezes his hand and snorts. “Right,” he says aloud. “Sorry about that.” 

Harry giggles, leaning into Louis’ side. “Don’t be. Kind of got to work out anyway, didn’t I?” 

“You’re being too horny way too early in the morning,” Louis decides, leaning away from him. Harry laughs again, louder this time, and sits up straight again. “Do you have to come back up to grab stuff?” 

Harry sighs, but Louis is still staring at his profile and he knows Harry’s just pretending to be annoyed. He’s smiling. “Yeah, I told you that this morning. I wasn’t bringing everything with me.” 

“Are you really reading, like your stuff?” 

“Yeah. And you decided last night that you weren’t coming, so you don’t get to change your mind.” 

“Oh, no. I didn’t plan on it,” Louis assures. He’d be there in a heartbeat if Harry asked, but he hasn’t, and that’s probably for the best. “I’ll just… Walk you up. Let you in.” 

Harry smirks. “Snog me senseless before I have to go down and read shit and listen to colleagues?” 

Louis kisses his cheek. “Maybe. If you have time.” 

Luckily, they manage to make it to the hotel with time to spare. Louis practically drags Harry out of the car and into the elevator with his team, pulling Harry against his front as he leans against the wall. 

No one says anything, thankfully, so Louis just kisses Harry’s shoulder and keeps his mouth pressed there until the doors open again. They ignore the chatter as they reach Louis’ room, Louis quickly pulling his card out and letting them in. 

Louis makes sure the door shuts, then steps back from Harry. An action which, of course, Harry pouts at. Louis empties his pockets onto the coffee table, holding onto his smokes and a lighter. “Grab your stuff, baby, come find me when you’re done.” 

Harry huffs, but nods, heads off to the bedroom. Louis opens the balcony and steps outside, lighting up without wasting a second. He takes a seat and tugs the table closer, so it’s a little easier to make the ashtray when he has to. 

Only a couple minutes later, Harry comes out empty handed, shutting the door a bit as he does. He taps Louis’ foot with his own and Louis sits up straighter, ready for him to sit down. Harry makes his place right on Louis’ lap, his long legs draped over the arm of the chair. 

Harry puts his arm over Louis’ shoulders, leaning back. His left hand is trapped beneath Harry’s thighs, so he grips the underside of one firmly, bringing his smoke to his mouth one more time before snubbing it out on the edge of the chair. 

“You can’t smell like smoke during your lecture, love, I dunno why you came out here,” he says, holding the cigarette out to Harry to place in the ashtray. He does, then leans back again, nosing Louis’ cheekbone. 

“I know. Sorry for ruining your smoke.” He says, breath ghosting the side of Louis’ face. “I only have ten minutes.” 

“And?” Louis asks, just being annoying. Harry snorts. 

“And I wanted to spend it with you?  Turns out you’re not a total dickhead, and you put out your cigs when you’re worried the smell will stick to my clothes.” 

Louis shrugs like it’s no big deal (because it’s not. It really isn’t) and Harry kisses his cheek. “What can I say?” He muses. “I’m very considerate.” He strokes the underside of Harry’s thigh with his thumb, kind of longing for the opportunity to touch bare skin. He can’t now, so instead he’ll crawl back into bed and fall asleep just to dream about all the skin he can’t touch and the things he can’t see right now. 

Harry kisses his cheek again, humming. “Yeah, you are,” he says, and he sounds more genuine than joking and it makes Louis’ chest ache. “So I should be done around one. D’you wanna grab lunch downstairs?” 

He’s brushing his fingertips through the hair above Louis’ ear, it has Louis leaning into his touch automatically, like it’s second nature. “Hm. Have another interview then. Wanna grab something and bring it back up?” 

Harry nods. “Yeah, of course. Any requests?” 

Louis shakes his head slightly. “Nah. Just take my key and let yourself in, I might be on the phone still, so.” 

“Phone or a video call?” Harry asks softly. 

“Fuck. I actually don’t know. I’ll do it from the bed either way. As long as you come in quietly, it doesn’t matter. We’ll eat as soon as I wrap up and you can tell me all about it,” he says, resting his temple against Harry’s shoulder.

They sit in silence for a minute or two, Louis’ heart running miles ahead of his head, Harry’s heart beating steadily beneath his skin. Louis lifts his free hand, settling it over Harry’s chest. “You have to get going,” he whispers, and Harry hums. “C’mon. Let’s go.” He pats Harry’s chest twice and Harry huffs, clambering off Louis’ lap. 

“Good luck, H.” Louis says quietly.

Harry smiles, ducking down to smack a quick kiss to Louis’ lips before whispering thank you and heading back inside. Louis doesn’t turn to watch him leave. He smokes another cigarette after he’s heard the door shut, then drags himself into bed to try to catch some more sleep. 

He only manages to catch an hour or so before he has to change into something slightly more presentable (clothes that belong to him and not the boy he’s been sleeping with for the past several days). Oli comes in not long after that, along with Mark, both chattering about the interview and giving Louis the rundown as if he doesn’t already know it all. 

The call, unfortunately, is a video call, which is why Louis had to change his shirt. He keeps his joggers on, but puts on a tee shirt. Louis’ in the middle of sniffing Harry’s hoodie to make sure it doesn’t smell like smoke when Oli calls his name. 

“You need anything before you start, Tommo?” He asks, and Louis shakes his head. “Smoke? Drink? Something?” 

“Uh, no. The charger for the laptop is by the bed, right?” 

“Yeah, you’re all set, just have to join.” 

Mark clears his throat. “They’re just gonna ask more about the album, ask if there’s another single or music video coming. Ask about the tour. Maybe ask about Lottie and the baby, but you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” 

Louis drops the hoodie at the end of the bed and turns to face him. “I am… Beyond exhausted, man, please tell me that this is the last thing I have to do.” 

“Yeah,” Mark says. “It is, but I thought we talked about you calling me man.” 

“That’s a fair point. It makes you sound American and it’s weird. Mate or nothing,” Oli chimes in, wholly unhelpful from where he sits on the couch, scrolling through his phone. 

Mark scoffs. “Just my name works, really. Or, like, boss. Literally anything else. It’s weird.” 

Louis rolls his eyes. “Whatever, mate. I just wanna get this over with.” 

He’s so fucking tired, the past day or so have eaten up every ounce of energy he had left. The whole Harry thing really isn’t helping. It doesn’t matter how many times he goes over it in his mind, he’s still overcome with how much he feels and how confused he is by it all. 

Louis climbs onto the bed, sitting fully upright in front of the pillows and putting the computer on the mattress in front of himself. He checks his appearance, glancing up at Mark and Oli again. “I have a thing after this, you know. You’ll have to leave.” 

Mark and Oli both stare at him for a beat, and it makes Louis wish he’d closed the stupid door between the rooms. “Is this a Harry thing? If you’re gonna have sex I wish you’d just say that. We have to party tonight, so if you’re not there it’s gonna be kind of weird.” 

“I’m having lunch with Harry, and if you insist on partying, we’ll be there later. But this has to be over. Soon. Partly because I’m going to go insane, partly because I’m tired, partly because I have lunch. Not sex. Stop talking about sex.” 

“Mega cock, mate,” Oli sings. “Good luck on the interview.” 

Louis huffs, staring at his computer screen. He takes a deeper, more even breath, then joins the call. 

It’s full of the usual questions, talks about the tour and the special shows he did this past weekend, questions about if he’ll do more of that or shift his focus on touring as a whole. Louis answers everything easily and coherently, just the way he’s supposed to. Towards the tail end of the call, while Louis is supposed to be listening to some silly question, the door opens and Harry walks into his line of sight. 

He whispers hello to Oli and Mark and sets a bag of food down on the coffee table, glancing over at Louis. He raises his hand in a small wave, making Louis smile. He shakes himself quickly, directing his attention back to the interview. 

Louis manages to answer the last couple questions between sparing glances at Harry across the room. He signs off the meeting the second he gets the chance, smacking his laptop shut and climbing off the bed. 

“Hey, H,” he greets. “How was your stuff?” 

Harry sits down on the other end of the couch Oli’s been lounging on, tugging the bag of food closer to himself. “It was alright. Kinda glad it’s over, I fucking hate doing readings. How’d your thing go?” 

“He killed it,” Oli pipes up, leaning over and trying to peek into the bag of food. Harry smacks his hand away and it makes Louis smile. “What’d you get for lunch?” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry says airily. Louis can’t stand being so far away from him. He rounds the table and drops down onto the couch between the two of them, considerably closer to Harry than Oli. 

Louis looks over at his friend and his manager, blinking pointedly. “You lot can go now. We’ll catch up with you later for whatever it is you have planned for our last night.” 

Thankfully, they leave with only a few grumbles and a few funny looks followed by waggling, suggestive eyebrows. As soon as the door is shut, Louis grabs Harry’s chin and turns his face for a quick kiss. “Thanks for grabbing lunch, love,” he says, and Harry smiles warmly at him. “What’d you get?” 

“Burgers. Hope you’re not too sick of them yet? Mine’s their impossible one or whatever, they should be labeled.” 

Louis leans forward and opens the bag up. Sure enough, everything’s labeled, and Harry got extra french fries and ketchup. They sit back and eat in comfortable silence, thighs pressed firmly together. It’s insanely easy, insanely comfortable, like they’ve done this every single day for years rather than just a handful of times over the past several days.  

Once they’re done, Louis gathers up the garbage in the takeaway bag and gets up to throw it out. As he’s shoving it into the trash bin, he says over his shoulder, “seriously, how’d today go? Did you run into that dickhead publisher or whoever the fuck again?” 

Harry chuckles. “Uh, no, I didn’t. I’m kinda surprised you even remember that.” 

He probably remembers just about everything Harry’s ever said to him with a shocking clarity that he’s never really experienced before. Not with himself, his family, his friends, definitely not with anyone he’s ever dated. Harry speaks and it doesn’t matter if Louis’ busy or bombed or distracted, somehow Harry’s voice works its way into his brain and he remembers even the smallest of details. 

“It wasn’t exactly a small thing, and I wasn’t drunk. Overwhelmed, maybe, but I still pay attention,” Louis tells him, deciding to be completely honest about it. “So it really went okay? Your reading and everything? Did they love it?” 

He turns around just in time to see Harry shrugging. “Yeah, I think so. I just hate reading like that. I know I do well more times than not, but it’s weird. Standing up there and putting it all on the line like that.” 

Louis sits on the couch again, kicking his feet up on the coffee table as he looks over at Harry. “Yeah, I know,” Louis says. Harry is still wearing his conference clothes, sleeves cuffed up now, only one button undone on the shirt. “We do similar things, love. I would argue that what you do is harder, though.” 

Harry hums, shifting his own position. He rests his back against the opposite armrest and puts his feet in Louis’ lap, socked toes digging into the inside of Louis’ thigh just to be a pain. Louis wraps a hand around his left ankle. “What’s this one for?” He asks, thumbing the tattoo there. 

