Archive of Our Own ^beta

Music when the lights go out

Unpacking is a task designed for lesser creatures, he should not be subjected to such endeavor.

The idea of living on his own was brilliant on paper, but executing it is a different thing altogether. This is all Stan’s fault. “Let’s move in together, it’ll be fun” he said. “My boyfriend won’t get in the way, nothing will change, I promise” he said. “Aiden and I want to fuck. You have to move out. Please?” the wanker had the gall to say. Revenge will be glorious. Stanley Lucas will rue the day he chose somebody else over him. Anyone would be happy to be flatmates with him… except Zayn said “no way” and then muttered something about smelly feet and dirty dishes. Yeah, like he’s so perfect. Well, actually, he kind of is. He hates Zayn. No, he hates the fact that he can’t hate Zayn.

And so it is that now he’s stuck on a new flat and he has to survive without anybody’s help. He’s afraid he’s going to have to learn how to cook and do his own laundry. That’s the kind of stuff that should be taught at school, not math and all that shite. How is a bloody trigonometric function in any way more useful than knowing which foods he can keep in the fridge? He has some serious gaps in knowledge that he’ll have to fill as soon as possible; otherwise, he’ll end up poisoning himself, which is unacceptable because he starts rehearsals next week and his death would probably make learning his blocking a bit more challenging.

Pizza! That’s it. That’s all he’ll eat until he gets himself a nice house-elf or a flatmate who’s actually worthy of his company. Pizza has never failed him, which is more than can be said for his two idiot best friends.

Once he’s done hanging his Marvel posters and his mirror, he appreciates his appearance and winks at his reflection. He’s more than ready to embark on the adventure of being everybody’s hot new neighbour. He made sure not to invite Zayn to check out the place right away because he doesn’t want him to steal his thunder. People tend to act dumbfounded when Zayn’s around, which is simply unfair because he’s so much more attractive than him. Zayn’s generic at best.

’youre ugly’, he texts him.

‘is this the 21st century and grown up version of pulling my hair during school breaks? i already told you you’re not my type’

Ugh, Zayn.

‘im everybodys type’

‘stop plagiarising teen wolf and go the fuck to sleep louis. dont u have a class in the morning?’

‘night’ still young. ugly AND boring. your gross. dont touch me’

‘’

Idiot. Idiot in the right, though. He should go to sleep. Because of his other favourite git, he now lives sixteen blocks further from school. He knew that when he moved out. Ah, he’s such a good friend. No one deserves him.

After he pours himself a cup of tea and grabs a handful of biscuits, he goes to bed and eats while watching reruns of Britain’s Next Top Model. Don’t judge him.

During an advert break, he mutes his telly and sighs. This place isn’t half bad. Sure, there’s not enough room to swing a cat, but it’s not like he could actually buy things that would take up space, anyway. He’s either going to have to become super famous really soon or marry Prince Harry. Whichever one happens first, he’s not picky.

If he has to be completely honest, though, he quite likes the fact that this new flat is smaller than the previous one. Somehow, it makes everything easier. He can pretend he’s playing at the garden fort he had when he was a kid. Surrounded by piles of boxes that he plans on sorting out... never, he can simply imagine he’s nine again. No responsibilities, other than taking care of his girls. Yes, he misses that. Being a grown-up is far too complicated and he’s still not quite sure what even is happening to his personal space-time continuum. He was sixteen like two days ago and all of the sudden he’s twenty-three, skint (how exactly is he going to pay rent without a flatmate?), far away from home and nowhere near international stardom. The old tattered nightstand he brought from Donny has a stack of comic books and unpaid bills, the ludicrous juxtaposition clearly mocking him. His life is dog’s breakfast.

He should get his act together, quit the play and get a proper job, but what’s the point of growing up if you can’t become who you’ve always dreamt to be? He doesn’t want a rubbish desk job or to be Clerk Tomlinson, Tour Guide Tomlinson, Library Monitor Tomlinson. Bugger that. He wants spotlights and awards and fans and a castle, so be it if it takes him a century to get all of those things. The universe should know better than try to argue with him. When he was fifteen, he got out of taking a geography exam using “Doomsday” as an excuse (“He’s out there burning up a sun just to say goodbye and you expect me to think about watersheds and rivers? Now is not the time, Mrs. Pryce. She is gone. Gone. Forever.”) Mrs. Pryce teared up and cancelled the exam. To his classmates, he was like a national hero that day, but they were all too gutted to celebrate and spent the rest of the day mourning in silence.

He puts his cup on the floor and settles on his bed. Zayn’s right. He should rest well tonight because waking up earlier than he used to is going to be a nightmare on its own. He’s not brave enough to even begin worrying about the perils of public transport. Nothing good ever comes out of taking the tube.

*****

He deserves better than this. He deserves his own TARDIS.

Just as he begins contemplating the idea of jumping out of a window, the little girl that’s two seats to his left shuts up. Thank God, damn it. Before he can even exteriorise his relief, she resumes her tantrum and this time she’s louder. She’s apparently complaining because she wants to know where her mum is and Louis should probably be concerned about that. What if she’s being kidnapped? Should he do something? He looks at the bloke who’s with her and thinks that Hollywood movies got it all wrong if this is what actual kidnappers look like. Discarding that idea, he focuses on the guy’s eyes and the woman that’s sitting between them looks at him with a raised eyebrow. So apparently it’s the opposite of chill to lean forward and rampantly stare at the hot stranger who’s… taking care of his daughter? No, he doesn’t look old enough to be a dad, but you never know… Teens these days…

Although he’s not looking at him anymore, Louis’s got his image imprinted on his brain: pale skin, wild hair and bright red lips. Public transport has never been hotter. A porn video he watched last week started just like this, minus the kid cause, well, creepy much?

Letting the kid aside and the fact that people aren’t fucking all around him, there’s something about this other fellow that leads him to think about porn in general. While undoubtedly hot, his whole appearance and demeanor are somewhat somber, like a guy who hasn’t slept in days and is living on pills and dicks. He reminds Louis of that thing he once read about in school. Hmm. That thing. Okay, so he didn’t actually read about it and he might have kind of slightly cheated to pass that test but this is like some serious Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? moment he’s going through and as it turns out, no, he’s not smarter because this is some bloody elementary shit that he should know. That thing about rocks being bitchslapped by the wind and turning to sand. How can he not know this? He knows every single line from Grease by heart and he doesn’t know basic geology? Something’s fundamentally wrong with either a) his brain, b) his priorities, c) his choices, d) all of the above.

Lost in thought, he didn’t even notice that at some point the little girl stopped screaming and began crying. Her young dad/older brother/hot kidnapper is trying to console her, whilst being clearly unsuccessful. The kid continues whining and clinging to his arms and the rest of the passengers are not even a little bit endeared by her; in fact, two older ladies are whispering (out loud) that “some people should walk or take taxis”. Victorian bitches realness.

“Can I try something?” he raises his voice above the girl’s yelping, addressing the young man.

“Sure?”

Not wasting another second, Louis stands up, takes a couple of steps to his left and kneels down next to the bloke and the girl. She doesn’t even detect his presence. Her eyes are closed and she’s clutching the boy’s shirt in her tiny fists. She might be a loud evil spawn, but she’s quite adorable.

“Welcome to Megatube!” he announces in his big presenter voice. The little kid is momentarily startled and her eyes flutter open. “This is our first participant today! What’s your name, little kid?”

He must look mental. She’s frightened and very, very quiet. He knew this would work.

“Make him go away,” she tells the young man by her side and he smiles at her.

“I think he means no harm, Fay. He’s nice, don’t worry.”

