Chapter Text
Harry had taken the day off to watch over Louis. The media frenzy around Troy’s death having dialed down a little they decided to enjoy a day out, going to the park and eating lunch in a posh restaurant at Zayn’s expense where they made out shamelessly for the soul purpose of making their waitress uncomfortable. It was childish, but also a lot of fun and Harry was so content to see Louis smile all day, sometimes laughing this genuine loud laugh that made his eyes crinkle and sparkle. Louis was the happiest he’s ever felt, letting all his worries take a back seat and letting himself be guided by Harry’s charm and childish excitement.
Harry was glad to see how Louis seemed a lot more relaxed and comfortable with him. They were still at a stage of cuddling, kissing and holding hands, but Harry was letting Louis set the pace. In truth, Harry didn’t expect for him to initiate so much contact so rapidly, but Louis seemed to crave his presence and his comfort. Harry was more than willing to give him.
“God, this series is amazing. It makes me want to travel to each of those places so bad.”
Louis is now laying on his stomach like a starfish sprawled on Harry’s body who’s laying on his back on the couch. They’ve just finished watching the last episode of Sense 8and they’ve been shifting from one cuddled position to the next, exchanging kisses between episodes. They seemed to be insatiable and they couldn’t get enough of each other. It had only been one day since they really took their relationship to the making out point. Harry was worried they might be moving too fast, but it would be almost impossible to stop touching and kissing Louis now that he had started. He was like a drug addict high on Louis’ affection and the latter seemed to return the sentiment in full force.
“Yeah it’s probably ‘cause they’ve filmed in the actual countries the story takes place in.” Harry adds on.
“Mmm. I think you’re right. I bet you’ve been to all of those places, am I right?” He asks, his chin propped up on his hand which his resting on Harry’s chest. Louis had had a chance to ask Harry about his travels during their day together and he couldn’t get enough of his solo travelers stories. He found it fascinating and the more he heard about the people Harry had encountered or the little adventures he had taken on spontaneously, the more he craved that freedom. Going anywhere you want, trusting and acting purely on your desires and instincts. It felt invigorating and empowering. The more he heard Harry talk about it, the more he wanted to experience it himself.
Harry seemed to have to think before answering. Trying to remember every place he’d been to. Louis would have rolled his eyes if he weren’t so endeared by his concentrated gaze.
“Mmm… oh! I haven’t been to India actually!”
“I’d love to see Mumbay…” Louis says thoughtfully. “We should go together.” He cringes at his own eagerness. Maybe Harry doesn’t want to burden himself with someone like Louis, young and unexperienced Loui who would only be a constant worry and dead weight for Harry to drag along. To his surprise though, Harry is smiling his biggest, brightest dimpled smile. His eyes sparkle when he says,
“Really? You would come with? That would be awesome! We really should go Lou! Let’s plan it and do it yeah?”
Louis smiles at Harry’s eagerness. The excitement the soul idea of traveling with Harry makes his stomach flutter. He has to look away from the sun that is Harry to stop that bursting sensation in his gut. He’s smiling, face pressed to Harry’s chest when he says,
“Okay, let’s do it.”
---
“Louis, please, listen to me, you haven’t slept in 48 hours, you can’t go on like this.”
“I have slept, Harry.”
“15 minutes of dozing off before jolting yourself awake as quickly as you can repeatedly doesn’t count as sleepLou.”
“Ok, fine, I’ll lay down for a bit, but I’m not taking those pills. You can’t make me.”
Harry sighs. They’ve been arguing for the past 30 minutes and Louis doesn’t want to listen to reason. Dr. Philips has prescribed him medication so that he could sleep better, but Louis refuses to take them and Harry won’t let this one go. They were watching Greasewhen the argument broke down. Harry had noticed how Louis was fighting sleep yet again and had tried to convince him to take the pills. Now Louis was standing in front the couch, ready to flee. Harry decides to change his approach under a furious, but sleepy looking Louis. It’s like he’s fighting exhaustion only to make a point. Harry tries not to be endeared. They’re having an argument, damn it.
“Lou, why don’t you want to take them? You look like you could collapse any moment now, you need to rest and those pills will help you do that.” He says it in as gentle a tone as he can muster and it seems to the trick. Louis visibly deflates from his pretend-anger-stare and slouches back next to Harry on the couch with a heavy sigh.
“I just-ughh!” He groans, frustrated. “You don’t get it.” He hugs his knees to his chest and buries his face in his arms. Harry’s surprised by the sudden change of tone. Louis went from confident anger to retrieved hopelessness in only seconds. As if in sync with Louis’ emotions, he doesn’t miss a beat encompassing his little body with his arms and hugging him to his side.
“Then, tell me, love. Explain it to me please. I wantto understand. That’s all I’m asking really.”