“Never gonna dance again? Like, George Michael?” Harry asks, and Louis nods. He knows the song, obviously, that’s not what he’s looking for here, he was more looking for the why. “Hey, while you’re down there, I was standing for, like, ever and my feet are fucking killing me.” 

Louis rolls his eyes. “Are you seriously asking for a foot massage, Styles?” 

“Well,” Harry starts, settling back impossibly against the couch, “one of us was on his feet all morning, the other took a nap and then took a fucking Zoom call. Both of which occurred in his bed.” 

Louis grips his foot, digging his thumb harshly into his arch. Harry digs his other heel into Louis’ thigh in retaliation again but quickly relents, smiling lazily at Louis. He tries to make an effort, giving a good massage even though Louis hates feet. Harry’s easy to please, and at least his socks are on. 

“What’s this talk of a party?” Harry asks. Louis looks at his face again; eyes closed, head tipped back. 

Louis sighs. He stares down at his own hands (and Harry’s foot) and massages the ball of said foot. Harry seems to relax even more. “It’s our last night in the place, they wanna do something stupid and celebratory. Which just means getting drunk in a hotel room, which is what we usually do.” 

Harry hums. “And we have to go?” 

Louis is the reason they’re all here. His crew would party with or without him. But he did promise, so he has to be there for at least a little while. “I do, for a bit. You don’t, if you don’t want to. You could just stay here. Massaged and hot, waiting for me.” 

Harry sits up abruptly. “Um, no. I’m coming. And I think you should use your privilege and, like, secure the pool or something. There’s a hot tub down there, right?” 

Louis looks over at him. “Uh, yeah. I think we’re not supposed to, like, drink by the pool and stuff?” 

Harry looks at him like, so? all amused and disbelieving, and Louis scoffs. He can’t believe Harry’s the one telling him to do this. “What you’re telling me,” Louis says slowly, “is that I should bribe the hotel to let us use the pool and also drink there. Because…” 

“Because it’s our last night. And I packed swim trunks but haven’t gone swimming once.”

Louis considers for a moment. “Two questions,” he says, and Harry hums. “Do you look fit in them, and will we be having sex when we get back?” 

Harry scoffs, laying down again. “Obviously the answer to both those questions is yes.” 

Louis squeezes his foot and promptly throws Harry’s legs off his lap in his pursuit of the phone. Harry is already getting up by the time Louis reaches the phone, dropping down in front of his suitcase in search of these swim trunks. 

Louis looks over his shoulder as Harry begins carefully sifting through all of his folded clothes, and knows that he is definitely infatuated. Maybe a little more than infatuated, but that sounds impossible, so he’ll stick with infatuation. 

**

So, like, it was all well and good when Louis didn’t know what Harry looked like in his swim trunks, wet and laughing and a little bit tipsy, bantering with all of Louis’ friends, calling Zayn up and telling him to come back to the hotel (Zayn said no, thank you, very firmly). All of that was very good in theory, back when Louis didn’t know what Harry would look like in his trunks. 

They are small. And offensively yellow. And offensively hot. 

Louis cracks another beer and sinks down into the hot tub. Harry and Isaac are diving into the pool even though they’re not supposed to, and no amount of money in the world can cover someone affiliated to Louis drunkenly cracking their fucking head open on the bottom of the pool.

Harry looks so fucking hot, though. Louis really doesn’t want to scrape his hot ass off the pool deck or off the bottom of it. He takes a sip from his beer, watching Harry and Isaac swim the length of the pool. Harry’s head pops up, stupidly long hair all over the place, patted down by the water. He puts his arms on the tile between the pool and the hot tub, beaming at Louis. 

“It was a good dive, right?” He asks, pushing a hand over his hair to slick back the stray strands sticking to his face.

“Yeah, love,” Louis murmurs against his beer. “Stop diving. You’re drinking, you’ll crack your fucking head open.” 

Harry leans up and catches his lips in a kiss. Louis feels warm all over, and it’s not because he’s sitting in the hot tub. He has a serious problem, but that’s for him to deal with when this is all over. “Grab more drinks and get in here. You’re gonna knock yourself out or lose your shorts at this rate.” 

Harry looks at him, smirking, and Louis knows what he’s going to do before he even does it. Harry pulls himself out of the water, his arms bulging with the weight, feet landing perfectly on the tile between the pool and hot tub when he gets up. 

Louis pinches his ankle but Harry keeps walking. He stares at that cute arse and those stupid yellow shorts as they walk away. He bends over to open the cooler they lugged down from someone’s hotel room. The music changes up again, some Stormzy song Louis can’t be arsed to remember the name of right now blaring through the speaker Oli brought down. Harry stands upright quickly, two cans of beer in one big hand, turning around to look at Oli with a mixed look of excitement and shock on his face. 

Louis can see him mouthing the words to the song and it makes him smile. Louis is learning he might actually be a much simpler man than he thought — much more simple than he tends to act — if all it takes to make him smile is seeing Harry mouth the words to a Stormzy song. 

Harry comes over to the hot tub again, descending the steps while still singing softly. “Stormzy, huh? Full of surprises, Styles,” Isaac muses from the pool. Louis splashes some water over his shoulder blindly, and judging by the way Isaac laughs, Louis misses massively. 

Harry hands him a beer and settles on the bench beside Louis. He’s not singing anymore, instead cracks his beer and takes a long pull. “Fuck, this stuff is good. I don’t usually like beer.” 

“We never go on the road without it,” Oli tells him, and Louis nods in agreement. “Hey, we’re gonna do chicken fights after we finish these drinks, you in?” 

Louis rolls his eyes. “Are you fifteen?” He asks, even though he’s well aware that he’s been a very avid participant of chicken fights in the not so distant past. It’s a little embarrassing to be participating in around Harry, Louis is thinking, right as Harry enthusiastically nods his head. 

“Yeah, definitely. Louis can go on my shoulders.” 

That sounds humiliating. And vaguely erotic at the same time. Louis takes a few good sips of his beer to further prepare himself for this. Harry’s thigh is pressed flush against his own under the water, the bubbles raging around them, hiding everyone’s lower halves. Louis sneaks a hand over and squeezes Harry’s thigh firmly, getting him to abruptly stop his debate with Oli and Matt about the silly game and look over at him. 

“Ow,” Harry says, lacking heat and seriousness. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and looks at Louis expectantly. 

“I don’t like chicken fights,” Louis says quietly. 

That lip gets released from his teeth and now forms a pout. Louis reaches a hand up, running his thumb over his bottom lip gently. Harry darts his tongue out, licking the small bit of chlorinated, warm water Louis’ finger left behind. Louis scrunches his nose in disgust, making Harry laugh. 

“He’s lying,” Matt says, entirely unhelpful. “And I thought you weren’t big on PDA, Tommo.” 

See? Entirely unhelpful. Louis drops his hand and splashes warm, frothy water across the hot tub at him. “Finish your beers so we can get this over with,” he demands.

With that, he pulls himself out of the water and pads over to the deck chair with his towel and phone. He sits down at the end of it, running his hand through his somewhat damp hair, wiping his other hand on the towel before picking up his phone. 

His sisters have been sending nonstop selfies, so Louis finally takes part and sends one of his own, tongue stuck out stubbornly, middle finger up. “I wanna be in one,” Harry’s voice comes from behind him. Before Louis can even turn to face him, Harry’s draping himself over Louis’ back, his cheek pressed against Louis’ own. 

Louis huffs and opens the message thread again, pulling the camera up. Harry sticks his tongue out to the side, the very tip of it meeting Louis’ cheek. Louis scrunches his nose up, snapping the picture and firing it off without giving Harry the chance to veto it. He locks his phone and sets it near the top of the lounge chair. Harry kisses his cheek but doesn’t move from where he’s plastered to Louis’ back. 

“Your shorts are obscene,” Louis says lowly, because any of his friends overhearing him saying that is something he would never hear the end of. “Seriously, are they even considered swim trunks? Or did you buy them off the rack at some sex shop?” 

“They are not sex shorts. I bought them off the rack… Somewhere, I can’t remember where exactly, but not a sex shop. I promise you, they are swim trunks.” Harry says, that low, slightly raspy voice dangerously close to Louis’ ear, sending a shiver down his spine. 

“If you say so. Are you showing my friends your arse and balls right now? I hope things are secure down there, what with the way you’re probably sitting and all,” Louis remarks, resorting to humor so he stops thinking about Harry’s ass and balls (and, like, his entire body) in any kind of illicit way. 

He knows Harry’s probably kneeling on the back half of the lounge chair, arse up and out. That is something Louis absolutely cannot think about. “My arse and my balls are fine. Stop thinking about them. Your hard on will sever my head from my spine when we start the chicken fights.” 

Louis laughs, a sharp and surprising sound, and he smacks Harry’s hand where it’s resting, hotter than hell, on Louis’ upper thigh. “I am not, and will not be getting hard. You better not either. You’d be able to see it a fuckin’ mile away in those things.” 

Harry giggles, bites Louis’ shoulder rather hard, and finally climbs off him. Louis turns to look at him then, all long legs and rock hard abs, cracking his knuckles. Louis’ eyes take their time on their journey up his body to finally land on Harry’s face. 

He’s smirking, dimples making a crater on his cheeks, and Louis wants to kiss him. He finishes the last couple sips of his beer and stands up, crushing the can in his fist before tossing it into the box with the other empty ones. “I hate you, you know that?” He asks, and Harry’s smirk gets impossibly deeper at that. 

He steps closer, crowding up against Louis as he speaks again, “let’s get this over with, c’mon,” he’s saying, Harry all in his space, lips dangerously close to Louis’ own. Harry smacks their lips together quickly, lingers just long enough to nip at Louis’ top lip with his teeth, and then grabs him by the hand. 

Louis can’t do anything other than follow him, practically helpless. His friends cheer when they get into the pool, Harry draping himself over Louis’ back again as Louis makes his way over to where everyone is standing in the deeper part of it. 

He’s definitely, one hundred percent certainly, helpless. 

He does not get hard, for whatever that’s worth (it can’t be worth much, given how embarrassingly confused and kind of gone he is for Harry — a fact he can’t imagine admitting out loud to anyone, including himself). He doesn’t get hard when Harry grabs his arse under the water, or when Harry basically manhandles him up onto his shoulders, or when a close call is made and it’s decided that Oli fell first, meaning they’d won, and Harry flings himself at Louis like they just won a fucking gold medal. He’s cheering loudly, long hair a fucking mess, torso slick with pool water. 

They leave everyone, drunk and stupid, still pretty much soaking wet and to the sounds of wolf whistles and catcalls, rather early on. The party will spill back into Louis’ room anyway, so he needs to take the time to appreciate Harry alone like this while he can. 

He can’t kiss him in the elevator, and he can’t kiss him in the hallway, but he can flip off the security guard standing in the hallway while Harry smiles sweetly at him before dragging Harry into the room. 

“I’m so gross,” Harry whines, the second Louis traces his fingers down Harry’s abs. He snaps Harry’s waistband against his hips, the shorts gone impossibly lower now, then slips his hand lower. Harry grabs his wrist, pinning Louis’ hand against the top of his thigh. 