Louis is actually offended. He strives for people to think he’s dangerous and up to no good. ‘No harm’ and ‘nice’ blow his bad-boy cover. He’s going to have to get a tattoo or something to get his point across. Being nice never did him any good. Sweet, funny little Louis with his striped shirts and twinkie haircut, let’s walk all over him because he won’t retaliate. How about no? His life is much simpler when people are afraid to approach him.

This is probably the part in which he should interrupt his thoughts abruptly, withholding information, but the reality is not that exciting, there aren’t any dramatic heartbreaks that he’s trying to move on from, no dead ex boyfriend, no unrequited love, no abusive parents. Well, his biological father is an old sod, but that’s as far as his sob backstory goes.

He just isn’t sixteen anymore. Your life doesn’t have to be a Nicholas Sparks novel in order for you to realise that people suck and the more vulnerable you are, the more chances there are that you’re going to end up hurt. He’s at a point in his life in which he likes carefully choosing who he spends time with. He doesn’t feel the obligation to be nice to everybody and thinks that being close to him shouldn’t be a right innate to every human being he crosses paths with, but a gift that only a lucky few deserve.

And also, he likes wearing black clothes now, thank you very much. He might get nostalgic every once in a while and show up to the theatre wearing his old braces, but he’s honestly mostly done with them. He enjoys his new and perilous looks. It offends him deeply when people don’t judge the book by its cover because that’s no fun. Where’s the adventure, the surprise? He wants people to think he’s a wanker just because he wears black and his hair has a life of its own, only to mindfuck them afterwards by letting them know he’s an actual kitten. When people realise that right away, it narks him off no end. How dare them skip his meticulously planned steps? He shouldn’t be this easy to read.

“I used to do this with me sisters all the time,” he explains, finally. He’s working on controlling his inner monologues because he’s been told that he sometimes pauses conversations for a good five minutes and he doesn’t even notice. Thankfully, his friends at the theatre don’t think that’s odd. They constantly do that as well. You will approach one of them on the way out and they will stare at you for a couple of seconds and blink several times before fully acknowledging you because they had been too busy living in a parallel universe inside their minds. That’s normal there. They’re all weird together. Zayn and Stan don’t get it and they think he’s barking mad (“What do you mean I’m interrupting your medieval battle? It’s the year 2015 and you’re standing in the kitchen not wearing any clothes. What’s wrong with you, mate?”). He’s doing it again! “Whenever they were throwing temper tantrums, I made it my goal to become so obnoxious that they couldn’t compete and just gave up. It worked every time.”

The other boy smiles softly at him.

“Well done, then, you were truly obnoxious. The absolute worst.”

“Thank you very much. I tried my best to annoy you, I’m glad you enjoyed my skills.”

They both go quiet at the same time and it’s a bit awkward. Louis is the kind of person that spills ten thousand words a minute or stays totally silent, there’s no in between.

Back in the day, he used to be quite a flirt, really. If he ever thought another boy was attractive, he never hesitated to ask for his number or Facebook. Totally shameless. Nowadays he spends so much time playing different characters that he sometimes forgets how to be himself and how to act in this kind of situations. He meets someone cute and his first reaction isn’t truthfully his, but his character’s. He might be a little crazy after all… He should probably stay the fuck away from Method acting until further notice.

“I think I’ve seen you before,” the other man says. “Are you the one with the giant Spiderman toy?”

“Collectible,” Louis corrects him straight away, “and it isn’t giant. It’s just life-size.”

“Right, sorry. I saw you moving it the other day. I live across the street. Seen the house with the pink door? Mine.” His expression positively beams with pride and enthusiasm. Sedentarism! No, wait, that’s the thing that means you’re too lazy to get your arse off the sofa and you will die young. Never mind. The point is that the other boy no longer looks like an old sad grain of sand. He looks like a rock, a shiny rock with a bright smile and sparkly green eyes and that’s one scary fucking imaginary. No more metaphors for the remainder of the day. Smiling rocks are creepy and… Sedimentation! Yes! He’s so proud of himself. He’s going to rename his cat Sir Dimentation. Wait. Was it erosion? Fuck, he really did spend all his school years reading comics and playing pranks, didn’t he? “Initially, I was going to paint it blue but then I changed my mind and pink seemed like the right choice.”

Louis chuckles and stands up because he can’t keep having this conversation face to crotch, that’s mildly inappropriate.

“Why pink?”

“Why not pink?”

Louis shrugs. Why not pink? Why not, indeed?

“Not from around here, right?”

He nods, mumbles “South Yorkshire” and wonders why he’s cooperating at all. What happened to his principles? The mystery, the surprise, the not giving away any answers way too soon… fuck, he’s really cute, so who cares? “You?”

“Cheshire.”

“Sick! We were almost county neighbours.”

“And now we’re Londobours!”

The other boy realises he just said the stupidest thing that has ever been uttered in the history of Great Britain (okay, Louis may be exaggerating, it wasn’t that bad. No, actually, it was. Londobours, for fuck’s sake.) and he grins in spite of himself, gently biting his lower lip. He has a dimple. A dimple. Aye, because he wasn’t adorable enough already. Thanks, universe.

Fully intent on making him feel at ease (he says dozy shit on a regular basis, he’s got no right to judge anybody), he asks him: “Is she your daughter or are you kidnapping her?”

The boy’s reaction is the opposite of what he was going for. Instead of relaxing, his expression grows dark and cold. “She’s my niece,” he replies and Louis could swear his voice sounds an octave lower than a second ago.

“I figured she couldn’t be yours. She seems evil.”

“I’m not evil! Harry, make him stop!”

They both chuckle at her indignation. They are horrible human beings. He likes horrible human beings. He likes fucking hot horrible human beings.

“Are you going to stop me… Harry?”

The train is slowing down, a direct contrast with Louis’ accelerated heart rate. He’s almost shivering with antici-

“Would you like me to?”

pation.

“I’d rather you didn’t, I haven’t really started yet.”

He’s openly flirting with a stranger in front of his prepubescent niece. Oh, well, that happens.

The train stops and he’d certainly love to stay a bit longer.

“This is where I get off,” he says, a sneaky smile curling up his lips.

“Maybe next time I could help you… getting off.”

So that’s how it’s going to be, eh? Alright, he can take it. He smiles and says: “Sure, I could use a hand.” He winks at him and descends from the train feeling so exhilarated he could kiss the fucking gap.

******

Alright. No.

Let’s set things straight.

Louis is not Justin Taylor, Nathan Maloney, Buffy Summers or any other emotionally fragile teenager who gets attached to people they sleep with and freak out if they’re told it was just a shag... or if the guy turns evil and… okay, Buffy might have been a tad justified. It was Jenny’s fault, though- That’s not the point. Focus, Louis. The point is that he’s pissed, yeah? He’s fucking radged because he likes one night stands. Hell, he owns them! He’s the King of one night stands. In fact, they should probably be called tommos, as in “it didn’t mean anything, it was just a tommo.”

So this isn’t about him having feelings for this lad. Nuh-huh. It’s just that this is so rude. He’s a rude man himself but damn! Who does this git think he is?

He would have been totally okay if he hadn’t acted that way, if he had been honest from the get go: ‘I’m hot, you’re hot, let’s fuck.’ That would have been brill. That’s what his sex life is always like and he feels like a jammy fellow because of it. How fantastic is it to have an active sex life and no complications whatsoever? No feelings in the way, no awkward silences to fill with silly small talks, no sharing his clothes. Nowt. It’s blissful, really.

