And now Louis’ got his fucking scarf, and he snapped and went out and bought his cologne to keep it smelling like him. But it’s missing pine trees and apples, it’s missing the smell of his skin, a scent and a taste Louis learned so well. A scarf isn’t a person, no matter how much Louis wills it to be. Niall’s thrown it out three times, and each time Louis has shamelessly retrieved it from the bin and put it through the wash.
Which is what he’s doing now, for the fourth time, throwing the scarf in with the load of colors already spinning in the washer.
“That’s fucking unhealthy, mate,” Niall tells him. Louis snorts, a sound meant to convey no shit.
“Did you come here to fret over my health or did you have an actual reason?” Louis asks, padding into the kitchen where Niall is. He’s leaning against the counter with his hand buried in a bag of chips. Louis sits on a stool at his counter and drops his chin in his hands.
“So you know how this weekend is me and Zayn’s second anniversary?” Niall starts, pulling his eyebrows together.
“Do you still celebrate that? Now that you’ve got Liam too, I mean,” Louis questions.
“That’s the problem. Zayn wants to, and I was all for it too, but Liam’s feeling a little left out, even though he was technically already with us for our one year anniversary, it just became an official, like, thing a month after.”
Louis’ honestly spent a lot of his late nights wondering how they fuck.
“You could just do like a casual celebration, you know? Like maybe don’t go out to dinner just the two of you, but you could all go out, like, clubbing or something.” Louis suggests. Where does he get the right to give relationship advice?
Niall considers it for a moment, nodding slowly. “Okay, yeah, that could work. Invite a few friends, obviously you, Lou, go to a club where they take away your phones,” he muses.
“Do a little dance,” Louis says in the same thoughtful tone as Niall, “make a little love. You know, get down tonight.”
Niall is lost to the world for a minute, doubled over in stitches, holding his sides and cramping up from laughing so hard. Niall is Louis’ second favorite person, he’s decided.
~*~
Harry starts his morning on the wrong side of the bed, but what else is new? It’s not even just figuratively, he always finds himself on his old side, subconsciously searching for him even though it’s been eight months without himthere.
It’s ridiculous that Harry can’t even think his name.
Like, long story short, Harry’s pathetic. He’s told his friends as much on many occasions, usually tearfully whilst one of them was holding his hair back while he puked, and Niall tried to deny it, Liam tried to change the subject, Zayn just shrugged a little, and Nick had said, “Well…” and didn’t continue.
It’s probably gonna happen again tonight, because he’s going out with Niall and Zayn and Liam for Niall and Zayn’s second anniversary.
And he’s gonna be there. There’s no way he won’t be. He’s good friends with Niall and Zayn and Liam just like Harry, so why wouldn’t he go? He’s just gotta figure out how he’s going to deal with it. How they’re going to avoid each other.
He rolls out of bed, feet hitting the cold laminate floor. He shuffles to his kitchen and makes his tea, then makes his way to the couch where he plops down.
And there he’ll remain for probably three, maybe four, five, six hours, binge watching Gilmore Girls and ignoring the heat behind his eyes every time Lorelei kisses her current romantic conquest.
Or, that’s his plan, anyway, but about two and a half episodes in his phone buzzes with a text from Niall.
Haz u gotta promise not ta hate me. Promise ?
Yeah I promise.
Bc of liam’s like security and shit we cant pick u up at ur house , we gotta all meet at one point n then his body guards are gona meet us there ..
okay? I don’t see the problem.
We gotta meet at louis’ house .. u can back out its ok we wont be mad at all I promise
Harry’s heart suddenly starts racing and his fingers tremble. Louis’ house. The last memory he has of that place is it covered in lyrics, in a speech, in a paper trail of the deterioration of Louis’ love. The last time he closed that front door, the words “I’m breaking up with you” were on repeat in his head, drowning out all rational thought. Fuck he hadn’t even made it out of the driveway before he’d lost it- putting his head down on the steering wheel and sobbing into it, fucking weeping. He’d looked up at that damn house and its stupid cheery yellow planking and wanted to fucking burn it to the ground.
No it’s okay, I’ll go. Same time as before?
Yea , if ur sure ?
I am.
An hour later and he’s biting his lip and drawing the coppery taste of blood whilst in the shower to keep from stress crying, but he’s doing this. He can do this. People break up all the time. He’s not the first person to go through this pain and he’s gonna get over it.
But it’s been eight months. Shouldn’t it have happened already?
He can’t help but imagine all the ways tonight is going to go. All of them make him have to fight the tears harder. He could just ignore Louis completely. He could be civil. He could let everything out, he could scream and he could cry and he could punch him in the fucking gut and he could kiss him until they both suffocated. They could talk. Maybe Louis changed. Maybe he’ll wear the scarf.
He doesn’t mean to, but he ends up trying to look nice. He wears his pulling jeans, which have been gathering dust in his dresser for eight months, his favorite headscarf, and then a nice sheer black button up, and he even puts some stuff in his hair to make his curls curlier. He’s got an extra half an hour, so he paints his nails too, a nice goldish color. Regrettably, he damages his left pinky while driving, but at least it gives him something else to think about. Blinker, don’t fuck up your nails, I wonder what he’s done with his hair, no gas going downhill, right on red, don’t fuck up your nails, I wanna see the tattoo, jesus christ this person drives slow, don’t fuck up your nails.
And then he’s there, in that driveway again. That same stupidly cheery yellow house.
His hands shake when he peels them off the steering wheel. He turns the key in the ignition. This is it. Can twenty two year olds go into cardiac arrest? If they can, he is.