“Louis,” he says, warning. Louis meets his eye. Harry’s back is pressed firmly against the shut (and locked) door, but Louis still pulls back. Harry looks a little scared, which isn’t something Louis has often seen. “There’s a reason your friends didn’t see my fucking cock.” 

Louis figured, but didn’t want to say anything about it, because maybe it was too personal and also, he’s not really familiar with the exact logistics of it all. So he just nods, waiting for Harry to speak. Harry squeezes his wrist, impossibly tighter, exhaling shakily. Louis still doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even move. Harry’s hair is dripping all over his shoulders and his chest, a trail of water trickling down the divot in his abs. Louis can only glance before he locks back in on Harry’s face. 

“I am so, so game to fuck. But we have to shower, and I have to…” He trails off. Louis pinches his thigh as best he can, encouraging and reassuring. “I’m tucking, and you can’t touch me like that expecting a cock, because there’s not. Not right now.” 

Louis tilts his head curiously. “I don’t—I mean, I kind of figured? I’ve seen you in a lot of compromising pants, H.” 

“I don’t always, don’t bother most times, but I did today. So I just…” He trails off, taking a deep breath. 

Louis tries to move his trapped hand, and Harry doesn’t let him. “It doesn’t have to be a whole thing right now. Just be glad your friends didn’t see my cock. And give me, like, a minute before you come into the bathroom, and we can shower together.” 

“Even though you think communal showers are counterproductive?” 

Harry leans in, evidently having regained his confidence and composure. His lips brush Louis’ ear as he speaks, lowly, “I want this one to be counter productive.” 

Then he lets go of Louis, shoves him away, and heads for the bathroom. Louis exhales heavily, gripping his own cock through his shorts in a desperate search of relief. Now he’s thinking about a lot of things he has no right to be thinking about; packing and tucking and why Harry didn’t say anything (not that he should, or has to, obviously) and Louis still won’t ask questions, not unless Harry wants to tell him. 

The way he said it, though, made Louis feel like there’s something else there. Something that he can’t earn the right to know about after a week of sex and meals and chats.  

Harry calls his name from the bathroom and doesn’t give Louis enough time to dwell on it. He still opens the bathroom door hesitantly, even though Harry’s already in the shower. Louis shuts the door behind himself and quickly strips his pants, leaving them on top of Harry’s shorts. 

Harry speaks just before Louis pulls the door open, quickly. “I don’t want to talk about it, because I know what you’re thinking, and we just don’t know each other well enough. So I want to get off, and get clean, and go finish getting drunk with your stupid friends, okay? And we have to hang our swim trunks up, too. Deal?” 

Louis opens the shower door and steps in, brushing a hand up Harry’s arm. He settles his hand at the side of Harry’s neck, his thumb rubbing absently. “Okay. Deal,” he agrees. “Can I touch you now?” 

Harry meets his eye, nodding once. Louis’ other hand skates down his body. He lets his fingers feel out every curve, every divot of his abs, the jut of his hips, stopping just above Harry’s cock. “Can I touch you now?” He repeats. Harry nods again. Louis seals their mouths together for a second, pulling back quickly. “I’m gonna need to hear you ask for it, love.” 

“Please,” Harry whispers. “I don’t want to talk about it, but I definitely want to get off before your friends come up here.” 

Louis knows what he wants. “You have far more sexy talk than that,” he says. Harry swallows hard enough that he feels it against his thumb. 

“Can I kiss you, then? If you’re done, I can make a mark, right?” 

“Yeah,” Louis rasps. “But are you a horny teenager?” 

“No. I like it, and you like it, that’s all. S’not a crime.” 

Louis wraps his hand around Harry’s cock. Harry gasps, tipping his head forward, pretty lips red and parted in anticipation. Louis tilts his own head to the side, opening up the side of his neck for what Harry wants. Whatever marks Harry gives him, Louis is going to give back tenfold. Harry ducks down, licks a stripe Louis’ neck before biting and then sucking. 

His mouth is so good, so hot and wet and warm, Louis’ hand falters on Harry’s cock for a beat, but he refuses to let Harry gain the upperhand. He lets Harry have his moment, then slips his hand to grip his chin, holding him away. 

“Louis,” Harry gasps, one of his hands comes up to grip Louis’ ass, pulling him closer. Louis’ cock rubs against his thigh, but he doesn’t let himself feel it, not yet. “Please.” 

Louis drops to his knees. “Oh, fuck,” Harry moans. His head knocks against the tiles so loudly it must hurt, but he just moans again and Louis swallows him down. Harry’s hand grips the back of Louis’ head, more grounding than guiding or forcing, as Louis’ hands squeeze his thighs. 

He doesn’t let up until Harry’s gasping, saying something like oh, please, stop, don’t stop, Louis, and then he swallows everything. Harry uses his grip to tug Louis up to kiss him again right away. He wraps one of those stupidly pretty, stupidly big hands around Louis’ dick and all of a sudden it takes everything Louis has in him not to finish right away. 

“We’re fucking before we fall asleep. So don’t get too drunk,” Harry tells him. “It’s our last night, and I want this,” he says firmly, giving Louis’ cock a firm, pointed tug.

Louis nods, would give Harry anything he fucking wanted at any moment, no matter what. Harry kisses him to swallow his embarrassing little gasps and moans, pulling Louis off with an expert hand, until Louis’ coming between them. He kisses Harry until it feels like his body isn’t tingling as much anymore, slow sweet pulls of their lips together, over and over again. 

They wash up quickly after that, not wanting to still be in the shower if everyone decided to make their way upstairs. Once they’ve washed all of the chlorine (and semen, Harry repeatedly points out, phrasing it exactly that way every single time, grossing Louis out to no end) off their bodies, they pull on comfortable clothes and Louis grabs them fresh drinks while Harry digs through his toiletry bag for something. 

When Louis comes back into the bedroom, Harry’s sitting cross legged on the floor in front of the mattress, hair ties resting on the top of his thigh. He smiles warmly at Louis as soon as he walks in. 

“All those sisters, did they leave you with any braiding skills?” 

Louis breaks out into a grin. “Matter of fact, they did. How did you know?” 

Harry shrugs. “Just a guess. D’you mind?” 

“Course not, love. Here, take this,” he says, handing Harry his glass and setting his own on the nightstand. He crawls onto the bed, his legs falling on either side of Harry’s body. “Want one or two?” 

“Can you swing two?” 

Louis runs his fingers through Harry’s damp hair, considers asking if he wanted to dry it first, but then thinks better of it. That’s probably something Harry’s already thought of and decided against, so Louis decides to just trust him. “I think I can make two happen. We’ll see how it goes.” 

Their silence, as always, is companionable, comfortable, calming. It’s relaxing, and a bit sobering (which is a good thing, in this case, if Louis wants his dick to work later) as he works. Louis delicately weaves the braids against Harry’s head, mulling a question over in his mind, debating if he wants to disrupt this moment of peace between them.

“Have you braided it before?” He asks softly, finally, praying that it doesn’t pop their little bubble. He’s pretty sure it’s a harmless question, but of course, he can never be too sure. 

Harry shrugs. “I’ve tried. I’m not quite good at it yet, my sister likes to do it, though. And my godchildren like to fuck around with it. I’ve thought about cutting it, but the little ones like it too much.” 

“And you like it, too,” Louis adds quietly. 

“Right. I do. A lot.” 

Louis ties off the first braid and moves onto the other side, turning his head a little bit for easier access. There is, surprisingly, enough hair to form a second braid on the other side, and by the time Louis is done Harry has two cute, almost perfect braids on either side of his head. 

He bends down and kisses the top of Harry’s head and stands up, holding a hand out to haul him to his feet. He smacks a quick kiss to Harry’s lips and directs him toward the door, tapping Harry’s arse to prompt him to move. Harry gasps, scandalized, glancing over his shoulder as he heads toward the couch. Louis grabs his own drink and follows behind him. 

Harry plops down on the couch, snagging the telly remote off the coffee table while he waits for Louis to get settled next to him. As soon as he has, feet up on the table, holding his drink on the arm of the couch, Harry leans into him, his own legs curled up beneath himself. 

“How long do you think they’ll be?” He asks, turning the telly on. 

Louis hums, considering. “I dunno. It’s really a toss up. They might try to hold off for as long as they can, though, don’t wanna walk in on us having sex or anything.” 

Harry flicks through the channels so quickly Louis has trouble believing he’s actually processing anything that flies by. “Aren’t you afraid they’re going to make fun of you? If they walk in and we’re just… lounging on the couch?” 

Louis snorts. He hadn’t even thought of it, really. He drapes his arm behind Harry’s head, letting Harry tip his head back comfortably. “I dunno. They’ve caught me doing far worse than this, so I think I’ll survive. Will you?” 

Harry hums against his glass. “Yeah, I think I’ll be alright.” He’s silent for a moment, still flipping through channels, until he sighs heavily and drops the remote on the couch next to himself. “There’s nothing on. Wanna make out?” 

Louis laughs loudly, swallowing another sip of his drink and then leaning forward to put it on the coffee table. He holds a hand out for Harry’s, setting it down beside his own. “You’re so charming,” he says, partly joking but mostly serious. He is charming, almost dangerously so. 

Louis settles a hand on Harry’s thigh, sliding his other one to hold the back of his neck. He strokes the hinge of Harry’s jaw with his thumb, smiling as he pulls them closer together. Just as Louis is about to seal their mouths together, he hears the click of the door opening. 

Harry groans quietly, his head falling back against Louis’ arm again. Louis chuckles, snagging their drinks again as Isaac, Oli, and Matt come barrelling into the room. One is carrying the speaker (music turned off, thankfully) while the other two are holding the cooler. 

“Needed smokes and the loo,” Oli says, not even looking over at them. He sets the speaker down next to the telly and beelines for the bathroom. Matt and Isaac stick around, though, open beers clutched in both of their hands. They stare at Harry and Louis, amused smiles on their faces that lets Louis know that Harry is beaming at them. 

Charming as all fuck. 

Louis squeezes high up on his thigh and smiles at his friends. “Did y’get kicked out of the pool?” 

Matt sighs dramatically, flopping down on the couch next to Harry. He throws his feet over Harry’s lap, making Harry groan and shove him off. “We missed you, Tommo!” He exclaims, completely ignoring Louis’ question. 

“Bite me,” Louis snaps, making Harry giggle. He keeps his hand cemented on Harry’s thigh and leans in so he can whisper in his ear. “He’s hammered. Oli probably is too, which means things aren’t looking great for the rest of them.” 

Harry giggles again, taking a sip. He turns to look at Louis, blinking stupidly pretty, stupidly green, stupidly big eyes at Louis. Dangerously close. Louis’ gaze flickers down to Harry’s lips for a moment before meeting his eye again. “If you can’t beat them, join them?” Harry asks quietly, biting down on his bottom lip. 

Louis grins. “Yeah, I guess so.” 