But Harry made him laugh and cooked him dinner. Delicious dinner. The kind of dinner that people sell their souls for. And he… had… fun. He truly did. He doesn’t remember the last time he nearly passed out from laughing so hard. They ate, snogged, watched cat videos, played CoD: Advanced Warfare II and ended up shagging right on top of Harry’s Xbox One, and it was perfect. Harry didn’t kick him out in the middle of the night nor did he push away when he grabbed his hand and led him towards his own bed. Harry smiled at the tacit suggestion and even though they didn’t make an informed decision regarding cuddling, Louis woke up in his arms. Aside from feeling gross and sweaty, he was content. He hadn’t slept that peacefully in years.

It was so, so good and then Harry said “I’ll see you around?”

Guess what? They didn’t see each other around.

Louis shouldn’t care. He doesn’t care. It’s not like he has spent the last fortnight thinking about this. He hasn’t. End of story.

Except he has. It’s all he has been able to think about, not because he wants to pursue a relationship with him, but because he’s not used to stuff like this happening to him. If anything, he’s the one that breaks people’s hearts, not the other way around. Besides, that’s expected from him, innit? Deep down, he’s a nice fellow, really, he’s all sunshines and rainbows, but it’s not easy to access that side of him. That’s a part of Louis Tomlinson that only his family and his friends are aware of.

Harry, on the other hand, seems… seemed so sweet and open and caring and wonderful. He talked about how much he loved his grandparents, how proud he was of his mum. He told him (boring) stories about his dad’s business, all with a smile on his gorgeous face. He sang the ‘I Love Cats’ song and apologised seventy-two times because he ran out of Yorkshire Tea and forced him to settle for Earl Grey. He rambled on about world peace and bananas and at some point Louis thought he couldn’t possibly be real. It looks like he was right. Was it all an act?

“Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

Louis blinks twice.

Liam Payne is staring at him expectantly.

Right, he’s supposed to be rehearsing, not daydreaming… daynightmaring about his rude neighbour.

“Honestly, no. If you’re gonna hold that against me, then quit the show.”

Liam shakes his head and sighs. Louis can tell he wants to give him an earful about responsibilities, working ethics and tight schedules, and he’s making a great effort to restrain himself from doing so.

Although his progress has been enormous, he’s still a bit uptight from time to time. He no longer spends most of his time reminding people he used to play Gavroche in the West End, now he only won’t let anyone forget he has a wider vocal range than all of them put together. Small victories. He still has much room to improve.

“Are you alright?” he asks instead, clearly having listened to Louis’ wise advice. He had told him a while ago something along the lines of people particularly disliking him when he acted like the shows were more important than them and that he had to try to be more akin to other people’s emotions.
(What he actually said was “you’re a dick and we don’t like you. Nobody gives a shit about your West End credits and if you don’t stop bragging about them, we’re gonna shove a french flag up your arse. Got it, mate?”)

Yeah, they didn’t get off to a good start but during the past year Louis has learned that deep down Liam is a good lad. He didn’t have that many friends when growing up, so he has trouble understanding nobody likes a real life Malfoy. It’s all fun and games when you’re reading or watching someone like that cause that’s fictional and it doesn’t personally affect you, but real life should be off limits to those people. So when Liam showed up and demanded they all did what he wanted because he was better than them, Louis vowed to step on his foot “by mistake” every chance he got when practising their blocking. He’s a mature person.

“Fine, it’s just this guy… It’s nothing. Forget about it.”

Liam pouts and crosses his arms. “Come on, tell me. The sooner I’m done being nice and empathic, the sooner we can go back to reading lines.”

Smiling, Louis sits down on the edge of the stage. He doesn’t have much to say about this, really, but he enjoys talking to Liam because he’s very different from Stan and Zayn.

Stan is like a brother to him. While they didn’t technically grow up together, it feels like they did. They know each other better than anyone, but they don’t get each other completely. There’s a certain comfort about being around Stan that he can’t quite explain. Sometimes when he’s feeling down and Stan’s there, he knows the other boy probably has no idea what’s going on in his mind, but he knows what to do: bring him a tea and his Grease DVD. When they have a fight, they never apologise afterwards, they just forget to be mad at each other. There are times they can’t bare to share the same air and many more times they feel like they’re lost together in this ridiculous city and they’d like to go back home, where everything was easier, where Stan would talk about his plans to become a writer and Louis would think out loud about his love for music. Stan has been there from the very beginning and he’ll be there till the end.

Zayn, on the other hand, doesn’t know him as well but he does get him better. He doesn’t know what to do, how to handle him most of the time, but Louis appreciates the fact that someone out there understands him. When his grandma died and Louis refused to talk to anyone for days, Stan knew exactly what to do to ease his pain, but it was Zayn who truly empathised with him. He had lost his own grandmother not long before and he didn’t bother to try to make him feel better, he just felt bad with him. Zayn’s his mate. Very few things bring him as much joy as staying up all night singing with him, the two of them too drunk or too high to hit the right notes and not giving a damn. They sing until they pass out and they wake up with terrible headaches but oh, so happy. If there are such things as non-romantic soulmates, Louis knows Zayn’s his.

And then there’s Liam, who doesn’t get him and doesn’t really know him, but they have a blast together. Liam went from being an annoying fuck to an unkerd puppy he actually enjoys spending time with. They’re absolute idiots when they’re together. Louis doesn’t think he fixed him, not at all, but he does take credit for being the one who introduced Liam to his true self. That seems so deep, but was he actually did was give Liam a water pistol and from that day on, things were never the same. Liam lost the stick up his arse and he allowed himself to have fun; and if there’s fun, there’s Louis. While rehearsals stopped being these stressful things he had come to dread, Liam still gets shit done. This time he’s playing Elder Price, a character that fits him only too well, and when he’s in “serious mode”, everybody knows better than to mess with him. Even Louis manages to behave during crucial rehearsals, especially the ones that involve heavy choreographing. If someone had told him a couple of years ago that he’d ever be able to learn to tap dance, he would have drown in his own tears from laughing so hard. Yet, here he is, tap dancing through life.

The show is going to be brilliant, he knows that, he’s not even nervous. He should be having the time of his life right now. He’s living in London, he sees his three best friends on a regular basis, he gets to play Elder McKinley in the funniest musical he’s ever seen, he’s drop dead gorgeous and why hasn’t Harry talked to him yet?

Fuck.

During these two weeks, he only saw him once. It was last Saturday. They all left rehearsals early because of the Doctor Who premiere and when he got home he saw Harry opening his door and gesturing a blond young man to get in quickly. “It’s about to start” he said.

And that was it. It’d be easy to assume the blond boy is one of Harry’s friends but he can’t be 100% sure. For all he knows, that could have been another one night stand. Yeah, that sounds about right. They probably watched Doctor Who, goofed around for a bit, played games, shagged and then Harry lied to him about seeing each other again.

This is insane. He can’t be this worked up over nothing. He fucked his hot neighbour thoroughly and he shouldn’t ask for more than that. It was just a fuck. Period. He’s not going to think about Harry ever again.

*****

“What are you doing here, Louis?”

Harry’s hair is a mess, he yawned twice since opening his door, he’s wearing a black pair of boxers shorts and no shirt, and Louis just wants to jump him right here, right now.

Instead, he clenches his fists and spills out a dry “fuck you.”

The way Harry opens his mouth and eyes comically almost makes Louis laugh, but he contains himself.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Fuck… you. You’re a shit human being and I wanted to tell you in person, so there it is.”

He turns to leave but stops reluctantly when Harry asks him to stay.

“Why are you so mad at me?”

Louis snorts and twists his mouth.