When he gets up and out of the car his head spins and his vision darkens for a second. He can’t breathe, jesus christ. Niall’s car is already here, thank god, he can register that much. And he knows his feet are moving, and he still knows to take a larger step on the last stair leading up to the door because it’s weirdly an inch taller than the rest, and he nearly forgets to ring the doorbell, because for like two years this was his second home.
God. Louis was his home.
He squeezes his eyes shut when the door opens, because he has to. Seeing Louis has to be on his own terms. And when he opens them, there’s Zayn, looking at him like he’s a kicked puppy.
“Don’t,” he warns, “please don’t look at me like that.” He hears a whispered oh tits from Niall inside the house and foot steps moving quickly away.
“I can do this,” he tells Zayn, softly. “I swear.”
“Weirdly, it’s not you I’m worried about,” Zayn mutters, then steps aside and waves Harry in.
He can’t do this. Fuck he can’t do this. It’s so fucking familiar and it smells like him. There’s the kitchen, and he swears to god for a second those words are still on the counter, there’s still that cereal bowl, there’s still those balled up papers strewn about. But there isn’t. It’s clean and he’s gotten a new cutting board.
And then he rounds the corner to the living room, where he had his fucking heart splintered. There’s no Louis under the blanket, no notebooks and papers. There’s just Liam, looking tense and concerned.
“Hey Liam,” Harry says. His voice comes out stronger than he feels.
“Hey Hazza.” Liam only calls him Hazza when Harry’s crying or near to it. He resents that Liam assumes he’s near tears right now. He isn’t, oddly enough.
“Where’s Ni and, uh,” he asks.
“I think Ni is trying to-” Liam starts, but then is cut off by a smacking sound and an indignant squawk. Weirdly enough, a loud, bird like squawk is not how Harry imagined he’d be hearing Louis’ voice again after four months.
Harry settles down next to Liam because he knows what’s coming and he needs to be next to the most mentally stable person in the room, maybe he’ll absorb some of his ability. Not that Zayn isn’t mentally stable, but he’s also an artist, singing and drawing. Artists are rarely all there.
And there’s footsteps, and this resolve is just swelling in Harry’s chest. He was going to be civil, or he was going to let it all out, or he was going to ignore him completely, or he was going to talk it out. Never did he think he could pretend he wasn’t hurting, but god, when Louis rounds that corner and Harry can see how much this is paining him, he wants it to hurt more.
Harry’s never claimed to be a good person, never pretended to be something he’s not, and he says, “Hey, Lou!” There’s no hint of his patheticism, no hint of his sadness and how fucking desolate he’s been. Zayn snaps his head to look at him, eyes wide.
“How’ve you been? Long time no see!”
It turns out Harry is inherently passive aggressive.
Niall, who had been behind Louis, lets his jaw drop. Louis takes a step back. God he looks like shit. But like, fucking Adonis on an off day. He’s still golden and blue and bronze. He’s got on his pulling jeans too, apparently, because Harry always used to tell him that they were more like leggings. He’s wearing a Stone Roses t shirt with the sleeves cut off, and Harry wants to lick his biceps. He also wants to chop off his arms and watch him scream, but. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster of an eight months.
But it’s always a little awkward sitting in the living room of a flat that you used to call home. When everything around you is so familiar except the boy who, despite being the same, seems so foreign.
“I’ve, uh, been alright. Yourself?” His voice shakes. Harry tries not to revel in it. Also, tries not to let it feel like he’s being punched in the gut. The last thing Louis said to him was “do you still?”
“Pretty good. The EP is doing well and stuff,” Harry says conversationally. Louis moves and sits down in the chair across the room. The tension emanating off Liam and Zayn and Niall is palpable.
“Yeah, I really like it,” Louis says, then his eyes widen like he wasn’t supposed to say that. He bought Harry’s EP. That stuns Harry into silence, that he listened to the words Harry wrote about- for- him.
“Lou, you got any tea? I could go for a cuppa,” Niall asks, to break the tension.
Louis starts to get up. “Oh yeah, I do, I can-”
“I’ll get it, I’m closer anyway,” Harry offers. Louis looks hesitant but doesn’t argue, and he settles back into the couch.
“Anyone else want one?” Harry asks the room at large. Zayn and Liam say yes but Louis shakes his head. Harry knows that’s bullshit. Louis always wants tea. He drank it during sex, for fuck’s sake. Harry makes his way to the kitchen and tries not to let himself remember the thousands of times he walked this exact route. The times he’d find Louis sitting on the counter in one of Harry’s oversized sweaters and nothing else, hands hidden in the knit, and nursing a cup of tea. He squeezes his eyes shut against the next part of the memory, but the back of his eyelids just play it like a movie. Louis’ face would light up and he’d set down the mug. He’d hop down off the counter and Harry would say something chiding about the fact that his bare bum was on the counter, where they prepare food. Louis would say something smart about the fact that his arse and food weren’t all that different to Harry. Then he’d go on his tip toes (if this was post-growth spurt) and give Harry a peck on the lips. He’d taste like tea and toothpaste and an indescribable taste that only his mouth ever allowed.
Harry wrenches himself forcibly out of his own thoughts and notes that he’s started the kettle by rote. He spends the next few minutes desperately trying not to think, not to remember. But it’s hard when he’d kissed Louis in literally every inch of this house. He’d never thought he’d be able to remember every single kiss, there were just too many, but since it ended it’s like every single one is in high definition, always on loop in the back of his mind. His socked feet remember standing in this exact position and his toes remember curling as Louis sucked him off. He came when the tea kettle started to whistle. His body remembers that rush of white hot electricity. His fingers twitch, feeling the ghost of Louis’ soft, straight hair knotted around them.
He moves jerkily toward the cupboard to get five mugs. He opens it and there’s plates staring back at him.