They spend the rest of the evening glued to each other’s sides. Harry gets increasingly clingy the more he drinks, practically stitched into Louis’ skin at almost every given moment. When Louis goes for a smoke, Harry comes with him, every single time. While they play drinking games, Harry’s so close it feels like he’s underneath Louis’ skin. 

He smells like liquor and Louis’ cigarette smoke and the underlying scent of Louis’ cologne, and when it starts to cool off due to the pretty much constantly open balcony door, Harry disappears for a moment and comes back out wearing one of Louis’ hoodies from his most recent merchandise drop. 

Louis stares at the black hoodie, X smiley face on one side of his chest, admires the way it stretches over Harry’s shoulders and briefly thinks that it will never fit him the same way again; but a lot of things won’t be the same after tomorrow. He forces himself to stop thinking of things like that, instead pulls Harry down into his lap when he comes back over. He kisses Harry’s shoulder and tucks a loose strand of hair back into his braid just to hear Harry whisper thanks, Lou, so quietly Louis would miss it if they weren’t so close. 

His friends want to keep going, of course, but Harry’s dozing against his shoulder as they start up another round of FIFA and Louis has to do the right thing. He’s drunk but he knows that he has to bring Harry to bed, and also knows that he won’t be leaving once he gets there — Harry wouldn’t let him. 

Louis tosses his controller at Isaac and squeezes Harry’s thigh. Harry hums, turning his face into Louis’ neck. Louis kisses his forehead and sits up. “I’m not carrying you to bed, love,” he says quietly, and Harry groans. 

“M’not sleeping,” Harry protests, which means he definitely was sleeping — or at least close to it. 

“You’re sleeping, let’s go get in bed. I’ll send everyone packing, c’mon,” Louis coaxes, as gentle as he can manage, which is a lot more than Louis would have expected. Harry draws it out of him, this sense of calm and gentleness, something he never would have thought himself capable of if it wasn’t for his family, one of the girls. That’s the only time he speaks like this, when he’s trying to coax one of them home after a night out. And, apparently it’s the voice and gentleness he uses on Harry (pretty much always, once he got past the initial defensiveness and hostility).

Harry is groaning yet again, but he’s sitting up, rubbing at his face with one hand, his nose scrunching in that cute way it does. Louis moves Harry’s leg off his thigh and stands up, tugging Harry to his feet and locking an arm around his waist. 

They avoid walking in front of the telly on their way to the bedroom. Louis deposits Harry on the bed and kisses his cheek, whispering for him to wait there while Louis kicks everyone out. He shuts the door behind himself.

Everyone is deeply involved in their FIFA game, and Louis has half a mind to walk right in front of the screen and unplug the whole fucking thing. He doesn’t, instead he walks calmly to the bar and makes himself a small vodka mixer, drinking it as he watches them play. 

It doesn’t take long, thankfully, before Oli is throwing his controller onto the table in frustration. Isaac starts shouting, celebrating, but Louis downs his drink and steps forward. 

“If you wanna keep going, lads, I think you’re gonna have to move elsewhere,” he says, still surprisingly gentle and surprisingly polite. 

The guys all look at him, mixtures of shock and confusion on all of their faces. Louis doesn’t even care. “Seriously?” Matt asks, half-joking. 

Louis looks at him. “Unless you want to hear us fucking, then yeah, seriously.” 

Harry would probably smack him if he heard Louis say that. It’s what will get them out of the room quickest, and Harry’s hopefully getting undressed on his own and definitely isn’t paying attention to anything going on beyond these doors. 

“We don’t need the FIFA that bad,” Oli says. He reaches over and shuts the whole telly off. “C’mon, let’s go. Tommo, if you want to party again, we’ll be in my room. It can’t be that long if you’re fucking, right? What, six minutes?” 

Louis glares at him. “Suck my dick,” he snaps, and immediately regrets it, then regrets it even more when everyone starts laughing. 

“You’ve got that covered, bro,” Isaac says. Louis would probably smack him, if anyone, because of how up and on Harry he was all afternoon. Louis gets jealous. It’s not a crime, and Harry would probably say it’s hot. Actually, Harry has called it hot before, if Louis remembers correctly. 

He watches everyone grab their drinks and phones and says goodbye nicely when they leave. Oli is last, of course, and he stops, of course. Louis stares at him when Oli grabs his arm. He knows he’s being grabbed like that, but he doesn’t feel it, and it’s not because of the alcohol. 

It’s the fact that he knows they’re leaving in a matter of hours, that this is the last time he’ll have Harry in his bed. The only hand he’d feel is Harry’s, and that’s the only hand he wants to feel. 

“Are you gonna be okay, mate?” Oli asks, and Louis shrugs. “We don’t have to talk about it now. But we will be talking about it.” 

Louis scoffs. “Yeah, I think Lottie has dibs on it. We can talk after.” 

“I’ll get in line. But I am your PA, so. If you’re gonna have a meltdown, I should know first.” 

He glares. Oli lets him go. “You know where we are if you want to keep partying. Because I saw that boy, and you’re not fucking. So if you find you can’t sleep, you know where to find us.” 

“Yeah. Thanks. I think I’ve got it, though. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Oli quirks an eyebrow, nods, and then leaves. Louis follows after him to lock the door and then pauses, taking a deep breath. This is his last night with Harry. This is their last time in bed together, and they’re fucking drunk. Louis shakes himself and heads back to the bedroom. 

Harry’s on his back now, arm thrown over his eyes. Louis shuts the bedroom door and barely manages to stop himself from laughing out loud. “Baby,” he murmurs, touching Harry’s knee. “Let’s get you changed. What do you wanna wear to sleep?” 

Harry groans. “Nothing. We should be fucking.” 

“We’re not fucking. I dunno if you could even get it up,” Louis tells him. “You can’t sleep like this, that’s for sure. You’re on top of all the blankets and I know damn well you have to piss.” 

Harry moves his arm, glaring down at Louis. “Whatever,” he grumbles, sitting upright. “I’ll even brush my teeth.” 

“Oh, baby, talk dirty to me,” Louis groans playfully. Harry swats at him, unsuccessfully. He pushes himself off the bed and Louis smacks his ass on his way by. Harry glances over his shoulder, shooting him a wink before shutting himself in the bathroom. 

Louis sighs and sets about getting himself ready for bed. He tugs his shirt off, leaving the sweatpants on. He cleans some things up so it’s a bit easier for him tomorrow morning, putting everything in the general vicinity his suitcase so he can just shove it in and zip it up once he gets dressed. 

Harry comes out of the bathroom a couple minutes later, fresh faced and shirtless. He kisses Louis quickly and whispers something about it being Louis’ turn, which Louis takes gladly. 

Part of him wants to postpone this; he doesn’t want to get into bed and doesn’t want to fall asleep because he knows that when he wakes up, they’ll be parting ways. Louis can’t believe how difficult that is for him to fathom, and it’s worse because he doesn’t know what — if anything — he can do about it. 

He gives himself a pep talk in the mirror, convincing himself that this is all fine, he can push those thoughts out of his mind entirely and just… Be normal about this. 

But when he swings the door open again, Harry’s turned the bed down and is sitting cross-legged in the middle of it, pinching his bottom lip nervously between his thumb and forefinger. Louis’ heart drops and his stomach flips, because he hates seeing Louis nervous, and he hates how fucking beautiful Harry looks, even when he’s drunk and nervous. 

“We should say goodbye now,” Harry blurts as soon as he sees Louis take one step out of the bathroom. Louis doesn’t say anything. “I have to leave early, and you’re not a morning person. So we should say goodbye now. I know you said that we weren’t fucking, but I promise I’m not that drunk, and I’d… I’d really like to sleep with you again.” 

“Goodbye sex?” Louis muses. 

Harry shrugs. “It’s not exactly a hardship, sleeping with you. And while we still have it, we might as well have it one more time. Right?” 

Louis crosses the room slowly, already completely game for it. “Fine. But don’t go getting all sentimental and emotional on me, okay?” 

“Never,” Harry vows, and Louis crawls onto the bed, pushing him down onto his back. He moves Harry’s legs, setting them on either side of his own waist, gripping Harry’s hips. “It shouldn’t be that long, either, I’m pretty worked up after being with you all night, and I have to leave early, so, like. Yeah.” 

“You really are a master of dirty talk, aren’t you?” Louis asks. Harry is fucking ridiculous. He digs his thumbs into Harry’s hips. “If this is the last time, it’s not going to be fast. I’m going to take my fucking time with you,” he says, meaning every word. He leans up, palms landing on the mattress on either side of Harry’s head. Harry wraps his legs tightly around Louis’ waist, pulling their hips flush together. 

Louis brushes their noses together, then nips at Harry’s bottom lip. “This isn’t going to be fast, love. And we can say goodbye, when it’s over, but until then I want you to forget that word even exists.” 

Harry’s gaze darkens, and he nods. “And I’m not supposed to get all sentimental?” Harry quips, but he swallows hard, Louis’ eyes tracking the motion. He ducks down and puts his lips right over the side of Harry’s neck, just below his jaw, waiting for a beat to see if Harry will tell him not to. He doesn’t. Louis darts his tongue out first, then sucks firmly, feels Harry’s pulse thumping between his lips, under his tongue, as he works to leave a mark that won’t fade away fast or be easy to hide. 

Louis is going to cover him in little reminders. Something to press on in a day or two, just to remind himself that this happened. He expects Harry to do the same, though Louis doesn’t necessarily need the physical, visible reminder at all. 

He pops off Harry’s neck and peers up at him, resting his right hand lightly over Harry’s throat, thumbing over the blooming mark. “Are you okay with that, Styles?” He rasps, and Harry nods. 

“Long time, make it last, no goodbye,” Harry affirms. “Please,” he adds, like an afterthought. Louis kisses him quickly, not wanting to speak that goodbye word anymore. 

(Before they fall asleep, Harry murmurs something about how great this time has been, and he says goodbye. Louis thanks him for the week, and says goodbye. He falls asleep with Harry’s head on his chest, like always, but not after he lays there for a long time, thinking about how this is the last time it’ll happen. When Louis wakes up in the morning, Harry’s gone). 

**

His head hurts when he wakes up again, not even from the alcohol. Louis reaches a hand out and the bed is empty and cold and the second he processes that, his head starts hurting. He groans, turning fully onto his stomach and groaning into the pillow even though there’s no one around to tell him to stop or that he’s being dramatic. 

Once he’s done groaning, Louis turns his face to the side and takes a deep breath. Then he drags himself out of bed. He grabs his smokes and lights up, not really caring if it sets the fucking smoke alarms off. 

He probably should have said something. Louis keeps muttering to himself as he’s packing his shit, smoking like he’s never breathed anything other than just Harry and smoke. He shoves everything into his suitcase, deciding he’ll deal with it properly when he gets back to his flat. 

The door clicks sometime after nine, while Louis is still smoking and taking breaks in his packing because sometimes this all feels so weird and heavy and unnatural that he just has to sit and think about it for a moment. 

Louis looks over his shoulder right away, partially expecting to be greeted by Harry fresh off the gym in casual clothes, or holding a shit ton of food from the breakfast buffet or even fully dressed for a conference. 