“Are you kidding me? We spent the night together and you said that we’d see each other but we haven’t and I’m… a character from a teen show, aren’t I? This is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous. I don’t even like you, you know? I’m just offended because how fucking dare you lie to my face? If you didn’t want to see me again, you should have said so. But I don’t actually care that you didn’t, I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I have no strong feelings about any of this. Goodbye.”

And then he hears the most beautiful sound in the whole world. The way Harry laughs gives him shivers. It’s so lighthearted and childlike. It makes him look younger than he is and Louis swears his eyes sparkle when he laughs. They fucking sparkle. This isn’t a fair fight.

“But you said that you’d call me and you didn’t. I thought you didn’t want to see me.”

The whole scene comes flooding back to him: Harry saying “I’ll see you around?” and him replying “Yeah, I’ll call you.”

He hates it when his own life plot-twists against him. His brain is so stupid when he’s still sleepy.

“Fuck, you’re right, I’m sorry.”

Harry smiles.

“It’s ok. And come in, it’s cold out here.”

It’s like 2 a.m. on a Friday, well, Saturday, and Louis has never felt more stupid.

Harry closes the door behind them and tells him they have to whisper because Fay is sleeping, which prompts Louis to say:

“You spend a lot of time with her, huh? That’s sweet.”

Stiffening a bit around the shoulders, Harry shakes his head and a soft smile caresses his features.

“She lives with me. My sister is… hmm… gone. I’m Fay’s legal guardian.”

Oh.

“So sorry to hear that.”

“No, it’s ok. It’s been over a year and a half, I’m used to her not being around anymore. And Fay is so amazing. She reminds me a lot of Gemma and I like that.” He doesn’t expand on it and Louis doesn’t ask him to.

They go to his room and Louis takes a good look around because the last time he had been too exhausted to pay attention to it. Unlike his own bedroom, which is as loppy as a place can get, Harry’s is tidy and quirky. He has nautical paintings on his walls, pillows with floral designs, a multicoloured teddy bear with a headscarf and... a bondage leather outfit? How did he miss that? Why does he have it?

It’s all around a beautiful room. It smells like apples and bananas and it’s full of candles. Louis wouldn’t mind spending more time here. However, he’s starting to feeling self-conscious. He wasn’t planning on having sex with Harry. He last took a shower like six hours ago, what if he doesn’t smell like a goddamn meadow anymore? Did he brush his teeth after supper?

He realises his mental process is pathetic because it’s not like last time he was minty fresh when they fucked, considering it had taken them about three hours to get to that point, but he can’t help being nervous. His hands are sweaty and he’s breathing loudly. When they sit down on the bed, he grips the bed cover so tight his knuckles go white.

“Is it okay if we don’t do anything tonight?” Harry asks him. Thank God. “I had a long day and you interrupted my Disney dream. I had a castle.”

Fuck Colgate and its brainwashing, Louis kisses Harry anyway. As a response, Harry grabs him by the shirt and brings him closer to him. He feels elated. It’s like minute 83:45 of Beauty and The Beast, when the Prince goes back to being human and they finally kiss. There are fireworks and uplifting background music. Yes. It’s just like that, minus the literal fireworks, the background music and, please, Louis is way hotter than Adam, who should have stayed cursed because… What was the universe thinking by making him grow up surrounded by so many girls? He knows more about Disney movies than any respectable twenty-three year old guy should. Well, fuck being a respectable guy if that means not liking fairytales. The world doesn’t need those dull jerks. (And who is he trying to fool anyway? Lottie and Fizzy always wanted to watch action movies when they were little and he was the one convincing them to go to the cinema with him to watch cartoons.)

“I mean it, Lou. I’m tired,” Harry says between kisses and curse him now and turn him into a fucking frog if you want, Louis doesn’t care because Harry’s lips are soft and warm and he smells like a summer picnic and fuck, fuck, fuck, they don’t really know each other, this shouldn’t feel so natural, he shouldn’t be ok with being called ‘Lou’ and fuck, he’s zonked too. Yeah, he’d like to go to sleep in this perfect stranger’s arms. He’s not entirely convinced there isn’t magic at work here.

“Can I stay?”

“For as long as you want.”

******

He’s basically married and has a five-year old kid. How did this happen to him? He was very much single less than three months ago and now he’s colouring shonky dragons with Faylinn. What?

“I have to run back to the library. I’ll be back in a minute.” Harry’s been insanely busy lately. Louis himself has to deal with exams and studying but Drama and Law are completely different creatures. He can’t begin to fathom how Harry manages to remember all the shit he reads. “Will the two of you be okay?”

“Don’t worry, uncle, I’ll take care of him.”

He has gotten ridiculously attached to Fay. He takes care of her when Harry has study sessions and they always end up making a mess in the kitchen (“Fay, I told you not to let Louis try to cook.”) and singing punk rock songs. He’s such a great influence on her.

And it’s not just that he likes her and thinks she’s adorable, it’s that his heart kind of breaks for her because he can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up without a mum. Harry is beyond fantastic, he’s doing a great job with her, but it’s not the same. It can’t be the same. “Harry, when is mum going to stop being dead? She can’t be dead forever, right? That’s too long. She’ll stop being dead soon, right? Right? Harry?” He wishes he could do something other than hug her when she starts weeping because Gemma ”hasn’t come home yet. What’s taking her so long, uncle Louis?”; he wishes he could stop feeling so useless.

When Harry returns from the library with three gigantic books in his hands, Louis smiles fondly at him. Student Harry is hot. Well, all versions of Harry are hot, but seeing him study is particularly enticing. He gets this serious look on his face and when he reaches a difficult paragraph, he frowns in deep concentration and Jesus Christ, he’s beautiful. Louis could make a living out of watching him reading on the kitchen floor, with his cat on his lap and books everywhere. He wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life seeing that very picture every day.

“The evil sprog fell asleep,” he announces softly, pointing to a now snoring Fay, “which means you got all my attention now, darling.”

“Unfortunately for both us, Roxin and Jakobs need my attention right now. I’m sorry, Lou. I really need to study.”

“I know, I know, it’s fine. Besides I should probably get back home. Fucking homework. But I just want to talk to you for a sec, okay?”

“Okay.” Harry sets down the books on the sofa, next to Fay’s feet, and then turns to look at him. “Is something wrong?”

“No… Yes? I don’t know. It’s just this thing that’s been mitherin’ me. She keeps beefing about Gemma and I never know what to tell her.”

As usual, Harry’s entire demeanor becomes more guarded. There’s something wonky about this whole affair and it’s driving Louis mental.

“So I was thinking that maybe we could take her to the cemetery. You know, buy flowers and do the whole… cemetery thing? What you think?”

Harry bites his lip and looks down. “She’s… hmm. She’s not buried.”

“Oh, alright. Well, she could visit her ashes, then.”

“No. Look, I appreciate you trying to help but I’d rather you stopped.”

“But Harry-”

“No, just pack it in already, I don’t want to talk about this. Fucking drop it, Louis.”

And that’s the end of it, which is totally unlike them, unlike Harry. He never behaves like this. Yes, he’s sketchy when it comes to Gemma (he still hasn’t even told him how she died), but ending a conversation this way? This is a first, for sure. Louis knows it’s his fault for melling on the issue, but he’s still miffed. He doesn’t precisely enjoy being treated like rubbish, especially when he’s trying to do something nice.

“Fine, I'm going home. Come find me when you get your bonce out of yer arse.”

“Wait, Lou, don’t go.” Harry’s by his side in the blink of an eye.