“The glasses and mugs are in the cabinet next to the fridge,” says a voice behind Harry. Harry startles, heart jumping in his chest.
“Since when?” Harry asks, frowning slightly as he moves to the correct cabinet.
Louis hesitates, “A while.”
It’s weird, how much changes when your back is turned.
Harry takes down three mugs for Zayn, Liam, and Niall, and doesn’t realize what he’s searching for until Louis tells him.
“They’re not there, Haz.” The nickname feels like a punch to the gut. He feels like a recovering drug addict presented with heroin.
He wants to ask what Louis had done with them. If they were given away, sold, in storage, smashed to pieces. Harry would have smashed his if he’d had it, he thinks, in those few weeks of rage.
Instead he says, “Oh, um, right. Yeah,” and takes down two plain white mugs.
For their second Valentine’s day together back in 2013, Harry had bought them couples’ mugs. Louis’ was a light green and Harry’s was a light blue and they had their names on them. For a year they were the only mugs they ever drank out of, and the nearly twenty others in Louis’ cupboard just gathered dust.
Harry pours the tea and makes everyone’s, he knows how they all like it.
“I, uh, I said I didn’t want tea.” Louis says softly when Harry hands him his. If it weren’t for the lack of warmth in Louis’ eyes and the way Harry thinks vomit is starting to push its way up his esophagus, this would almost be like it used to be. Standing in the kitchen making them both some post-sex cuppas before going to cuddle and watch One Tree Hill.
Harry rolls his eyes, “Yeah, okay, like you didn’t drink tea while riding me more often than not,” the words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. He stops dead, mid step, heart still in his chest. Louis’ eyes are wide and his mouth is open just slightly. Harry wants to kiss him. God. Fuck. He’s so close and he’s so real and this isn’t at all how he imagined their first interaction going. His insides feel like they’re rotting but his outsides are so nonchalant and as much as it’s hurting Louis, Harry’s hurting himself too. He’s buried these memories under eight months of alcohol and Gilmore Girls trivia and walls, and now Louis’ just here and it’s like none of that time passed.
“Sorry,” he mutters, before reminding his legs how to function and walking back to the living room. He distributes the tea and then settles back on the couch.
“You okay?” Zayn mouths. Harry shrugs, he honestly doesn’t know.
~*~
Louis’ got like three margaritas in his system and Beyonce’s on and, fuck it, he can forget about sad green eyes for one song. He gets up from the bar, purposely turning to his left to avoid skimming his eyes over where Harry is sat eight seats down to his right.
Until this morning he couldn’t even think his name, and he’s just right there. They had a fucking civil conversation. Harry tried to pretend he wasn’t, like, sad or mad or scared or anything. He’s never been a good actor, at least he could never fool Louis. He’d been ‘hinting’ at wanting to move in for weeks before- before Louis ruined it.
Okay. He’s gotta dance to this Drunk in Love remix and then get really drunk and out of love.
He throws himself into the crowd of dancing people, making his way through the gyrating bodies before he feels someone grab his waist. Brown eyes, blonde hair, not Harry = good. They start dancing, Louis fitting his body against the boy’s. It’s fast and it’s filthy, Louis can feel the guy’s hard on against his arse, but it’s what he needs, it’s something he can lose himself in. He can lose himself in the feeling of this man’s hands gripping into his hips, his lips on the shell of Louis’ ear, the sweat beginning to drip down his spine. That he can focus on, he can drown himself in the physicality of it all and he can bury his head under it. The more chaotic the things around him are, the less jumbled his head feels.
But then the song changes, and he can do this. Fuck, it’s not anything, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a song. It’s just a fucking song. It’s not even the original, it’s a remix. But then blondie’s thumb brushes over the tattoo on Louis’ ribcage just as remixed-Zayn belts out I’m sorry if I say I need you.
It’s an instinct, the way he shoves blondie away.
“I’m sorry,” he manages to say quickly, eyes darting around for an escape route. “I’ve got to, uh.” He doesn’t finish the sentence, just pushes through the people and bolts to the bathroom. He’s not sure if he’s going to throw up or if it’s something else that’s twisting his stomach in knots.
He bursts through the door of the men’s room, and it’s quieter in here. He can hear how hard he’s breathing, in through the nose out through the mouth, like his mum taught him to do when he felt nauseous as a kid. He can hear how ragged the gasps are, and now that the music is quiet, his head is so fucking loud.
And then he sees who’s leaning over the sink, trembling and gasping for air in the same way Louis is, and he shoves his way into an open stall and vomits.
This is so fucking stupid, Louis thinks as the second margarita makes it’s exit. It’s a god damn song. Harry’s just a fucking person. Why does it affect him so much? He doesn’t even have the right to be so affected. Louis ended it, it’s his own damn fault.
And then there’s a warm hand on his back, and another his pushing back his hair, and if his mouth weren’t otherwise occupied, he thinks he might sob.
“Shh, it’s okay, jus’ gotta get it allllll out,” there’s his deep, honey voice and it’s so not okay. Finally, Louis’ emptied his stomach and he spits into the toilet before wiping his mouth with some toilet paper and flushing. Harry’s hand is still rubbing circles between his shoulder blades, and it’s so warm.
“Did this that night,” Louis mumbles, knowing Harry knows which night he’s talking about, “’ve always been a lightweight, eh?”
“Always have, always will,” Harry agrees softly. Louis doesn’t think about it when he turns into Harry’s chest, doesn’t think about it when Harry wraps his arms around him and rocks him slowly, doesn’t think about it when the chaos of his head goes quiet. He knows he’s still shaking and he knows this isn’t healthy and he knows he probably smells like sweat and vomit and he knows they’ve been broken up for eight fucking months, but he can’t care. Not right now, not when he aches and not when Harry is keeping him warm, not when he hasn’t been warm in eight months, not when Harry presses his lips to his sweaty head.