Oli waltzes into view with two coffees and a weird look on his face. He looks like he was bracing for impact but didn’t know what kind; like he could’ve walked in on two very different situations. As soon as he sees Louis, sitting on the bed, staring at his suitcase that he can’t bring himself to close, it’s clear Oli kind of would’ve rather walked in on sex. 

“When’d he leave?” Oli asks, handing Louis a coffee and then stepping back. 

“Before I was fully awake. Now I’m just packing.” 

“Shoving shit in a suitcase,” Oli corrects, and all Louis can bring himself to do is glare at him. “Sorry. So, like, that’s really it?” 

Louis takes a sip and nods. “Yeah, that’s it.” 

“You have his number, though. And you’re here, in London, for a bit, at least. You could just call him and see him again.” 

“Nope. Wasn’t the agreement,” Louis says quickly, then swallows another mouthful of hot ass coffee. It beats talking.

Oli just stares at him for a long moment until Louis speaks again. “I did the right thing,” he states, trying his best to keep his tone even. He’s not sure if he’s trying to convince himself or Oli. 

His mate is still staring at him, like maybe Louis isn’t telling the truth, or like he might have more to say. There’s nothing left to say. He didn’t say anything, and it was the right thing to do. 

“Harry didn’t exactly say anything either,” he spits defensively. Oli’s amused now. He just shrugs and turns to head out of the room. “You’re not even gonna fucking say anything?” Louis hollers after him. Thankfully the door shuts before Louis can hear Oli’s annoying fucking laughter. Not saying anything. Seems to be the fucking theme these days. 

He’s friends with morons and children. Louis abandons his coffee because he can tell now that this was clearly a bribe, something to coax Louis into talking about Harry. It almost worked, but he never would’ve heard the end of it. Oli stayed just long enough, stared at him in just the right way, to get Louis thinking even more about this all than he already was. 

He checks the clock, they have a little more than thirty minutes before they have to leave. He huffs and does one final sweep of the bathroom and living room before he checks all of the drawers in the bedroom. He never puts anything in them, but Louis remembers that’s where they were stashing Harry’s important paperwork whenever they had people in the room. 

When he pulls open the nightstand on Harry’s side, there’s a Bible in it (which neither of them ever touched, because does anybody ever actually use them? No one Louis knows, that’s for sure) and a bunch of printed papers. Louis’ brow furrows as he picks the stack up. It’s not that much, really, but it’s all computer paper, which definitely doesn’t belong to Louis.

Harry’s name is in the top left corner. Louis sits down, staring at the papers in his hands. He probably shouldn’t read them. He’s just staring at Harry’s name, not letting his eyes venture down any further than that, not yet. 

He wouldn’t have left it if it was important, Louis reasons. But that still doesn’t mean it’s something he should read. 

Louis looks down. He’s made it this far. He’s going to fucking read it. His eyes are scanning the page before he even has half a mind to talk himself out of it. 

This is going to sound crazy. I might make something real out of it one day, or I might just publish it all like this, or I might not do anything with it because it’s probably going to be insanely embarrassing. I’m going to keep going anyway. 

So. Something about you, I don’t know what it is, or why, but it makes me want to tell you everything about myself. Things I haven’t thought of since they happened, I want to tell you everything. It’s borderline religious, this feeling I have. Something about you makes me feel as though I’ve wandered into a confessional, with you on the other side, ready to receive every good thing I’ve ever done and every sin I’ve ever committed. 

That’s why I’m writing this, I think. You’re still asleep right now as I’m starting this, and despite that I still feel like if I were to open my mouth and speak every thought I’ve ever had, tell your sleeping, soft, gentle body about every person I’ve ever touched or touched me, tell you that I wish they never had if I knew you were coming along one day. I could open my mouth and tell you every mistake I’ve made, every lie I’ve ever told, every time I felt like I was not the person I should be, and telling this to your sleeping form would be the most holy confession I could ever make. 

And this just makes me wonder if you feel the same way. I think that you want to, and I think (and know, really, I’m more than certain) that you can. I think that I really, really want to be your confessional. Because I know that you have been wandering for so long, going through all of these people who treat you like you’re nothing, looking for some place to land; somewhere safe and warm where you will not be judged for who you are or who you have been with or what you have done. I can’t help but sit here and wonder if you could treat me like your confessional. You’ve been lost and hurting for far too long, and I wonder if I could be the one who finally heals you. The one who finally brings you to your knees. 

I’m really not even religious like that, which is what makes this even more insane than it already is. But for some reason you make me conjure up the most ridiculous religious imagery sometimes. I’ve had to scrap about a dozen things this past week because you keep weaving your way in, and aside from not being able to write about you like that (I’m sure there’s rules against it, and I’m not sure I should even be thinking or feeling these things for you after such a short time together (I’ll cut this out, that’s a lot)). Point is, there’s also been too much fucking religion and I don’t believe in it enough to put it in my words, regardless of how much it’s inspired by you, and how badly i wish to commit those things to paper. 

Louis pauses, his fist clenching so hard that he crumples the papers a bit. He stands up, paper still in his balled up fist. Louis grabs his smokes with his free hand and throws the balcony door open, dropping down into one of the chairs even though it’s cold outside. He has to smoke while he reads, and he has to get some fresh air, and he felt like he couldn’t fucking breathe sitting on that bed. 

It just was too much. Their check out time can go fuck itself, because he’s not leaving until he finishes. Louis lights up, sitting back as he inhales. He rests the papers against his legs and keeps reading. 

Harry wraps him right up again, with the kind of practiced ease only someone like Harry could manage.  

I think maybe it’s your eyes. Or the way I can hear your heart beating whenever my head is on your chest. I think I can hear it beating when I’m even just standing near you. It’s like something is telling me that there is something there for me, something in you that was placed there for only me to find, and if we’re thinking about stuff like that, then God is the obvious culprit, isn’t He? Who else would have that ability? 

Do you remember that first night? I think about it a lot. When we danced in the club and you kissed me in front of all your friends? I think that that was the night that made me feel a little bit religious and a whole lot philosophical about you, even though I’d just met you. It really all started because of the way I felt after you touched me, after you’d kissed me — the way you’d done both of those things. I felt like you’d turned me fucking golden. I looked around that club after you pulled away from me and I swear, things were shining that hadn’t been before. The most insane part of it wasn’t the fact that I was seeing gold after you kissed me for the first time; it was that you didn’t even seem to notice that you had that effect on things — on people. 

Do you even know that? Do you know that you’re so fucking bright you light up the room, the world, for other people? Do you even know that you make people feel so perfect and whole and cared for that they quite literally feel as if you’ve painted them golden? 

I’m not quite sure you do. And I’m not quite sure what I’ve done to you, if anything at all. 

Louis pauses again, because every time he thinks Harry’s done, it just keeps going. He Abandons the filter of his current cigarette in the ashtray and lights another one. He kind of feels like Harry is right next to him, reading everything quietly and calmly even though he’s nowhere nearby, he’s back at his own flat or at least close to it, far out of reach. 

I kind of hope that I’ve left some kind of mark on you, the same way that you have done to me. I like to think that maybe one day, you could be listening to a song (maybe even one of yours) and you’ll go to change it, but you find that you can’t bring yourself to. And all of a sudden you’re thinking about me. I hope one day you hear that song and for those few minutes, all you can think of is hotel rooms and balconies and crowded rooms that you never, ever failed to look for me in just looking to see if you made me laugh. 

This all sounds insane, I know. But I can’t help it, because I tried to count up the time that we spent together. I had to stop before I even reached twenty four, because I knew that the final number would not be nearly enough. All of a sudden I could not ignore the fact that I want more, so much more. I want to collect hours like stars — I want a whole universe of stars and hours, so many I couldn’t even begin counting them, and even then, I fear it would never be enough. 

I am afraid that leaving this hotel might end up being one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. And I’m afraid of telling you that, so I don’t think I will. This is what I do best: I am a writer, and I will write until my hands bleed and my ink runs dry, acting like I think it will actually do anything to work these days — this time spent with you — out of my system enough to recover.  

My body craves something that I do not know how to attain nor keep once we leave here. Something I do not get to attain nor keep once we leave here — that was the deal. Regardless, now, you are right here, and my body is not listening to my heart or my mind, both of which are familiar with this deal. But my body… I think it knows that soon you will not be right here, and it is already yearning for more of what it can no longer have. It is imagining nights where you are close, and my hands roam every muscle and tattoo and scar on your body while you tell me quietly about every time you have ever been hurt or in love or scared or happy. And in those moments we both believe that I can heal you, and that you can heal me. 

Louis tips his head back against the chair, cigarette between his lips. The ash keeps falling onto his lap and he hardly even realizes it, let alone makes any attempt to brush it off. Nothing could ever cut him as deeply or burn as badly as this letter. Is it a letter? Louis isn’t quite sure what to call it, and he’s not sure that it matters. He blinks the tears away and looks down again. 

My body wants these moments, more of them, so badly I’m aching all over. It hurts me to think about too much, and hurts even more to type it out, yet I can’t stop. I fear for the moment my brain and my heart catch up to this longing, aching body of mine, because it’s going to hurt all over again. My heart might skip a beat whenever it hears your name, hopefully just for a little while, although I know it’ll be nearly impossible to escape. I just hope that one day your lips on mine feel like a memory that belongs to somebody else. 

Feeling this much in such a short amount of time terrifies me. But I also know that I would not trade it for the entire world. There is nothing and nobody — no publisher, no tabloid and all their money and desperation, no God — that could come along and convince me to give this time with you back. 

You have the ability to turn people to gold. You make people feel like you will absorb every one of their secrets and take the weight off their shoulders. Every time you kissed me it felt like you were breathing new life, new strength, new hope, into my lungs. It takes a really, painfully, heartbreakingly beautiful person to be able to do this. It is my most desperate hope that you know this. 

No one, not even his own sisters or his own mum while she was still here, ever spoke to him or about him this way. Even if they had — if anyone had said something like this to him, compared him this beautifully to things that never would have even crossed Louis’ mind — he would’ve thought it was ridiculous. That they were full of shit. And he probably would have told them that without much hesitation.

But reading Harry’s words, these deeply beautiful and painful words and realizations, Louis doesn’t think it’s ridiculous. And he doesn’t think that Harry’s full of shit. They’re compliments, admiration, something that seems a hell of a lot more than it should be given how long they’ve known each other for, and they’re all woven together so beautifully it’s painful. 

Louis’ heard him read his stuff before. It was absolutely nothing like this. 

Louis wipes at his cheeks, silent tears falling even though he never gave them permission to do so. It physically hurts him to start reading again, Louis feels like he’s getting a fucking migraine forcing his eyes back down to the pages, but there’s still more to go. He has to do it, because he made this decision to read it and he will not stop halfway through. 

Maybe one day I’ll tell you myself. Maybe one day I’ll send you this stupid, ridiculous fucking essay. Until that happens, I think I’ll still be writing about blue eyes and cigarette smoke and the way that one time you thought I was sleeping so you spent ten minutes walking gentle, delicate fingertips up and down my back because I think I told you once that that soothed me when I was tired or stressed. 