“I don’t have time for you acting like a total git.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” He gives him a soft peck on the lips and hugs him. He feels the weight and warmth of Harry’s head resting on the crook of his neck and he forgets how to continue being mad at him. He tries not to think about it much, but part of him can’t help reflecting on the fact that this is something he doesn’t know how he managed to survive without for so long. He wants Harry to envelop him in his arms forever and never let him go and it’s such a scary thought he’s bricking it. He can’t exactly pinpoint the second it started, he can’t even discern what this feeling is, but he knows he feels it whenever he’s with Harry. It’s like flying. It’s relaxing and exhilarating at the same time, the view is champ but the prospect of falling is terrifying, and yet he doesn’t want to land just yet because he feels safe, even if there’s lingering danger. Isn’t there always? Who could he possibly be with without there being a slight chance of something going wrong? What could he possibly do with a guarantee that it’ll work out just fine? Life itself is a huge russian roulette. He didn’t choose to play, he didn’t make the rules. Everything might turn out great or his world might crumble to pieces; either way, he wants to go down a storm and he wants to do that, he wants to do everything with Harry. Always.

Is this what Nicholas Sparks has been talking about all along? He’s too far gone for Harry to even care.

“I just wanted to help.”

“I know, love, but you can’t, not this time, not with this.”

“What happened to her?” Harry’s hold of him tightens and he hates being the reason the other boy’s stressed. He should let this go. He won’t. “How did she die?”

Harry releases him and exhales audibly. He throws his head back and closes his eyes for a brief moment.

“It was my fault,” he says, finally. He opens his eyes and they’re slightly wet. His long curly hair frames his face perfectly and he looks so young, so vulnerable. “It was almost two years ago. I got a motorbike and we took it for a first spin. We weren’t wearing helmets.” He pauses and clears his throat. His expression hardens and his eyes become impavid. “And... There was a car. It just came out of nowhere. Hmm, she hit her head pretty bad and then she was gone.”

It would almost be better if Harry were actually crying. Louis could handle that because that’d be normal. He doesn’t know how to react to this, to Harry’s monotone voice talking about his sister’s death as if he were talking about next week’s exams. It’s so impersonal. Even the way he expressed himself. No. This isn’t right.

“It wasn’t your fault, these things happen.”

Harry lets out a laugh and it’s like cutting glass, chilling and achromatic.

“It was my bike!” He lifts his arms in the air momentarily and then crosses them so that his hands will stop shaking.

Louis reaches out to him and strokes his cheek.“Yes but… I get it, okay? You feel guilty because she died but-”

“She didn’t die. She’s dead, but she didn’t die.”

Come again?

“What do you mean?” He takes both Harry’s hands in his and looks at him in the eye. “Harry?”

“We all moved to London to be closer to her but I haven’t visited her yet. I can’t. And Fay’s still too young. I just can’t face her, Lou. She knows she’s dead because of me. What if she doesn’t want to talk to me or worse, what if she tells me that it’s my fault she’s dead? I can’t deal with that. I just can’t.”

Alright.

This morning when he woke up he had great plans for the rest of the day and they involved an erection. Instead of that, he’s having an epiphany. It’s just as intense and certainly not as sexy.

He finally gets it now. This is the moment everything clicks. This is why Zayn laughs to his face whenever he tells him Harry and him are “not that serious, really”. This is why Liam doesn’t reprimand him when he’s late and justifies himself saying Harry kept him up all night. This is why Stan acts shocked and scared around Harry (“He’s a wizard, isn’t he? It’s the only explanation. I don’t recognise you anymore, Tommo.”) This is why his heart practically jumps out of his chest whenever Harry smiles and winks at him. This is why he can’t think of a time he was happier than he is now that Harry is a part of his life. And Harry’s not just a part of his life, he’s the most important part of it. He’s the thread that keeps his universe together. He’s the Snitch to his Firebolt. He’s the reason why he’s turned into a sap who believes in true love and all this shite he never thought possible.

Harry Styles means everything to him and he’s a blinking nutter. What the fuck is he talking about?

“Hmm, Harry? Unless we’re talking about horcruxes here, you’re gunna have to explain yourself a bit better, yeah?” He tries to keep his voice steady, to withhold the urge to tell him how he feels about him. This is not the time.

“Oh, right, I reckon you think I’ve lost it.” Harry’s little smile is shy, almost apologetic.

“You haven’t?”

“Nah, it’s right here. Don’t worry about me. I promise you I’m not… mental.”

“Good.” Not that it’d change much, really. Louis wouldn’t walk away even if Harry weren’t alright. He couldn’t, not now that he knows he truly wants to spend his whole life next to him. Maybe he’s the one who’s mental. He’s known this lad for barely three months and he can’t quite imagine surviving a day without him. Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong?

Yes, it probably is. Co-dependency is fucked up. He’ll work on that.

“She’s at Maudsley Hospital,” Harry mumbles. Although he’s tall and lanky, he’s hunching and he looks smaller than he is. Louis assumes he’s the first person he’s talked to about this. “Mum, dad and Robin visit her all the time. She’s alright but her treatment is really slow and obviously there’s no guarantee it’ll ever work.”

He’s no expert on this but isn’t that a modern day, clean, non-creepy version of the Bethlem?

Ah, he finally gets where this is going. He doesn’t like it.

“What does she have?”

Harry doesn’t answer. Louis tilts his head to the left and offers him a reassuring smile.

“Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll fix us some tea and then we’ll talk this out. I’m here for you, love, and I really believe you need to talk about it. You can’t let this eat you alive, okay?”

Nodding, Harry holds him tight again and he can sense he’s smiling. He can sense Harry’s smiles now. Yes, he’s reached that point.

“Thanks, Lou.”

******

That was a lot of information to absorb in just one night. They should have chaptered-conversations. This can’t happen again. It’s unacceptable.

And insane. Literally.

“Cotard’s Delusion? What the hell is that?”

He specifically asked for Harry’s permission to tell his friends because he had to get this out. Being the sweetheart that he is, Harry said it was alright, as long as they didn’t make fun of Gemma. They wouldn’t. He, Louis himself, is always the most inappropriate person in the room and not even he could laugh about this.

“Basically, she thinks she died from complications during her recovery, that she doesn’t have any organs and she smells like rotting flesh. Lovely.” Stan puts on a disgusted face, meanwhile Zayn looks deeply absorbed in thought. “She was worried no one had buried her yet. It’s fucked up. She’s convinced her heart isn’t beating anymore.”

“But didn’t you say she thought she didn’t have any organs?” Zayn asks.

“I’m sorry, Zayn, but at which point exactly did you think this could be argued through logic? She said she didn’t have organs, then she said they had melted, then that she didn’t need them anymore. I don’t know, mate. It is what it is. Don’t try to make sense out of it. The point is that her nob is on the blink.”

“Harry must feel terrible.”

“Yes, poor lad.”

“Horrible, just horrible.”

Zayn and Stan go on and on about Harry, Fay and Gemma, while Liam remains silent. That isn’t like him.

“What do you think?” Louis inquires.

“I think your flat is a complete tip. Don’t ever invite me over again, please.”

“Fuck you, Payne, I like my mess. And other than that?”

“I don’t like your noddy chairs.”

“Does it matter what my chairs look like? I’m talking about Harry and Gemma!” Fucking posh thespians. More brass na brains the whole lot of them. But Liam’s fine, when he’s not being a complete wanker.

“Oh, I think he should go see her, definitely.”

“I know, but he doesn’t want to.”

“Well, I didn’t want to do many things and you always managed to convince me” Stan reminds him. “That’s your superpower. You’re a puppeteer.”

He smiles because it’s true and also because it’s not going to happen, not in a million years. He could never force Harry to do something like this. This is different from talking him into going to class wearing a buttplug or daring him to eat deep fried grasshoppers.