That’s how Liam finds them ten minutes later, Louis trembling and wrapped up in Harry’s arms.
“Oh. Oh no,” he sounds sad and tired. Louis is sad and tired. Louis wants to fall asleep right where he is.
It’s only when Liam has to unwrap Harry from around Louis that he realizes Harry’s been crying, and he starts to shake with it when Liam pulls him up.
“I’m sorry,” he slurs, “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to.” He doesn’t know what Harry’s apologizing for, maybe crying, maybe getting as drunk as he is. Louis didn’t notice it before, but he’s unsteady and slurry and glassy eyed. Though those are all symptoms of crying, too. Harry’s definitely drunk, smashed even, leaning on Liam because he can barely stand. Liam offers Louis his free hand then, and Louis takes it, rising unsteadily from the dirty bathroom floor.
“I’m sorry,” Harry murmurs again, this time it’s pressed into Liam’s neck. “I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s okay, Haz, let’s just get out of the bathroom, yeah?” Liam says.
It’s quiet, and Louis nearly doesn’t hear it, but Harry whispers, “I didn’t mean to love you too much.”
Louis doesn’t say anything, doesn’t meet Liam’s accusatory gaze, just looks at his feet and tries to walk in a straight line.
~*~
Harry hates hangovers because his head hurts too much to block out the memories he’s drowned. Hangovers open the floodgates, and he remembers the good days with Louis. And he remembers the bad days with Louis. And he remembers how it felt to kiss him, to sleep next to him, to hold him.
When it was good, it was so good. There was nothing like never looking down, because love was flying, and Harry never had to look at the ground.
It’s going to be one hell of a day, Harry decides, when his head feels like it’s being split down the middle as light hits his eyes. Then he registers who’s sitting with his head in his hands against the wall under the window sill.
“Wha’ the fuck?” He asks, his own voice like a knife in his temple. Louis raises his head suddenly and Harry is struck by the dark circles under his eyes.
“I- Liam’s, um, Liam’s security wouldn’t take you to your house and I- I can’t use the master bedroom lately, and so like, I sleep in the guest room, but now I’ve got a guest and I had no where to sleep and-”
Harry winces with each word, and he knows once he moves he’s going to feel nauseous, but he just wants to run away from this. It’s too much Louis, too much all at once.
“Oh, I, um, here,” Louis says quietly, standing up and dropping a couple pills onto the bed next to Harry’s curled hand. Then he holds out a glass of water. Harry reaches up slowly and takes it, muscles groaning with the movement. When he picks up the pill, the coating is sticky and the water is room temperature. He wonders how long Louis has been up and how long he’s been prepared for Harry to wake.
“Thanks,” Harry grits out once he’s forced the pills down. Then he notices the clock and the light, or lack of, coming through the window.
“It’s six AM,” he says, like he’s just stated the most well known fact in the world, unsurprised. Because really, he’s just woken up and Louis’ right there giving him paracetamol, nothing could surprise him now.
“Yeah,” Louis nods, swallows.
“Have you slept at all?”
Louis shakes his head, slowly.
“And you don’t sleep in the master bedroom, because…?”
Louis fish mouths for a moment before he chokes out, “Can’t.”
Harry sighs, but his need for sleep over comes his rationality, drowns out every voice in his head that’s screaming at him not to do this.
“Get in the fucking bed. Get some sleep.”
Louis’ eyes go wide, and he looks like the thought is simultaneously his worst nightmare and all he wants. But he stands up, shakily, and toes off his Vans before walking around the double bed and crawling into the other side.
“Just,” Harry says quietly, “please, don’t touch me.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Louis answers, and now Harry can’t see him, but it sounds like it’s a sob.
Harry wakes up again at noon. He isn’t wrapped up with Louis, like he’d feared, but they did drift closer toward the middle. He can feel the knobs of Louis’ spine in the flesh of his own back.
He gets up, glad to know that he escaped the worst of the hang over. Kicking back the covers has exposed some of Louis, left him to be cold. Harry drags the covers back over him, tucks him in and has to force himself not to smooth his hair or kiss his cheek.
He’s still in his clothes from the night previous and he smells grossly of sweat and alcohol. It’d be so easy to take a shower, he even knows how to work the controls, and it’d be so easy to find his old Ramones t-shirt among Louis’ things. But he can’t do that to himself, not to Louis either.
He is still a masochist, though, and he finds himself in front of the master bedroom, Louis’ apparently former room.
He turns the knob and pushes the door open.
He didn’t know what he expected. Probably everything to be how he remembered it, tubes of lube on every surface, messed up covers, signs of their coexistence. But it’s not what he finds.
He knows Zayn and Niall and Liam helped Harry cope, but he never entertained the thought that they might have helped Louis too. It’s obvious that Zayn was here, and he tried to teach Louis how he unwinds. There’s batman on one wall with Zayn’s signature style. And a stickman, that’s Louis’. Then there’s a stick man a few feet away, evolved with toes and fingers, and curly hair and lime green eyes. There’s also a big red X through him, but judging by the way Louis obviously went back and painted over the X, Zayn was the one who crossed it out. He can see where on the wall Zayn stopped, let Louis take matters into his own hands. When the cartoon dicks and super hero symbols and gang symbols stop and the “I’m sorry”s begin, that’s when Zayn left. The farthest wall from the door is all doodles, a mixture of Louis and Zayn, and then on the wall across the door is where it starts. They’re in every color, every size, a collage on the wall above the head board, on the head board. Written over and over again until it’s nothing but a barely legible squiggle. Until Harry can see when he started to run out of paint. There’s drips on the floor, it’s even written in huge, red letters over the white bed comforter. A constant, glaring mantra of apologies. Harry can read the pain Louis went through, Harry can read Louis’ mind, splattered and scrawled and scripted on the wall.