You do that, too, and you think people don’t notice it. Maybe no one’s ever told you before, but I’ve noticed, and I’ve wanted to tell you, but I haven’t. I was afraid you’d stop doing it. You walked your fingers up and down my back for ten minutes (maybe more, I wouldn’t know because I fell asleep) and you always put your hand on the small of my back when I’m walking ahead of you and you flip off your friends who are being nosy when you think I’m not looking. And you get jealous, and it’s sweet and hot at the same time and I have never, ever felt that way about someone before. 

That, I know, doesn’t make sense. But it’s supposed to be a testament to how much you care for people, and how severely you undervalue yourself. You leave marks on people. Physical, metaphorical, poetic marks that are really, really hard to shake. And I think I should have a better way of phrasing that, but I don’t. It’s just the truth. You leave marks. And they’re beautiful, and loving, and you should never stop. 

Jesus, I hope you never find anything I actually publish. I’m afraid it’s going to be a lot of religious imagery and talking about Midas and whatever the fuck. Touches turned to gold. Hotel rooms and balconies and white sheets and tender acts of kindness despite someone who acts like they’re above all of that. It’ll be like that for a really long time. 

You could be someone that

Louis’ brow furrows and flips the pages over, searching for the back, for another page, for the rest. You could be someone that. Someone that what?  

He’s overwhelmed. Every part of Louis’ body is trembling, and he wishes that Harry’s ramble continued until he ran out of paper, until he ran out of words. Even then, Louis wishes Harry kept going. Writing on the walls and napkins and all over Louis’ own fucking body until he got every last word and thought out. 

That still wouldn’t be enough, he thinks. There could never be enough. Louis knows that full well himself; because he tried to write some kind of song or verse about this and he couldn’t. None of it was good enough. He felt like he couldn’t put it into words beautiful enough for Harry, there were no words worthy enough of being about him. 

Louis stares at the papers, wonders when Harry finished writing all of this, wonders when he printed out. Wonders why the fuck he printed it out unfinished. Wonders where the fuck it was going to go from there. 

You could be someone that. 

It forces Louis to confront this thing he’s been trying his hardest to avoid for the past several days, because now he has enough to assume that it’s something Harry’s been avoiding too. 

Harry could be someone that Louis loves one day. If they had the time, if they had the patience, if they were on the same page about it; about what this could be if they were willing to take the risk. 

This could be something bigger than they ever thought it could be when this all started that fateful night Louis barged into his room; when it progressed into something more than a makeout session that fateful night at the club. 

Louis kind of feels like he could puke. He puts out his cigarette and shuts the balcony door. Louis grabs his phone and folds the papers up, shoving them in his back pocket. He takes his room key with him down the hall, stopping in front of Mark’s door. 

He bangs on it until it swings open, Mark standing there with a bewildered expression on his face. “Did you break something? Tell off a pap? I told you to stay in your room. What’d you break?” 

“I need those papers, the ones we had Harry sign when I broke into his room. The NDA, whatever.” He says, feeling frantic. “I need them. His address is there, right?” 

Mark narrows his eyes. “Are you gonna do something insane? And, from the sounds of it, kind of weird?” 

“Yeah. Are you gonna stop me?” He challenges. 

Mark sighs, turning around and walking into his room. Louis follows, his fingers twitching. He presses them together, wringing his hands out. “I guess this is fine. You have been boning him for the last week, and he didn’t really strike me as a particularly murderous or generally malicious or insane person. You, on the other hand…” He trails off as he roots through a briefcase. 

He turns to face Louis again, the NDA in his hand. “Two questions. Have you gone insane, and are you going to commit a crime against Harry Styles?” 

Louis shakes his head. “Not insane. I have all my faculties. And I’ll even knock on the door instead of breaking in.” 

Mark hands the papers over. “You know, this all could’ve been avoided if you weren’t so emotionally stunted.” 

That’s valid. He’s aware. Louis flips through the papers, nodding. “Yeah, I’m working on that. I’m gonna need a car. Do we have one?” 

“I can get you one. Got a preference?” 

“I would drive anything you can find, as long as I’m on the road in the next thirty minutes.” 

Mark nods and unlocks his own phone. Louis is going to get him a really, really fucking great Christmas gift, he thinks as Mark brings his phone to his ear. 

Which is how Louis has come to be driving towards Harry’s flat on the other side of London in a white two door, navigating the traffic and the beginnings of London’s latest rainstorm with ease. Louis genuinely would’ve driven anything, even if it was a piece of shit, but this one thankfully seems to be operating just fine despite the shit weather. 

He’s plugged Harry’s address into the navigation system and has to keep changing the radio station because all that he seems to keep finding are his own fucking songs, and that’s starting to make him feel a little bit crazy. Well. A little more crazy than he already does. 

A call suddenly rings through the speakers and the contact pops up on the screen. Lottie. Fuck. He was supposed to see her and the baby today before they left the hospital. 

“Hey, Lots.” He answers, as calmly as he can muster, hoping somehow she can’t tell that he’s in a car or hear in his voice that he’s clearly spinning out.  

“Where are you going?” She demands. 

“Um, home?” He tries. “I’m driving.” 

“Yeah, where are you driving to? You’re not on your way home. And you’re not on your way back to the hospital, that’s sure as shit.” 

“How do you know that?” 

“I have your location, you dumb arse. And I called Oli, and Mark, and none of them would just tell me where you were, which meant you were up to something, so I took it upon myself to check. Where are you going?” 

Right. His location. He’s a bit surprised that she didn’t just do that right off the bat, and he’s even more surprised that none of his friends ratted him out. There’s no way out of it now, he supposes. 

“I am doing what might very well end up being, like, the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. At least in recent history,” Louis tells her. He flips his signal on and moves into the other lane, which appears to be moving a bit faster than the one he’d been in originally. He finally has to cave and turn the windshield wipers on. 

“Oh, my God,” she practically shouts, making the car speakers crackle a bit. Louis winces and turns the volume down a touch. “Stop, babe, I’m fine, I’m talking to my idiot brother,” she says, gentler, presumably to Lewis. “You’re going to see Harry! Didn’t he just leave, like, literally this morning?” 

“Yes,” Louis says, trying to remain calm and not get too snippy with her, because even if she’s annoying him he knows that she doesn’t necessarily deserve it. “He left this morning, but I found something and I just… I don’t know. I have to go see him and talk to him and see if this is one sided.” 

“What’d you find?” 

He pauses. They sit in silence for a moment. Louis rolls his window down a bit, hoping the fresh air will help clear his head, make him feel a little bit less overwhelmed and frantic. “Um, just a thing. I’ll tell you all about it the next time I see you, okay? I can’t get into it right now.” 

“Jesus Christ,” his sister mutters. “You’re so fucking dense. You could’ve saved yourself a lot of stress and driving and whatever if you’d just done this this morning. Or last night. Or, like, a couple days ago when it seemed like you were starting to… Feel something.” 

“Yeah, well, I thought it was fucking crazy and one sided, and now I know that it might not be.” 

“Louis,” she says, firmly but not unkindly. “The boy came to the hospital and hung out while I was having my baby. He brought you lunch. I will say he seems like a really sweet kid, but I don’t think he’d sit around a hospital all day for just anyone.” 

She’s right, probably. “Yeah,” he yields. “He’s… Special.” 

“I know,” Lottie sounds smug now, and Louis doesn’t particularly like that. “So, what’s the plan, then? Wanna practice your speech on me? You do realize that it’s raining, right? That’s, like, so romantic. Wait, you’re not going to tell him that you love him, right? Do you think you do?” 

“Lottie, don't.” Louis warns. “I don’t—I’m not…” He trails off, sighing. “I’m not willing to just… Never see him again. Not when I feel like this could go somewhere, and I’m finally ready to let something go somewhere, but only if it’s with him.” 

“You think you could love him,” she fills in, and he whimpers pathetically. “Look at you, growing up. I’ll let you go, then, so you can practice your speech.” 

“I’m not giving a speech, Charlotte,” he insists. She just hums. “I’ll text you when I get a chance, let you know what happened.” 

“Go get him, Boo. I love you.” 

“I love you, too, give the baby a kiss for me.” 

She promises that she will, then hangs up. The radio comes back in and he immediately shuts it off entirely. Louis takes a deep breath and reaches for his smokes, easily removing one and the lighter with only one hand. He lights up and drops the lighter into the cupholder beside the pack, inhaling until his lungs burn. 

He’s probably going to end up giving a fucking speech, but that’s not something he wanted to admit out loud to his sister. It certainly isn’t something he wants to rehearse over the phone with her. 

Truthfully, Louis has no idea what he’s going to say. He doesn’t even know if Harry’s home, but he doesn’t want to text him. They haven’t texted since Harry left, and he doesn’t want to just send a text message saying hey, I’m coming to your flat. He probably should, but Lottie already said that this seems pretty, like, romantic, and somehow he thinks that showing up unannounced might add to that, which is something Louis never envisioned himself ever wanting to do for anyone.

Or it’ll make him seem absolutely insane and Harry will call the police on him. Louis wonders if a hookup calling the police and getting him arrested outside their place is covered in the NDA Harry signed. 

He’s still pondering all of the factors, all the different ways this could go wrong, all the different things he could say, all the different reactions Harry could have, finding himself incapable of thinking about literally anything else. He’s surprised that he’s even capable of operating a car right now, honestly. The papers are burning a hole in his passenger seat, and they’ll probably burn a hole in his back pocket when he tucks them there again once he gets out of the car. 

When he pulls up in front of Harry’s flat, it takes him a moment to find somewhere to park. He has to park more than halfway down the block and pull his hood up as he walks back, but then realizes he forgets which one was Harry’s building. 

By the time he finally finds it again, he’s cold and damp and has to stop in the lobby and make sure the papers in his back pocket haven’t gotten too wet. They didn’t, thankfully, except for when Louis’ wet hands touch the previously dry paper and leave fingerprints in their wake. 

“Fuck, whatever,” he mutters under his breath. He presses the button for the lift impatiently, keeping his hood up for the ride up just in case somebody recognizes him. He has no explanation if he gets caught here, in some random complex, drenched from the rain right after a promo stint in the city. 

The NDA applies directly to Harry, not to anyone with a cellphone who happens to spot him and snap a quick picture and upload it to Twitter. He tries not to think about it too much, not now, not when he’s almost there. 

Louis triple checks the flat number he wrote down before stopping in front of the right one. He takes a deep breath, shoving his hood off and raking a hand through his rain-wet hair. Then he knocks on the door, three quick raps. He wishes he could get a decent look at his hair, but there was no way to do that, he thinks absently. 

He’s about to knock again when the door swings open. Harry is standing there, in black sport shorts that cut off at his mid thigh, his feet bare, and a shirt that’s riding a little too high on his torso to not be a crop top. His hair is in a bun on top of his head, pieces loose above his ears and probably at the nape of his neck. 