He’s so confused. He doesn’t want to be pushy but he also doesn’t want to let Harry ignore this and hope that it will make the problem disappear.

“What do I do? What would Peter Parker do?”

“You wearing tights would hardly help Harry, Tommo.”

He disagrees.

“Just let him know that whenever he’s ready to see her, you’ll be there for him.”

Zayn. Beautiful, smart, sensible Zayn. He must be an alien and this is his race’s First Contact. No way a human being can be this perfect. Ugh, Zayn.

“I hate you” he tells him and Zayn simply smiles because he knows that means he loves him.

And he does, he really does and it’s so different from what he feels for Harry. He feels like he has known him his whole life, Harry always knows what to do, what to say, they have so much fun together, sex is fucking fantastic, they get each other completely and it isn’t in any way perfect. It’s rushed and ridiculous and now there’s a zombie sister involved, what the fuck? This is so far from perfect it’s not even funny.

He wouldn’t have it any other way, though. He wants his life to be a lot more complicated than it was three months ago, as long as it’s complicated with him.

******

Auntie Beeb is on mute and Fay and him are plaiting Harry’s hair while he’s lying on his stomach, reading about the Nuremberg Trials. Even though he’s quite certain he’s going specialise in either Consumer or Environmental Law, Harry gives his all in every class. He wants to learn as much as he can and that is really hot to Louis. He loves his nerd boyfriend so much. Nonetheless, there’s something missing. Harry’s pushing himself too hard and Louis’ not entirely convinced this is what he truly wants to do with his life. He has the feeling this has something to do with his sister.

It’s been two weeks since they had their conversation about Gemma and aside from telling him he could count on him, Louis hasn’t uttered a word about it. He doesn’t want to be brash with him.

“Do you live with us now, uncle Louis?”

Harry’s eyes shoot up from his book and search for his. Louis thinks he has stopped breathing.

They haven’t discussed this and he was hoping they’d avoid it altogether, that one day they’d find themselves married and with a hundred kids without ever having to have this conversation. Oh, no, this is going to be so awkward, no, God, help him, he’s dying here.

“Well, do you?” Harry says. He’s trying not to smile and he’s not doing a very good job at it.

“Do you want me to?” Send help.

“Yes!” both Harry and Fay say at the same time.

Although he’s unofficially lived with them for a while now, he’s chuffed to hear them say that. He tickles Fay and then he hops on top of Harry’s back, attacking his neck with soft kisses until the other boy starts giggling.

“No, Lou, stop it, I have to study.”

“And I have to pack!”

But he hates packing and since he doesn’t want to disturb Harry, he settles for his Plan B. It’s a cheap shot, he has no shame. He calls Harry’s friend, Niall, a lad who basically worships him. He could tell him to jump off a train and Niall would do it. Seriously. Louis likes him a lot because he’s like an excitable puppy. Niall loves him, himself, life, everything. It must be good to be Niall Horan.

Louis’ not even a bit surprised when he receives this reply to his text: ’yesssss ! im deffinately gona help u!! i love packing haha’

He’s even less surprised a couple of hours later, when Niall strips down to his black pants and starts singing ―shouting― Katy Perry songs while putting Louis’ clothes in duffel bags (they realised that actually packing things into boxes was a waste of time and energy because he’s moving just across the street).

“Why do you own so many braces? I’ve never seen you wearing these things.”

“I don’t wear them anymore, but I just like to know they’re still there.” Does this mean he’s taking his braces for granted? “So…” Under normal circumstances, he only mumbles when he’s so turned on he can’t think clearly, which is not the case right now. Still, it’s awkward to be asking this kind of questions, he doesn’t know Niall that well yet. Fuck it. It’s not like him not to speak his mind, even if he ends up sounding like a bumbling idiot. “Eeh, didss you and Gemma get along?”

Niall stops singing mid-verse and ungraceful drops Louis’ favourite pair of Vans to the floor.

“Yeah, she was great. I didn’t know you knew.”

“Well, I do know, you know? Do Harry’s parents blame him?”

The expression on Niall’s face is probably the funniest thing Louis’s seen in his entire life. The boy’s nose is all scrunched up, his lips are twisted into an asymmetric shape and his eyes are squinted. He looks so absurd.

“No! Of course not! They adore Harry, they know it was an accident.”

“Oh, well, good.”

To be honest, he was sort of hoping for the opposite, not that he was entertained by the idea of Harry having terrible parents, but their lack of support could have justified his attitude towards the problem. Yet, he doesn’t fail to understand why Harry feels responsible for what happened. It’s a fucked up situation, any way you see it.

Later that day, when it’s time for dinner and he goes back to Harry’s place… their place… Fuck, they are so serious. When did this happen? Why didn’t anyone tell him this was happening? He can’t breathe. He needs to borrow Harry’s inhaler.

“Are you alright?”

“No, I’m not alright, Harold. We live together. Together. Good neighbours don’t do this to each other!”

Harry takes no offence. He simply puts down his mobile and curls up closer to him on the sofa. Snuggling is not going to calm his anxiety. He’s in a committed relationship with a man who he met barely four months ago and who collects sparkly dildos. He’s not ready for this.

“It’s ok if you changed your mind about this” Harry whispers to his ear. He’s playing with his hair and planting soft kisses all along his neck, and Louis can’t do anything but close his eyes and enjoy the attention. He hasn’t changed his mind, not really. He does want this, he wants this so much and that’s what’s freaking him out: the idea of needing Harry as much as he does, not the reality of loving him. “Just tell me what you want and we’ll work it out, Lou.”

“I want you.” He doesn’t even hesitate. It’s nothing but the pure truth. He wants Harry. He wants his outrageous dildos (yes, even the SpongeBob Squarepants one), his fajitas, his neat drawers, his Disney movies collection, his bizarre fashion sense, all the stupid jokes he says and that no one ever asks for, the way his eyes light up when he looks at him, his laughter, the warmth of his embrace, everything, he wants everything. Being with Harry is like staring at a quasar. Yeah, that’s right, he did pay attention to class sometimes. Alright, fine, he learned about quasars in Star Trek but that doesn’t matter. The thing is that Harry is greater than life, he’s the most fantastic creation in the entire goddamn universe and Harry wants him back. That is so insane! There are billions of people out there and they want each other just as much… And they found each other. It’s overwhelming. This is not how it usually works, is it? Does everybody feel like this when they fall in love? Louis had always assumed most people settled for whoever they connected with, even if they weren’t perfect for each other. That makes sense, how can two people be perfect for each other? How does one even begin to determine what’s perfect and what’s not? He does think Harry’s perfect for him, though. “There’s no one I’d rather be with.”

“Not even Chad Michael Murray?”

He giggles because how does Harry know him so well already? It all happened so fast.

“Not even Chad Michael Murray, I promise.”

******

Studying has never been never his fort. He gets distracted easily, he thinks that long paragraphs should be proscribed and sitting down during long hours to read gradually sucks his soul away. Somehow, it’s completely manageable when Harry’s helping him. Those endless passages seem entertaining, he actively wants to know more about the subject at hand and cuddling on the sofa doesn’t bother him one bit. He feels sorry for all the folks out there that are condemned to study without Harry Styles’ assistance. Poor sods.

He still can’t quite believe they’ve already been together for six months. He feels so proud of himself. This is his first proper relationship and now look at him, he’s nailing it. Who would have thought this little Tyke had it in him? A few years ago he would have chucked his guts up at the mere notion of falling so hard for somebody and now he can’t imagine life without his favourite idiot. Life has surprised him by being a lot better than he had expected it to be. Nice going, life.

“Come here, let’s perform this part.”

“No, Harold. You’re the worst actor in the entire continent.”