It’s an illustration of absolute devastation. Harry thinks it could go in art museums and bring any passerby to tears. All traces of the light blue underneath it are nearly gone, just peaking through in the loops of “o”s. The “I’m sorry” on the bed is so red it looks like blood, like Louis had ripped himself open writing those words, spilled his insides with the intensity of it all.
Harry can hardly breathe.
"It’s always in my head, you know, that." Harry jumps at the voice behind him. He wonders how long Louis’ been standing there, how long he himself has been standing there. "Never really leaves me alone. It’s either ‘I give you two years and you give me ‘I’m breaking up with you’?’ or ‘fuck you. Fuck you, of course I do,’ or just a constant stream of that,” he gestures to the graffiti-ed walls.
Harry’s exceedingly clever, apparently, because he replies with the wittiest, most intelligent, “Oh.” Louis doesn’t reply for a moment, and Harry blurts, “You couldn’t have used a notebook or something?”
And something amazing, something beautiful happens. Louis laughs. Louis throws his head back and he laughs, a sound Harry had missed like his own heartbeat. All he wants is to kiss the exposed column of Louis’ throat, to feel his life under Harry’s lips.
Instead, Harry finds himself laughing too, though he’s not quite sure why. He thinks they’ve both gone a bit mad, but it’s something Harry had suspected for a while. When they both stop, finally, Louis looks up at him and meets his eyes dead on.
“Can we start over?”
Harry’s heart rabbits in his chest, and he asks, “How far over?”
“Just- can we forget yesterday and this morning, and, like, now? I mean I’d had a lot of scenarios thought up of how our first meeting would go, and Niall slapping me out of hyperventilating wasn’t one of my original options. I wanna give it another go.” It looks like it almost pains Louis to not say all over. But maybe that’s Harry just projecting.
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s give it another go.” Let’s try again. Harry wants to say. He wants to wake up next to Louis every damn day for the rest of his fucking life, and it sucks that that’s not plausible right now.
But sometimes Harry forgets that that’s actually Louis’ fault, not his own.
Louis leans over and closes the door to the master bedroom, then turns back to Harry. “Would you like a cuppa?”
“That would be great, thanks,” Harry hopes his small smile is convincing. Harry hopes he can convince himself that he’s not going to cry after this, because fuck there’s been eight fucking months of sadness and he’s done with it. He wants to be on the mend now, and he can do that.
When he sits down at the kitchen island, Louis pours him his tea, and when he slides the mug over, it’s got Harry’s name in light blue printed on it. Louis’ mug is plain white, though. And that’s enough. They’re not forgetting about it all, and they’re not trying again, but somewhere in the middle, a limbo of sorts, and Harry can do that. He can be in the middle, he’s done with high highs and low lows. And he’s going to take this mug home.
(And home is not Louis. Not right now. Not anymore.)
~*~
Harry’s EP, I Love You., is well worn, always in the CD player in Louis’ car. It’s probably masochistic, but he always loved Harry’s voice, and just because they broke up doesn’t mean he can’t still enjoy his music, it just means he probably shouldn’t.
But he’d avoided one track, somehow, after a few months of having it. Sometimes he fell asleep to the EP, so he’s sure he heard then, because sometimes there’s a tune in his head he can’t get out or place, but he hasn’t been able to listen to it consciously. It’s the title track, and god, if those three words aren’t loaded in meaning to the both of them.
But he’s going to do it now, because it’s on the radio. Harry was on the radio. He’d been doing a little interview with Nick Grimshaw, his friend apparently, because Harry gets to have famous friends. (Well, so does Louis. Technically Louis is famous, he’s one of the biggest names in song writing at the moment.) He’d been talking about the single off the EP, which Nick promised to play. Said it was originally supposed to be a duet, maybe, but then some stuff had happened and he changed a few lyrics and sang it himself, and that was that.
And now it’s playing and Louis only has one piano chord to prepare himself before Harry’s voice, honey poured over gravel, smokes from his car speakers. He’d pulled over when Harry’d started talking, and god is he glad he did, because he couldn’t deal with this while driving.
I fell in love with a beautiful boy and he still takes my breath away. I fell in love in the morning sun while the hours slipped away.
Louis nearly chokes at that, because he knows this song is about him. And god, there’s Harry’s voice calling him beautiful.
But then there’s the chorus, and Louis thinks he’s going to shrivel up and die. It’s obvious by the tune and the other lyrics that this is meant to be a happy song, but then Harry’s singing, ‘Cause I love you, more than you think I do. And I love you, now you don’t want me to. The “now you don’t want me to” is a knife to Louis’ chest, twisting. Because he didn’t. He didn’t want Harry to love him anymore, because, fuck, if Harry didn’t love him maybe that would make him stop loving Harry. It obviously didn’t work out that way, because it’s been ten months since then and he’s still achy and his eyes still tear up sometimes and he feels hot all over just thinking about him. Love is a lot like the flu, to be perfectly honest. Love is an illness, to Louis at least. Love is something Louis has to get over.
The next part was meant to be Louis’ part. He’s a lyricist, he knows these things. Also, Harry liked to write his own name on Louis’ back a lot.
You ran your finger down my back and you spelled out your name, while we lay there on the soft warm ground for a week and thirteen days.