“Louis,” he breathes. “What—what are you doing here? Are you… Wet?” He squints at Louis, and Louis lets out a sharp, incredulous laugh. 

“Yeah, it’s fine. It’s raining, dunno if you’ve noticed.” 

“Um,” Harry pauses. “What are you doing here?” 

Louis exhales. Now or never, he tells himself. “I know this seems crazy. I’ve done a lot of really weird, really crazy things, and this is definitely up there. I know you’ve only been gone for, like, a few hours, so that makes this seem even more crazy.” 

“Yeah,” Harry says slowly. “Did I forget something?” 

“No, just lemme talk, stop asking questions,” he demands. Harry purses his lips, nodding, his eyes still wide in shock and confusion. “It’s only been a few hours but I feel like it’s been too long since I’ve seen you last. And I know I could’ve said this before you left, or even yesterday when you asked if us not seeing each other every day would be weird, but I didn’t. I got scared and I didn’t know how you felt.” 

Harry stares at him, but he doesn’t speak. Louis knows he has to keep rambling, and he can’t even complain about it, because this was all his idea, and he just told Harry to stop asking questions. 

“Look. I got hurt, like, really badly the last time I genuinely tried to have anything with someone else. And this might be nothing. Up until a little while ago I thought that maybe you thought this was nothing, too, like I’d been trying to convince myself of for the past couple of days at least. Maybe from the moment I kissed you at the club, really, I don’t know, I’ve been trying not to think about it that much.

You might just think this was just a weeklong fuck with a popstar, and what I found this morning is absolutely nothing, and if that’s the case I’ll turn around and go home right now. But I couldn’t let you go without saying something.” 

Harry’s still staring. “Okay?” He says, brow furrowed. He’s still standing with a hand on the doorknob, like maybe if he decides he needs a quick getaway he could slam the door shut at a moment’s notice. Louis wouldn’t even blame him, not really, if Harry shut the door in his face. 

Louis sighs, running a hand through his hair frustratedly. “I’m really fucking bad at this, and I might be mucking it all up. I’m trying to tell you that I really, really like you, Harry. You blow my mind every time you open your mouth to speak and I never want to stop listening to you or learning things about you. And earlier when I was packing I found this, like, essay that you forgot in a drawer and I don’t know if you did it on purpose or not but it made me realize that maybe, just maybe, you feel the same way as I do, and I couldn’t not do something.” 

He tugs the papers out and holds them up. Harry takes them and gasps as soon as he reads what he’s holding. “Oh my god,” he mutters, like he didn’t believe that was what Louis had found until he . “I thought I threw these out while I was packing last night.” 

“You didn’t, and I found them. So I had to tell you that I really fucking like you, and that’s one of the longest, most rambling, sweetest things I’ve ever read in my life, and I had to know if you felt the same. If you’re as confused and terrified as I am. If you’re not and this was just some weird, one off thing, and it’s not entirely about me or whatever, I’ll go home, and I’m sorry for showing up like this. But I had to know.” 

He’s panting a little now, still damp, his clothes sticking to him uncomfortably. His socks might be wet, he thinks he must have stepped in a puddle. And Harry’s about to open his mouth and tell him to fuck off, to go home and never speak to him again, because this is absolutely mad and Louis looks at him again and—

He’s smiling. “You have my number, don’t you?” He asks, smirking. 

Louis blinks. “Well. Yeah. But that wouldn’t have been the same. I had to look at you when I asked you this. Did you write that about me?” 

There’s no hesitation when Harry nods and says, “yeah, I did. Would you have come all the way here if I hadn’t forgotten to throw that out?” 

“Fuck yeah,” Louis answers, no hesitation on his part either. “It may have taken me a little bit longer, but I probably would’ve ended up sodding wet at your door one way or another.” 

“Um, I have some clothes you can borrow? And we can talk?” 

Both of those things obviously have to happen, and Louis is so fucking glad that they’re going to (he might be a little more relieved about the talk than the clothes). But all Louis can bring himself to do right now is step through the door, cupping Harry’s cheeks and kissing him deeply. Harry hums in surprise, his own hands flying to Louis’ hips as Louis shoves turns them around, using Harry’s back to shut the door. 

“Louis,” Harry gasps between his lips. “You’re cold.” 

Louis shakes his head. “Nope. Warm now.” 

“I’m—I’m in the middle of cleaning because I didn’t before I left—it’s a mess—”

“Don’t care. Warm me up in the shower?” 

“I haven’t—” 

Louis pulls back. “I do not care. I want to fuck you, and then I want to talk. But only in that order.” 

Louis can see it in Harry’s face, the moment he melts, surrenders to the arousal and opportunity. It’s only been a handful of hours, but Louis has missed seeing that look on Harry’s face. He nods. “Lead the way,” Louis says. 

Harry grabs him by the wrist and tugs him through the flat. As soon as they’re in the bathroom, Harry starts apologizing for the mess (which isn’t even that bad, really) but Louis shuts him up with a kiss and a hand down his pants. Harry isn’t complaining much from that point on. 

**

Louis watches carefully as Harry pours them each a cuppa. He makes Louis’ exactly the way Louis likes and slides the mug down the counter to him. They’re freshly (and properly) showered, both wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing else, having a cuppa even though Louis would prefer hard liquor or joints, he’s been so stressed and overwhelmed.

“You really didn’t leave it behind on purpose?” Louis asks as they head into the living room, Harry guiding him with a hand at the small of his back. They sit down on the couch, close at first, but then Louis decides to put just a bit of distance between them. He turns to the side, sitting cross-legged, his mug held between his hands. 

Harry mirrors his position but moves closer, so their knees press together. “I didn’t. I was trying to get out without waking you up, and I forgot to check, like, everywhere this morning. I was also pretty positive I threw it out the night before, but the drinks must’ve gotten to me. Or the sex, I dunno.” 

Louis smiles. Both, probably. “I guess so.” 

“It’s stupid, I know. I just… I started writing it and I couldn’t stop. And I printed it out, ‘cause I can process it better that way, you know? I just had to see it in front of me and see if there was anything I could, like, actually use?” 

“And was there?” 

“I was gonna throw the entire thing out. Obviously the answer is no.” 

“I don’t think you should,” Louis says immediately. “Sorry. I mean, do whatever you want with it, but I liked it. It had some… songlike qualities to it, honestly.” 

Harry arches an eyebrow. “Really?” 

“Yeah, I think so. I mean, I only read it one time, but I could see some of that working out. I’m sorry, for reading it at all, by the way. I don’t know why I did, but the second I saw your name I felt like I couldn’t put it down. I mean, I could’ve put it down or thrown it out and left, but even then I probably wouldn’t have made it longer than a day before I showed up here. Even if I lasted longer, I probably would’ve left you some really embarrassing voicemails in your inbox.” 

That makes Harry grin. “Is it bad I kind of wish I got some embarrassing voicemails?” 

Louis laughs. He takes a sip from his tea before replying. “Yes, it’s bad. They would not have been pretty. But, also, I’m not sure which one would’ve been more humiliating for me.” 

Harry tilts his head to the side curiously. “Voicemails or showing up here, you mean? I don’t think it was embarrassing. Either one of them, it wouldn’t have been embarrassing, it’s sweet.” 

Louis’ face heats up and he looks down to hide the inevitable blush flooding his face. “I’m being serious!” Harry insists, but Louis shakes his head. “It was raining and you were all wet, which really makes no sense considering my flat is, like, not that hard to find—” 

Louis picks his head up and cuts him off. “I couldn’t find a spot right outside! I had to park, like, a million miles away.” 

“I guarantee you, if I open my window right now and stick my head out, I’ll be able to spot whatever car you took somewhere on this block, not that far away.” 

He moves to get up, but Louis takes a hand and presses it down on Harry’s thigh, keeping him in place. “It was, like, somewhere down the block,” he confesses. “But then I kinda forgot which building was yours and I stepped in a puddle and I’m gonna have to buy new shoes, I think.”

“Good thing you can afford them, popstar.” Harry says teasingly, making Louis roll his eyes. “I think forgetting where my flat was in a matter of minutes is way more embarrassing than drunk messages or coming here in the first place.” 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Louis admits with a shrug. He drains half of his tea in two gulps and slides his mug onto Harry’s wooden coffee table, littered with magazines and things Louis will probably explore later if he gets the chance. 

There’s a beat of silence. Harry sips from his mug and then puts it on the table beside Louis’ before meeting his gaze again. Louis tries his hardest to get a read on him, but he keeps on coming up empty. Sometimes Louis can read him better than he can read himself or anyone he knows, and other times it feels like he’s looking at a stranger, trying to guess what they’re thinking or feeling or going to say next. 

And, like, they kind of are still strangers, but not entirely. Harry knows Louis’ deepest darkest secrets, and of course there’s more of them, but he knows one of the biggest ones; that Louis is gay, and closeted, and that he was in a relationship with a guy who couldn’t have given two fucks about Louis. 

Louis knows that Harry had a thing with his publisher or whatever and that he writes all of these deeply personal things and gets up onstage and performs them in front of people even though he isn’t quite sure he should be. Even though he definitely should be. 

“We should talk now, right? That’s where this is going?” Harry says finally. Louis wants to touch him, so he shoves his hands under his thighs and looks at him. 

He clears his throat and sits up a little straighter. He had no time to get his own thoughts in order between arriving and now, but it’s Harry’s turn to talk now, he knows that. Louis got to say what he wanted to. He got it out, for the most part (he’s sure there’s still something in there for him to say), and now it’s Harry’s turn. 

Harry rubs his nose and rolls his head to crack his neck before he finally speaks. It endears Louis more than it scares him, quite honestly, because Harry is just… He’s something else. Louis is enamored. “Okay, so. I swear I didn’t leave that behind on purpose. And I genuinely just wrote it as… An outlet. You were sleeping next to me, and I just… I knew our time was running out and I was feeling things about it that were weird and foreign and so not what we agreed on.” 

Louis nods, encouraging Harry to go on, hoping his nodding conveys that he felt — and is still feeling — all of the same things. Harry’s going to get all cute and unsure and stutter and Louis is going to have to try really, really hard not to get distracted by it. By Harry. 

“I wrote it, and I honestly don’t think it makes any sense—” 

“I’m gonna cut in,” Louis blurts, “just for a second. It makes sense, Harry, and it’s good.” 

Harry smiles, embarrassed. “Okay, that’s beside the point. Would you let me talk now?” 

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I’ll leave my compliments and critiques for later.” 

Harry shakes his head and rolls his eyes. Louis is so, so beyond infatuated with the way he looks when he does that. His mouth twitches, because ever since they started sleeping together Harry rarely rolled his eyes at him maliciously, and now he’s always fighting off a grin when it happens. His less prominent dimple starts coming out, because he can only manage to tame half of his mouth, and often bites his lip in order to keep it from spreading. 

“I don’t want compliments or criticism. It wasn’t something you — or anyone — were ever supposed to read, but I’m not mad at you for finding it. Like I said, it was an outlet. Just this place where I could put my thoughts and try to work out what I was feeling, if any of it was real or if I was just swept up in this… Weeklong hotel fling.” 