Louis leans into his side further, his head resting on his chest.
“Okay.”
Louis seems to need time to gather his thoughts and assemble the courage to open up so Harry only holds him tight and waits in silence. He tries not to show how impatient he is of finally understanding Louis’ demons a little better. After what seems like centuries to Harry, Louis finally speaks.
“You know I have nightmares, it’s pretty obvious I think, right?” Louis looks at Harry in confirmation, who only dares to nod as if Louis was a fragile animal he needed to approach carefully, making sure it didn’t bite or flee.
“Actually, I should say nightmare since there’s only the one coming back over and over again.”
Louis pauses and Harry waits patiently.
“They’re about my –“ Louis cuts himself off and tries again trying another approach. “They’re about when –“ He sighs, frustrated. The words are stuck in his throat and even though he wants to open up to Harry about his mother, the guilt is swallowing him whole and effectively cutting any air in his lungs. He can’t get the words out in fear of disappointing Harry.
“I want to tell you, but I can’t” Harry sees the distraught in Louis’ expression and he can only hold him tighter.
“It’s okay you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Lou, give it time, it’s okay”
“But it’s not! It’s not okay. I can’t take it anymore. Please Harry, I can’t sleep. I know I have to, but I can’t see her again, it hurts too much.” Louis is crying and sobbing uncontrollably now and it breaks Harry’s heart to see his boy in so much pain. Pain he can’t begin to understand.
---
“How’s he doing?” Niall’s sitting on the couch, beer in hand. He’s addressing Harry who’s just come back from checking on Louis who’s sleeping in Harry’s room or more like their room now since Louis almost never sleeps in his own room anymore.
“He’s better, I think. The nightmares have subdued the past days and he’s been eating more. I guess the pills help.” Harry is looking intently at his room’s closed door, hoping he could do more for Louis. He had finally agreed on taking medication three days ago and he, at least was sleeping 7 hours a day.
“That’s good, right?” Niall asks, wary of the sad eyes Harry is giving to the door.
“Yeah, it’s good.” Harry sighs and takes the beer Niall is handing him before slumping back on the couch.
“I just… I feel like the sleeping pills are just a Band-Aid on an opened wound. He doesn’t have nightmares anymore because the medication refrains him from having dreams at all, but he still looks disconnected and depressed sometimes. He’s still obsessing in Zayn’s studio over really dark paintings that I can’t understand. He needs to talk to someone I think. Maybe someone that’s not connected to him in any way, that can have a fresh perspective on everything that’s happened to him.”
Niall nods his understanding. He’s seen Louis and how depressed he looks occasionally. He sees how he will fake a smile or a laugh or how he will look into the distance for a long period of time. Sometimes he zones out completely and the only thing that seems to be able to bring him back is Harry.
“Are you thinking of calling Grace?”
“Yeah, maybe she could come here and meet Louis.”
“Louis’ not gonna like that.” Niall says almost to himself, taking a swig of his beer.
They both glance worriedly at Harry’s closed bedroom, both imagining Louis’ reaction.
“Do you think I should give him a heads up or…?”
“I think you should just rip the Band-Aid off quickly.”
---
Louis is lost in mixing different shades of blues to get the perfect one when he hears a knock on the door. He thinks it’s weird since the only other person that enters the studio is Zayn and he never knocks. Harry doesn’t knock either preferring to just talk to him over the closed door.
“Who is it?” Louis asks, still focused on his painting.
The door cracks open to reveal a red-headed slender woman harboring a warm smile. She walks silently to Louis’ easel and takes a seat beside him, where Zayn usually works. Louis acknowledges her for a millisecond before focusing back on his canvas. He has an idea of who that woman might be and he doesn’t like it one bit. He’s certainly not going to make this easy on her.
“Hi Louis, I’m Grace. Nice to meet you.” She extends a hand for Louis to shake, but the latter ignores it, preferring to keep on working.
Louis isn’t dumb and he knows she’s here to talk about what happened with his father and the nightmares. He had told Harry he didn’t want to talk to anyone, that he was fine. With the pills Dr. Philips had prescribed him, he could sleep without dreaming which kept the nightmares at bay. He had made a conscious effort to eat more to appease the worrying look he hated seeing on Harry’s gorgeous face. He couldn’t fool anyone though about how unwell he really is. He tried to talk to Harry about his mother in multiple occasions now, but every time he started he couldn’t admit out loud how she had sacrificed her life for him and how he had repaid her. He was terrified that Harry wouldn’t want him anymore, that he would kick him out and demand never to see him again. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t say it out loud, not even to himself. He had tried countless times saying the words alone in the bathroom, but his reflection in the mirror always stayed silent, his mouth would refuse to move and his lips always stayed shut.