And then it’s the worst, how Harry’s voice lowers and slows, gravelly and he sounds like he’s right there, in the passenger seat, like they were driving to the mall or something and spitting out lyric ideas. They did that a lot, in the car. They’d just start with a lyric and then let it roll. By the end of the ride, Harry or Louis would have a duet recorded on his phone. They never really did anything with those songs, not really. They were theirs only, not meant to be shared. But it’s that next line that threatens to break the small bit of okay-ness Louis managed to build up since the morning after they went out.
I fell in love with a beautiful boy and you still take my breath away. When you left it was the end of my world, cause I never got to say… that I love you more than you think I do…
When Louis left, it was the end of Harry’s world.
And he’s meant to just live with that guilt?
They’ve been civil, not talking voluntarily, really, but if they’re both hanging out with, like, Zayn, then they can hold a conversation. Louis can still beat Harry at Fifa and offer him something to drink. It hurts, fuck of course it still hurts, but it’s not like that first meeting. It’s not something that makes him shake and makes his head spin, it’s just a dull ache, throbbing in time with his heart beat. It’s not a twisting knife anymore, it’s healing. But hearing things like this, hearing what Louis did to Harry, that’s pain, that’s guilt, that’s a healed over knife twisting in Louis’ gut.
~*~
Zayn wins a Grammy. Zayn wins a Grammy. Zayn wins a fucking Grammy for “Strong.” And Zayn’s going to perform at the fucking Grammys.
Harry’s only in the audience and he thinks he’s going to pass out, because Zayn’s name has just been called and he’s still standing between Harry and Louis (Liam brought Niall and his mum as his guests, they’re still not out with their relationship), and his face is so open. Harry’s never really been able to read Zayn, but all his walls have fallen away and he’s just standing there in open shock and he’s not moving.
Harry pats his back, a little harder than necessary, but it jolts Zayn out of it, and he’s trembling.
“Go on, man!” Harry says, and Zayn nods, a little dazedly, before making his way to the stage.
“Sorry, uh, about the, uh, little wait there,” he says into the mic after hugging Kelly Clarkson. “Wow, uh, this is like, honestly beyond my wildest dreams. Like when you’re a kid and you want to be a singer, the ultimate goal is usually winning a Grammy, yeah? But like, I wouldn’t let myself dream that big, I’m like, inherently pessimistic.” That earns a collective laugh from the crowd. “And now I’m here, I’m just, you know, I’m just a little boy from Bradford and now I’m smashing it! And I couldn’t be here today without my support system. Niall, Liam,” there’s a small, imperceptible pause there, Harry only catches it because he knows, “Louis, Harry, you all mean the world to me, and I couldn’t be here without you. Louis, thank you for writing the song, Harry thank you for helping in that process. I wanna thank my whole team and my family, my mum, I literally wouldn’t be here without you. So yeah, thanks for this, guys.” He holds up the statue triumphantly before beginning to leave the stage. They all erupt into applause, and Harry hears Niall whistle. When he looks to his left, Liam is trying to discretely wipe away a tear. When he looks to his right, Louis is looking at him. They both look away.
Zayn makes his way back to his seat, and he’s still got tremors going through his hands. Niall pats his back, and his hand lingers there for a moment, while Liam rubs his arm, also staying just a touch longer than he would if they weren’t together. Then Liam and Niall look at each other, and Harry thinks that’s probably how he used to look at Louis. (It’s probably how he still does, when he loses himself.)
There’s a few more awards, and then Zayn is patting Harry’s leg and telling him he has to go back stage, then he squeezes Liam’s leg too and takes a deep breath, gives Niall a meaningful look, and he’s on his way.
Grammy performances are supposed to be something incredible. Harry will never forget P!nk’s beautiful performance of her song “Glitter in the Air” one year, it blew his mind, it was absolutely gorgeous. If Harry’s going to be perfectly honest, Zayn could literally just stand on stage and gesture to his bone structure and it would be as amazing, but he assumes that he has more planned than that.
After a bit of a wait, lights slowly start to turn on, washing the stage in gold. Then Zayn walks out and starts singing, and Harry knows there isn’t going to be some big production. For this song, all the audience needs is to listen. He casts a shadow in the golden light, and there’s a bit of fog around him. He looks like he’s descending from heaven.
Lights go down and the night is calling to me, yeah, I hear voices, singing songs in the street… Zayn starts, and if anyone ever doubted his talent, once the chorus hits they’re going to be blown away.
Harry leans over to Liam, “You two must be so proud,” he whispers. Liam just nods, unable to take his eyes off Zayn’s figure on the stage, singing into the mic like it’s his everything.
Then Zayn sings and I know that we won’t be going home for so long, for so long, but I know that I won’t be on my own, and Harry hears Louis’ breath hitch. He wonders what it is, if he’s remembering writing this with Harry. At the time it was just some lyrics they’d whipped up, nothing with a proper meaning, not really. He wonders if that’s changed for Louis. A lot has changed since then.
But he pushes all thoughts of Louis from his mind, because Zayn’s just hit the chorus, and Harry wants to watch all these A-list celebrities be blown away by his best friend’s talent.
But Louis’ not the same for the rest of the night, and he leaves the after party earlier than Louis has ever been known to leave a party. Of course, Zayn, Liam, and Niall don’t notice, too wrapped up in their own euphoria, but Harry does. Again, though, he pushes Louis from his mind, like he’s gotten so good at doing, and ignores the niggling feeling that the dancing would be a lot more fun if Louis was with him.
~*~
Louis’ over at Zayn, Liam, and Niall’s place to watch Man U play (which, of course, Niall is his enemy, but the game hasn’t started so they can talk for now) and Liam and Zayn are putting together some snacks in the kitchen. It’s taking longer than grabbing some crisps and dip should, and judging by the lovesick looks Niall keeps sending toward the kitchen, they’re probably snogging.