“Weeklong hotel fling,” Louis echoes, nodding slowly. “And what’d you decide?” 

Harry takes a deep breath, looking down at his hands where they’re resting in his lap. “Kind of exactly what I put in the weird, rambling essay thing? I thought I was pretty… I don’t know, delusional? About the whole thing, about all of these big, weirdly poetic thoughts and weirdly religious comparisons I was coming up with when it came to you. And I meant when I wrote that, like, leaving that hotel was going to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done.” 

“Why?” Louis asks quietly, because he needs to hear Harry say it. He needs to hear that beautiful mouth craft those beautiful words, just like the ones he read just a matter of hours ago. 

“Because…” Harry pauses, licks his lips, bites the bottom one. He meets Louis’ eye again. “I felt like I was walking away and leaving something unfinished. I felt like there could have been more, but I wasn’t sure how you felt about it — about me — and that felt like I was leaving something incomplete. Like there was a fucking nondisclosure agreement where there should be something... more.” 

“Yeah,” Louis whispers. Because that’s exactly how he felt, he just wasn’t sure how to put it into words. But that’s it; he felt like they were leaving something unfinished. “So when you wrote that last sentence… Uh, You could be someone that. What did that mean? Where was it going?” 

Harry flushes, ducking his head in an attempt to hide it like he always does. Usually Louis would let him try, but he decides not to this time, because he thinks he knows what Harry’s going to say. He’ll let him look down while he says it, because Louis would do the same thing if it were him. 

“I had to stop writing because I was writing while you were doing something. Sleeping or doing some interview, I think, I dunno. I never bothered finishing it because I wasn’t sure I was ready to finish that thought, to commit it to paper and make it that much more permanent and scary, which is exactly what would’ve happened if it was anywhere other than my head or my body, wherever it lives inside me.” 

Louis understands that, probably better than most people do; the second he puts a thought or a feeling to paper, it’s real. It has the possibility of going out into the world and eventually belonging to someone else, someone he doesn’t even know. It’s not just his once it lands on paper; it’s no longer safe and private and plausibly deniable. 

“I was going to write some variation of, like, you could be someone that I love one day. And I couldn’t commit to voicing that,” Harry’s voice is impossibly soft, possibly softer than Louis has ever heard it; hesitant and small and almost a little bit afraid, like he’s worried Louis will call him crazy or stupid or straight up tell him he’s wrong for thinking that. As if Louis didn’t manically drive here to say he wasn’t ready to say goodbye, to say he wanted to know why Harry wrote what he had. 

“Finishing that thought, when I had no idea how you felt, or if I was completely nuts for even thinking that so soon after I’d met you… I couldn’t bear to do it. But. Now you know, so. Yeah. I think that you could be someone that one day you’re someone I could love. Probably sooner than a person should ever fall in love with another person.” 

Louis finally hooks a finger under Harry’s chin, forcing him to look up again. Harry’s cheeks are flushed, splotchy and tinged red. His lips are bitten practically raw, cracked and red. Louis rubs his thumb over his bottom one, marveling at the way the plush skin gives way under even the gentlest of touches. 

“I feel the same way,” Louis murmurs. “I’d been trying not to think about it for the past couple of days. Hardly let myself, until I read those words and realized that I wasn’t nuts for feeling it. That you could be someone I loved if we were able to stick around each other long enough.” 

“Yeah,” Harry whispers. “If we were able to stick around each other long enough. Well, I kind of thought… If you’d let me close enough.” 

Louis swallows hard. “Harry, I let you closer than I’ve let anyone in… A really long time. Even him. Yeah, I loved him, or I thought I did, and there were still parts of me that I didn’t let him see. And anyone after him, I didn’t tell any of them about what happened. But I told you, and that’s closer than I’d let anyone in a very, very long time. I’d let you see everything else.” 

A tear slips down Harry’s cheek and Louis wipes it away with his thumb. “Baby, do you wanna do this?” 

Harry laughs wetly, leaning back a bit to wipe at his own face. Louis’ hand falls to rest on Harry’s shin. “Do you wanna do this? That’s the best thing you can come up with?” 

Louis kind of regretted it the second it came out of his mouth. He laughs himself, placing both hands on Harry’s knees and looking him in the eye. “Harry Styles, will you go on a date with me? A real one, not one in a fuckin’ hotel restaurant.” 

Harry’s nodding before Louis even finishes his sentence. Then he surges forward, grabs Louis’ face in his hands, and kisses him. Louis falls back against the arm of the couch, Harry crawling into his lap lightning fast. He kisses him deeply, licking into every corner of Louis’ mouth without a care, like all he can think about is the fact that he almost didn’t have this for even just a little while. 

Louis’ hands are greedy now, as if they weren’t just all over every single inch of Harry’s body an hour ago. They know what this body feels like, in so many ways, and Louis wants to know them all. And now he can. It makes his head spin, but he just grips Harry’s hips harder, tugs him closer, bites down on his bottom lip in the way that always makes Harry gasp. 

“So yes?” Louis asks, whispering the words between Harry’s lips, something for only him, for only them. Harry tries to catch his lips in another kiss but Louis refuses to close his mouth and seal it. Harry whines, petulant, resting his forehead against Louis’. 

They pant together for a moment, breathing each other in and out, exchanging breath like it’s the only thing that will keep both of them going. Louis poses his question again after he feels like their breathing has slowed enough. “Will you go on a date with me?” He asks. “Like a proper one, not at the restaurant, and not just a restaurant where I tell you I want to celebrate our last night together.” 

“That wasn’t a date?” Harry breathes. “Felt like one. You paid, and drove, and there was even a post-date moment where I was a drama queen. That's a top notch date for me.” His lips brush Louis’ every time he speaks, so close and so far away, and he wants more. 

But that’s also fair, Louis thinks, the date comments, because it definitely did seem (and feel, if he’s being honest with himself) like one. Maybe minus the little spat. He shakes himself enough to answer. 

“It wasn’t. You’ll know when I’m taking you on dates because I’ll ask you, properly, like I am now. And there will be flowers at the table and a pretty bottle of champagne or some shit, and I’ll sweet talk you the entire meal instead of just asking you stupid questions just to keep you talking to me.” 

Harry kisses him firmly, so that Louis can feel him fighting back a smile. He pulls away again and presses their foreheads back together. His eyes slip shut and Louis takes the opportunity to stare at him; even at this weirdly close, odd angle, he still looks beautiful, long lashes resting against his cheekbone. 

The skin there is so soft, he knows it, just below his eyes, even though Louis doesn’t think he’s ever touched it. Now he knows that he can and will, at some point. 

Harry exhales a quick breath, ghosting over Louis’ own mouth, and he nods ever so slightly. “Yeah, I’ll go on a date with you. Lots of them, but I have a request first, if you don’t mind.” 

“Baby,” Louis groans, his head falling back against the arm of the couch. “I’m so glad you agreed to the date — to dates — but I don’t think I can go again. My cock is gonna die. I seriously think that this past week I’ve had more sex than I’ve ever had in my life, like I never even got off this much when I first discovered what getting off—” 

He’s cut off with a big palm smacked over his mouth. Harry’s leaning up, in his line of sight, laughing brightly. “I was going to say that I wanted to see your sister and the baby as soon as possible, Jesus.”  

Louis feels his eyes soften with Harry’s request. He nods as best he can with Harry’s hand still firm on the lower half of his face. “Stop talking about sex and you discovering you could wank, please. Okay?” 

He nods again, then licks Harry’s hand. Harry makes a face, bracing a hand on the arm of the couch beside Louis’ head as he leans up, wiping his wet hand on Louis’ bare chest. Louis groans, grabbing Harry’s hand and tangling their fingers together so he can’t keep doing that. Harry rests their entwined fingers over Louis’ heart, sighing heavily. 

“We can see Lots and the baby,” Louis says aloud. “I was supposed to see them at the hospital today before they left, but I guess I can just call and see when we can see them.” 

“I’d like that a lot. Maybe we can go on a date after.” 

“Love, I’m not sure I’d be able to pull you away from the baby. Even if I did get you on a date after, I’m vaguely sure all you’d talk about is the fuckin’ baby.” 

Harry gasps. “Don’t call your nephew a fuckin’ baby,” he says, offended. Louis laughs, can’t believe he’s been so fucking obsessed with this fucking idiot. Harry starts laughing just because Louis is laughing, and that just makes him laugh even more, because all of this is absolutely mad and should be impossible but it isn’t; and Harry makes it feel not impossible.

Once their laughter dies down, Harry gets this serious look about him. He knows Harry has something to say, and Louis welcomes it. Louis squeezes his hand encouragingly. “I’m… I’m really glad that you found that. And that you came here right after you did.” 

Louis brings their hands to his mouth so he can brush a kiss to Harry’s knuckles. “Well, I’m just glad that you wrote it.” 

“Sap,” Harry accuses, and Louis just shrugs. Maybe he is. He’s not sure anymore. “I wanna hear more about what you think can be songs, because if I could get a writing credit on your next song that would be fucking amazing.” 

Louis tugs him down closer. “We can talk about that, along with the whole nephew thing. Later, though. Now, I wanna kiss you again for a little bit.” 

“Thought your cock was going to die?” Harry muses. 

“Just for a little bit, not enough to kill my dick. Then we’ll call my sister so she knows you didn’t kill me, mention nothing about my dick, and see when we can see the baby. Then we’ll see what we can do about a writing credit.” 

“That’s a good deal,” Harry agrees right away, already lowering his mouth to Louis’. “I’m really, really glad you decided to look in the drawers before you left.” 

“Well, it’s a good thing you fucking forgot it, love, or else who knows what I would’ve said to your voicemail.” 

Harry kisses his cheek. “Well,” he starts, kissing Louis’ jaw, “you can tell it to me anyway,” a kiss to the left side corner of his mouth, “drunk or sober,” kiss to his chin, “whenever you want,” kiss to the right side corner of his mouth, “I want it all.” 

Louis knots his other hand in the back of Harry’s hair, bumping their noses together. “You get it all.” 

Harry doesn’t kiss him, instead he ducks down and buries his face in the side of Louis’ neck. Louis wraps both arms around him, one of Harry’s hands coming to rest at the side of his neck. He kisses the side of Harry’s head and just thinks… Yes, this is what maybe loving someone one day feels like. This is what he would have missed out on if he hadn’t kissed Harry in that club, if he hadn’t told Harry about his past, if he hadn’t gotten in a car and driven over here. 

“I’m glad you didn’t walk away,” Harry murmurs into his neck. 

Louis shushes him, kisses his head again and holds him tighter, because he can. This is what I would have missed, he thinks, this unfinished business, this foundation for something exceptional and unbelievable to grow and thrive where it never should have in the first place. 

Or maybe it’s where it should have been growing and thriving all along. Maybe it’s where this was always going to throw and thrive. Louis can’t be sure. He just holds Harry tighter and rests his cheek against his head, thanking the stars or the universe or something he doesn’t even know yet that he has this.