Not wanting to be completely rude, Louis decides to at least acknowledge Grace’s presence.
“Hi”, he says while continuing on, mixing different blues and getting slightly frustrated at how much he can never get it right.
“What are you painting?” Grace asks softly. She looks genuinely interested and Louis is glad not to see the same lines of worry he sees in everybody else’s features.
“A woman” Louis is engrossed in his process and he doesn’t want to elaborate. To his relief, Grace only hums and stays silent. She watches Louis paint for a while and Louis is grateful for the silence. He finds that rather than being awkward like it is with most people, silence with Grace is comfortable and warm. She looks peaceful and at ease which rubs off on Louis who realizes is less tensed than he was before Grace came in. It even translates into the brush strokes on his canvas. Minutes pass before she eventually breaks tranquility gently, in an almost-whisper.
“Who is it that you’re painting? She looks beautiful.”
Louis freezes for a millisecond before continuing his work. It’s enough for Grace to notice though. Her simple complement to his painting, or more precisely to his mother brings out feelings he had tried to avoid.
“She looks a lot like you.”
Louis stops his movements and doesn’t try to hide it this time. He’s stuck between wanting to explain who she is so that the complement at least could go to its rightful owner – that’s the least he could do for his mother whom he betrayed gravely – and between letting the lump in his throat swallow him and his sorrow along with him.
“I can’t tell you who she is.” He says in all honesty. It’s really not that he won’t but that he physically can’t. His voice won’t allow it.
“Why is that?” Louis is glad that she didn’t assume that he just doesn’t want to tell her. He’s glad that Grace seems to understand the turmoil in Louis’ mind.
“I can’t say it. I can’t – I want to, I swear. I want to be able to talk to Harry about it when he asks, but I can’t.” Grace easily understands how Louis isn’t only talking about the painting or the woman it represents, but rather about everything he’s been through and how he feels about it.
“I wish I could, but the words are stuck.” As if to demonstrate his point, his sentence comes out strangled, barely audible around the lump in his throat.
Grace places a gentle hand on Louis’ shoulder and rubs soothing, subtle circles with her thumb effectively calming him down. He hadn’t realized how worked up he had even become.
“It’s okay Louis, it’s normal that it’s hard to talk about what’s happened to you. It’s more than normal; it’s to be expected. You shouldn’t force yourself to talk if it causes you so much distress.”
“But-“ Louis is about to argue. He needsto talk sometime. He knows he has to let Harry in. He knows how worried everyone is of him and he wants to give them peace of mind. It’s the least he can do after what they’ve given him. But Grace cuts him off before he has time to says anything.
“How about you write about it instead You don’t have to show it to anybody, you can even throw it in the trash or burn it afterwards, it doesn’t matter. But just writing the words down, I think it might help you saying them later on.” She withdraws her hand to fold it on her crossed knees. She’s facing Louis’ painting and makes sure nothing about her demeanor is threatening. She knows how important it is that she lets her words sink in without giving Louis the impression that he is being studied. It seems to work well as Louis is pensively looking at his painting too, visibly less guarded than when she first came in.
Louis hadn’t thought of writing and he feels a little dumb for not thinking of it before. To his defense, he’s always been better with images than with words. He’s skeptical, but he is willing to try if it means he could eventually open up to Harry which is all he really wants.
Louis nods. Grace smiles. Louis thinks Grace might not be that bad after all.
“Good. I’m glad you’re willing to try. What would you think of seeing me again next week? You can then tell me how the writing went and we can go from there. Would you like that?”
Louis thinks about it. And, as always, Grace gives him time. He comes to the conclusion that only good can come from this and that he has nothing to lose. He nods. Grace’s smile grows bigger and warmer.
“I’m not sure it’ll work though.” Louis adds on, scared of disappointing her if he fails to even write the words he can’t bear to say.
“Don’t worry about the end result Louis, just promise me you will give it your best try. That’s all I ask of you. If it doesn’t work than it doesn’t work and e will find other solutions, all right?”
“Yeah all right”
Even though Grace was only talking to him for no more than 20 minutes, Louis feels invigorated, like therearesolutions to his problems, like there arethings he can try to open up and feel better. In no more than 20 minutes, Grace has restored hope that had escaped Louis and he feels a little bit lighter once she leaves the studio. He even puts his brush aside exchanging it for paper and a pen. He starts to write and only stops when Harry comes knocking at the door, startling him. He realizes he’s been writing for 2 hours without interruption. He tells Harry he’s coming to bed in a second and hides the pile of papers that accumulated his ramblings, his thoughts, his fears and his frustrations, unsure if he’s ever going to be able to show them to anyone. At least the words aren’t only in his head anymore, but on paper too. That’s progress, right? It has to be, he thinks while he makes his way under the covers and cuddles Harry’s side.