It comes out of his mouth before he can stop it, “How do you do it?”
Niall looks at him, blinks. “Do what?”
And, well, there’s no going back now. “Love two people at once,” he clarifies. Niall’s expression changes just the slightest bit, and Louis recognizes it from the early days after he broke up with Harry, it was his careful face, where he’d actually think about what he was saying. Louis wrings his fingers in his lap, suddenly feeling too open, examinable.
“I don’t know how to explain,” Niall lies. Louis knows he does, because when you love someone like Niall loves Zayn and Liam, you can talk about anything pertaining to them for hours.
“Like, when me and Harry, were, like, yeah, it was really just— completely all-consuming. I couldn’t imagine splitting that between two people, it’s like trying to split an atom in my head,” Louis says softly, forcing himself into the past tense. Explosive, nuclear, is what he doesn’t add.
“It’s not like,” Niall stops to get his thoughts in order, “It’s not like I’ve split my heart for both of them, you know? It’s like, honestly, like I’ve got two whole hearts worth of love for ‘em.” Niall’s smiling to himself, eyes bright. “It’s completely and totally all-consuming, like you said. But it’s just like I’ve got two layers of it, you know? It’s not hard to love more than one person. There’s no limit on your capacity to love, Louis. There’s no such thing as loving too much.”
Louis’ thrown back to the club bathroom, Harry’s voice soft and sad, I didn’t mean to love you too much. He picks a hangnail off and doesn’t flinch when blood wells up.
“Lou, feel free not to answer, but do you ever wish you could go back in time and not have done it? Do you want him back?” Niall’s voice is hesitant and soft, a tone that’s rare coming from him.
Louis looks up at him, pulling his bottom lip under his top.
Harry was Louis’ home. And Louis is terribly, terribly homesick.
He nods, and it’s partially a shake, like his body wants him to deny it, but he can’t. “Yeah,” he says, and it comes out normally, but then his throat tightens and his eyes heat up, and when he says it again it’s choked and quiet, “Yeah.”
~*~
Harry should learn to expect the unexpected, but in his wildest dreams he never thought he’d open the door at ten at night, because Louis was on the other side pounding on it.
All the air leaves Harry’s lungs at the site of him, bright, electric eyes and mussed up, feathery hair, and ashen yet somehow radiant skin. Jewel tones. His first thought is I miss you, his second thought is I hate you. But first thought, best thought.
“I’m a fucking idiot,” is his greeting.
“Well,” Harry says, but doesn’t offer anything more. He doesn’t know what’s about to happen. Probably something that’s going to send him back spiraling. But his heart is pounding, beating against his ribcage, in a way that feels a lot like hope.
“And I want the fucking mug back.” Louis is wild eyed, Harry realizes his hair is so messy because he’s been pulling it, and his fingers are shaking, “And I want you back.”
There’s a second of nothing, where Harry’s fingertips feel like they’re going to burst, where Louis’ eyes don’t break their hold on Harry’s own.
Louis opens his mouth again. “I used to check myself to see if I was like, ready, you know? Because I was so sure I was. I was so sure that I’d overcome all the commitment issues and shit. And you know how I’d check? I’d imagine myself proposing to you.” Harry does not need to hear this. He feels like he’s been punched in the throat and he’s left scrabbling for what sanity he has left. “And if my stomach twisted and I started tearing up, I decided that I wasn’t ready. But I’m such a fucking idiot, because how was I supposed to know I was supposed to feel that? That that’s what love is? That if it didn’t fucking terrify me, something would be wrong?”
The next breath Louis takes rattles on its way down his throat.
“And I love you. I tried for a whole year to stop, and I never did. I don’t know what the fuck was wrong with my dad, or Mark, or anyone else, but I had the best damn thing in the whole world, I had you, and I left. I was trying not to be like them, and in the process I became the exact same. I love you, Harry, and I’m not denying myself that anymore. I’m done with lying to myself and I’m done lying to you and I’m done with missing you and not doing anything about it.” He pauses for a moment, then quotes, “I love you. I love you more than you think I do. Always have, always will. Hell, I love you more than I thought I did, and a year without you couldn’t even change that.”
Harry’s hands are cupping Louis’ face before he knows what he’s doing, but he’s not kissing him. Their lips are a hair’s breadth away, and Harry can barely control his breathing, which is ragged and irregular. He’s only dreamed those words.
“Do you still?” Louis asks, so quiet that Harry doesn’t hear it so much as feel it.
Harry can hear the bricks he’d built up in his chest crumbling, can taste the roses on Louis’ breath. He remembers the days when “I love you” was a weapon, when it was used to hurt. Now, it’s healing.
“Of course I do,” Harry replies, soft, and when he talks his lips ghost over Louis’. And then the gravity’s too much.
He’d almost forgotten what it was like to kiss Louis. It had been a year, after all. He’d almost forgotten how right it felt to pull Louis’ bottom lip between his own, to feel Louis sweep his tongue along Harry’s lip, to let him in. He almost forgotten how Louis’ hair felt between his fingers, how Louis could never get close enough to Harry when they kissed like this— hot and frantic and needy and starved— how he’d press them together as tightly as he could, like he was trying to merge together. Almost forgotten.
Somehow, they’ve ended up both in the house and the door is closed and Louis’ got Harry up against a wall while they kiss.
“We’ve- gotta- talk- about this,” Harry says between frantic kisses.
“Tomorrow,” Louis tells him, before reattaching their mouths. They stumble through Harry’s house, knocking a lamp over in the process, until they get to Harry’s bed room. It’s a free fall, then, and Harry finds himself naked before he even registers that Louis’ taking off his clothes, finds Louis working him open before he even registers that he got the lube out, finds himself crying out for it before he even knows that he wants it.