“You’re too gentle. I think I’m the worst actor in the entire planet, but I don’t care. Come on! I’ll play the lawyer. It’ll be fun.”

Louis knows it’s a moot point and besides he secretly likes to see Harry unleash his acting skills, or the complete lack thereof.

They hop off the sofa and Harry takes a deep breath but he doesn’t say anything. He hadn’t read his lines yet, he was just happy there was an attorney involved in the play.

What are you in by the week?
So I will try now whether they
Wit be close prisoner
Methinks none should sit upon thy sister,
But old whore-masters.

Right. Webster was a bad idea. Why not try Hamlet next and make him read Ophelia’s part? Fuck.

“Hey, forget about this. I don’t give a shit about this class. Let’s watch Homeland.”

Harry smiles and then rubs his eyes.

“No” he tells him. “Let’s go see her. Let’s go see her now, please.”

Louis stares at him for a couple of seconds before fully reacting to what he said.

“Are you sure you want me to go with you?”

“I can’t do it if you’re not with me.”

******

He’s not sure what he had expected, but he’s certain it hadn’t been this.

Gemma yelling at Harry because it’s his fault she’s dead? Yes, that was a possibility. Gemma assuring him he’s not to blame? Even a bigger possibility.

Gemma thinking Harry is an impostor who looks exactly like her real brother is something that never crossed Louis’ mind. He is beginning to wish real life had a Ctrl+Z option to avoid things like this. Does that make him selfish?

They are in the corridor, outside of Gemma’s bedroom. Anne is with Harry right now and he can’t hear what she’s telling him, but the boy’s still crying. It’s understandable. He can still hear Gemma’s screams in his mind and they give him shivers. She said the most awful things and he knows just how sensitive Harry is. This must be killing him.

Dr. Landou was just as confused as they were. She said this had never happened before with Gemma and that she had been making a lot of progress lately.

Anne went into her room a few minutes ago and Gemma recognised her just fine, so the problem seems to be just Harry.

This is all well beyond his abilities. He has no tact, no idea what he’s truly dealing with and he feels so inadequate and fucking out of place. Mental illnesses are no joke, he knows that, and Gemma means so much to Harry and Fay. He doesn’t really know Gemma but Fay and Niall have told him a bit about her, enough for him to believe she was a total badass back in the day. He’s sure they would have gotten along fantastically. They would have teamed up against Harry, they would have played pranks on Fay, they would have taken the piss out of Liam and laughed for hours. He hopes one day they’ll be able to do all of that.

He approaches Harry and Anne. Harry’s eyes are bloodshot but at least he’s stopped crying now. Anne is still rubbing his back and he admires her so fucking much right now. She knows how Gemma injured herself and she’s still here for Harry, she still loves him unconditionally. Everyone should strive to be like Anne.

“Can I talk to her?” he asks simply, no prologues. He’s either going to hear a “yes” or a “no”. No need delaying the outcome.

Anne frowns and looks at Harry in search for an answer.

“I trust him completely, mum.”

******

He sees Gemma a least once a week and keeps her updated. She appreciates his visits because she feels less out of the loop and more involved in Fay’s life. The doctors have yet to give her permission to see her daughter and Louis agrees it’s probably for the best. If the same thing that happened with Harry were to happen with Fay, it would destroy her. It’s in everybody’s best interests to keep her and Harry away from the hospital.

Gemma is always very quiet when he goes to see her, which he now knows is nothing like she used to be. She usually lets him talk about Harry, his classes and their relationship without interruptions. When he’s about to leave, she never fails to ask him to remind Harry that she loves him and that this isn’t his fault.

He also tells her all about Fay’s weekly activities and how much she’s growing up. In return, Gemma tells him stories about what she was like when she was a baby. He specially likes to hear her talk about all the bedtime stories she used to tell Fay and he feels like he could easily fall asleep to the sound of Gemma’s voice. At times like those he forgets where he is and why and when he remembers, it’s like facing cold and deadly wind. This doesn’t happen to everybody, but it could happen to anybody and that’s horrifying in every single way.

He’d never appreciated his luck as much as he does now. When growing up, money was really short and he felt like the world hated him, like he could never get what he wanted. Kids made fun of him at school because he was too camp and he got back at them playing pranks and earning other people’s affection through jokes and wit. Yet, he always wanted more out of life. He wanted expensive clothes, to be taller, to be successful, to have a lower voice. What he had was never enough, he was never satisfied. As a grown-up that didn’t change much, if anything, it got worse because he couldn’t blame anyone but him for not having the things he yearned for.

That’s all so foreign to him now.

No, he didn’t suddenly become Yoda or something like that. He still wants his castle, but it’s different now. He doesn’t want it to run away and hide from the world. No Let It Go from him, nah.

He still wants things out of life, but he’s learnt to appreciate the ones he already has and that’s all thanks to the Styles, that bunch of weirdos have made a decent man out of him, after all.

Seeing Gemma so often is like a constant reminder of the fact that all it takes is one bad turn for your life to go to shit, that you should never put your dreams on hold because you never know what might happen to you. It’s so much harder to deal with her than with an actual corpse. Death might be sadder but it’s simple, really. The person is gone, you miss them, you cry, you move on. Rinse and repeat. Painful but easy. Gemma still being around is so confusing and at the same time, enlightening. They never talk for extended periods of time because she’s still unstable, but when they manage to have a somewhat ordinary conversation, she tells him things that keep Harry and him awake for hours at night. Gemma is not afraid of anything, she feels no sorrow, no shame, no need to satisfy anyone’s expectations. She tells him that being dead is liberating. She was scared at first but then she realised that since she is already dead, then she can't die again. She’s already been through the worst, so what else could happen to her? If she could walk out of the hospital, she’d do all the things she had put on hold her entire life. She faced Death and defeated her. Gemma is invincible.

Louis only feels invincible after he cooks a pancake and doesn’t burn the house down in the process. That’s how unextraordinary his life is. Don’t get him wrong, he loves his routine, his house, his boyfriend, their cat, their Fay. He understands just how lucky he is to have those things. There are so many people out there who have no idea what it’s like to feel so loved and he genuinely feels sorry for them. He wishes everybody could be as happy as he is.

But he wants to feel invincible.

As much as he loves the theatre, he doesn’t feel invincible when he is acting. All those wonderful or horrible things that his characters experience aren’t really happening to him, he’s just the catalyst. He’s like somebody’s magic wand. He doesn’t want to be a wand, he wants to be magic itself.

The only times he feels unstoppable are the ones he shares with Harry and the ones he spends singing. He’s long past the point of feeling uncomfortable in his own vocal chords. Yes, his voice is weird. He likes weird. Crying critics can suck it, he doesn’t give even a quarter of a fuck.

“I’m quitting the show.”

Everybody in the room goes quiet.

“I don’t wanna be other people anymore” he explains before they have the chance to ask. “I’m ready to be meself now.”

“Why are you having a midlife crisis at twenty-four? I don’t have time for this.”

He points a finger at Liam’s face and says:

“And why are you wasting your time with a company that we both know is well beneath you? What happened to the great Liam Payne, who played the annoying little prat in the West End, eh? A producer rejected you once and that was it? You just gave up? You’re disgusting.”

“You weren’t there!” He loves it when Liam’s pissed off. He looks so wick, so alive, almost the way he looks when he has his solos. “He told me that I wasn’t good enough, that I’d never make it on the West End, let alone Broadway. It was the most humiliating thing that ever happened to me. Don’t you dare judge me. And what about you? You’re a brilliant songwriter and you don’t do a damn thing about it because you’re too afraid people won’t like your songs. You’re a coward!”

“I suddenly feel so sorry for the people that work with you everyday.” Zayn’s completely unfazed by the entire affair.

“Well, I feel sorry for you, mate. You and your stupid job.” This is so not the way he envisioned this conversation. He wanted to tell his friends all about his life-changing decision, not attack their own life choices. Oh, well, shit happens. “You hate being a model.” He notices Zayn’s opening his mouth to correct him and he continues talking, louder this time. “You hate feeling like you’re nothing but a pretty face. You’re not. You’re a real artist and you’ve got the most beautiful fucking voice in the planet. I fucking hate you, Zayn. You’re perfect. I hate your bloody perfection. I hate that you’re wasting your life posing for pictures you don’t give a damn about, instead of doing what you truly want.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

Who does?!

School, television, the fucking Pope, everything and everyone are always telling you that by the time you’re eighteen you should have everything figured out, you should be independent, you should be able to support yourself, you should know what you truly want to do for the rest of your life. He spent his afternoon talking to a dead woman and still this sounds like the craziest thing in the world to him. What eighteen year old could possibly have everything figured out? Not everybody is fucking Hermione Granger, you know?

Zayn doesn’t know what to do with his life. Zayn! What hope is there for everybody else, then?

“Well, I know what I want.” It may have taken him twenty-four years to reach this point, but he’s here now, he’s not backing down. “I want to sing.”

The chilly air in the room is abruptly interrupted by a chuckle. Harry and Niall remained quiet during the entire exchange and now Harry’s just laughing to their faces, apparently.

“I… when I was sixteen I went to an audition. Hmm, The X Factor. I was so nervous. I remember like shaking and everything. I had like four inhalers with me at all times. It was so ridiculous.”

Louis had no idea Harry had tried out for that show. He knew that Harry loved music and composing, of course, but he never thought that at some point he had wanted to do that for a living.

“When they announced it was almost my turn to sing, I rushed to bathroom to splash water on my face and I was, I don’t know, just like fixing my hair and I wasn’t paying attention and I kind of… peed on some guy. He didn’t appreciate it. He told me something about my curls and that a little fag like me would never go anywhere, that I shouldn’t even bother. It wasn’t nice. And when I finally made it to the stage, I kept thinking about his words and I freaked out. Really. It was like there was no air in my lungs, I totally choked. One of the judges, Nicole, she told me to relax, to try to sing something else, but I was too nervous, so I didn’t. And that was it. It was a step back in my plans, I guess. How could I ever be a singer if I can’t sing under stress? I never tried it again.”

This is a whole different side of Harry he never knew, one he wants to hear more of.

“Gemma used to say I’d make a good lawyer, that the world needed more decent lawyers” he laughs. “I started studying Law after the accident. It felt like the right thing to do, but...”

“It’s not what you really want.”

Harry bites his bottom lip, a soft smile adorning his features. Finally, he shakes his head slowly.

“Wait, are you quitting the show because you want to audition for The X Factor? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You can keep your job and still audition.” Liam’s no longer livid, now he’s just calmly judging him.

“Yeah, Tommo. Quitting your job is a bit drastic, don’t you think? You’ll still need dosh to support yourself, eh?”

“And I’m dropping out of school, too. That’s not debatable, boys. I wasn’t planning on going to TXF but I guess it’s as a good place as any to start. If it doesn’t work, I’ll open a YouTube channel and hope for the best, while working part-time… somewhere. I’ll use all my spare time to compose. I don’t care I might fail epically. Whatever. I still want to try.”

“This is worse than that one time we set your mum’s carpet on fire. You’re fucking mental.”

“No. I’m fucking alive and I feel fucking invincible. And I’m gunna go there and smash it. Join me?”

Stan snorts and laughs at the time, which makes him look just like his nine-year old self, just like all those times he got talked into doing something insane. He’s not nine anymore, he can’t follow him this time.

“I’ll go with you.” Niall stands a up and does a karate kick. The fuck? “I like Starbucks. I like messing up people’s names on purpose. It’s fun. Being a famous singer sounds fun too. We should do it. Can we eat first?”

Louis walks up to him and hugs him. Ah, he loves Niall, always game for anything. Niall’s the best.

Nobody else says a word for a couple of seconds and Niall starts laughing.

“You’re not fooling anyone, ya cunts. We know you’re coming with us.”

“I’m most certainly not.” Liam stands up and crosses his arms. “I was in the West End. I’m not going to go to The X Factor… I’m better than that.”

“Liam, you’re a horrible actor” Louis expresses what everybody in the room is thinking. “They always give you the parts that you relate the most to because you can’t play any other one. The only reason you can still work is that you’re a fucking fantastic singer.”

The lad tries to refute his accusation. He fails. Stan and Niall join in the discussion, while Zayn watches them in silence.

He’d love it if Liam and Zayn were to audition with him and Niall, but that’s the least of his concerns right now.

He walks towards to Harry, who’s staring at the pile of books he set on the floor right before the guys arrived. He sits next to him and puts an arm around his shoulders. Harry leans into his touch and breathes deeply.

“I can’t, Lou. I have to think about Fay.”

“We’ll bring her with us to the audition. You know she’ll love it. And if we make it, your mum will take care of her until we win or we lose. We’ll see her all the time, I promise.”

“It won’t be the same. I can’t leave her, I’m sorry.”

And just like that, Louis feels like he’s waking up from a lucid dream. He wanted to quit his job and leave his destiny in Simon Cowell’s hands. Has he been drinking in his sleep?

Of course this isn’t sensible. Of course he shouldn’t do it. But why? Why can’t he be a little bit crazy? Yes, maybe he shouldn’t think of Gemma as a role model because, well, yeah, but she’s got a point. Everybody is so busy not being dead that they forget to be alive. He doesn’t want to be one of those people, the ones that do the same thing everyday, so worried about paying rent and fulfilling society’s expectations. He wants to fly. He wants to take the world by storm and make it better. He wants to make the world sing and laugh with him.

He doesn’t want any of it without Harry, though.

Going to exotic places, seeing wonderful things, finally getting the international stardom that he had always wanted all seem meaningless if he can’t share it with Harry. His non-midlife crisis has made him rethink a lot of things, but it hasn’t changed the way he feels about his boy. He still wants the same things he wanted before: he wants to spend his whole life next to him, he wants to have a family with him, he wants to wake up in his arms every morning. And he also wants music and fans. Is it so much to ask for something that great? Maybe he’s being too ambitious.

“Ok, how about this? We make brilliant music together, yeah? We upload it to YouTube and somehow manage to make every fucking social network aware of us, ok? Lottie and Fizzy can help us with that. If we gather a small following, then maybe a producer out there will eventually discover us. We don’t have to go anywhere to do any of it. We can still be with Fay. What do you say?”

A little (non-misguided) ambition never hurt anybody.

“And if we became rich and famous we could donate a lot of money to medical research facilities. And other causes, like, I don’t know, equality and women’s rights and animals, right?”

Leave it to Harry to think about something like that. Sweetest guy on the planet. Yes. He loves him so much.

“Anything you want, love.”

Harry smiles.

Wow, they’re doing this. They’re really doing this.

A year ago he was complaining about Stan and his boyfriend snogging in the kitchen, while studying shit he didn’t really like and preparing for a show in which he had to dance. Dance. Louis Tomlinson dancing. Tap dancing. What had he been thinking? Why did he hate himself so much?

And now he’s in love with a fantastic guy who loves him in return, they sort of have a kid together?, and they’re going to revolutionise the musical marketing industry with their best friends.

Sometimes great things come out of taking the tube. He could kiss the fucking gap!

(The end)