But then he’s about to sink down and ride Louis like he’s never ridden in his life, to make up for a fucking year without him, when their parachutes fail and they hit the ground. Louis says, like it hurts, “Wait.”
Harry does, somehow, and his thighs are tensed up nearly painfully, but he stops.
“Condom,” Louis says, words seem to be beyond him.
“We never used- like, we didn’t need- unless you… Did you?” Harry asks, stomach twisting. Louis closes his eyes and nods.
Harry gets off of him, suddenly very not in the mood, however irrational it may be.
It’s almost comical, watching Louis try to fight his way through the haze of arousal they’d made. His brain finally connects to his mouth and his limbs, and he’s reaching for Harry, like after so long of being apart they have to be constantly close.
“Harry- Haz, it was a year, I needed distractions, I’m sorry, I just, I needed to forget you, and I tried so many different ways,” he says, voice pleading and desperate.
“I know that, rationally, I know that,” Harry says, and he can’t stand to not hold Louis now that he’s allowed to. He wraps his arms tight around Louis’ back.
“C’mere,” Louis says, quietly, helping Harry back into his lap, this time, just to cuddle.
Harry’s inhales shudder, though he doesn’t mean them too. “S’just- so much so fast.”
“Too fast,”Louis adds, and Harry nods into the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry,” Louis says, more breath than voice. Harry’s thrown back into Louis’ master bedroom, those words drowning out any other thing in the room ‘til the words felt physical, an atmosphere.
“Stop, don’t be, please.”
Louis’ voice cracks when he answers, “Can’t help it, I always am. You gave me two years, Harry.”
Harry doesn’t respond, just tightens his limbs around Louis more and gets lost in the feeling of Louis gently rocking them.
“I missed you,” he only mouths it, but Louis must feel it, must know, because he makes a small noise and holds tighter. Harry doesn’t think he could get close enough to this boy if he tried, not until he swallowed him whole, not until they were conjoined.
Harry went through a Greek myth phase once when he was younger, and one of his favorites was their idea on soulmates. (Harry likes that the concept isn’t a new one, too, shows that people have been falling truly, madly, deeply in love since the very beginning of modern civilization.) Humans used to have double of everything, two faces, four arms, four legs, and Zeus feared their power, so he split them apart. Since then, everyone lives their lives in search of their, literal, other half.
Harry thinks that that’s what this is, that he and Louis are complementary, the gods made them like this. A year apart and the ferocity of Harry’s love has not withered, a year apart and Harry still wants to tuck Louis into his ribcage right next to his heart, to keep him safe there.
~*~
Louis’ almost asleep when he hears, feels, Harry murmur to his forehead, “I gave you two, three years. And I got my heart broken. And I’d do it all over again.”
Louis’ too far gone to voice his agreement, but fuck he went through hell, but here, engulfed in Harry’s body heat and his love and finally, finally right where he belongs, he’d rewind and do it all again, Groundhog Day style, as long as he got this end each time.
For the first time in a year, Louis doesn’t hate himself immediately upon waking up.
Harry’s head is on his stomach and his finger is tickling over Louis’ ribcage, tracing the tattoo there.
“I’m not anymore, you know,” Louis says, more like croaks, really, throat dry from sleep.
Harry looks up quizzically, and Louis nearly forgets what he was talking about, because he’s so real. All pastel and pretty.
“I’m not scared anymore, only in the good way, now.”
Harry just smiles, eyes suspiciously shiny, and he kisses over the tattoo in a line to cover every inch. Harry moves his head so he’s level with Louis’ chest, then presses his ear to the center. Louis suddenly becomes very much aware of his own heartbeat, and how rapid and irregular it is. When Harry raises his head, he’s grinning, and then they’re kissing, morning breath and all.
Harry tries to say something against Louis’ mouth but it’s too muffled to be comprehensible, so Louis pulls back.
“You’re terrified,” Harry tells him, but he’s smiling.
Louis is struck by awave, a tsunami, of feeling. It crushes him under it’s weight but it sends him into action, surging up and kissing Harry so hard he’s positive their lips will be bruised.
After a few moments, panting and with their foreheads still pressed together, Louis says, “Only of losing you.”
They should talk about it, definitely, figure things out, but kissing each other for hours, getting reacquainted with each other’s bodies just seems like a better idea.
(They do talk about it, eventually, still tangled in the sheets and Louis has had to piss for like three hours but even just leaving Harry to go to the bathroom is too much. They figure out how to be better this time, because that was unhealthy the first time, the break up was worse than it should have been. They figure things out and they plan out how they’re going to tell Niall and Zayn and Liam and they laugh until Louis thinks he’s actually going to pee himself and Harry scoops him up and carries him to the bathroom himself.)
~*~
They paint over the wall on a Tuesday afternoon, covering the “I’m sorry”s with a new light turquoise color. They both cry. Everyone cries over the course of the week, Zayn cries when he sees Louis and Harry kiss for the first time since they got back together. Liam cries when he helps Louis burn all the papers he’d kept from the speech he wrote way back when.
Niall cries once all of the boxes are brought in. He slings his arms around both Harry and Louis’ shoulders and pulls them tight to him, blubbering.
“Never thought I’d see the day!” He cries, wiping his cheek on his shoulder, “My sons finally moving in together.”
“Ni, I’m older than you,” Louis informs him, making Harry giggle.
“Yeah and you’d’ve been like, one, when you had me! Niall, you slag!” Harry jokes, laughing. Niall looks slightly offended but huffs out a little laugh through his tears all the same. They stop the jokes, then, and Harry brings Louis in so that they can both hug Niall. It was an emotional rollercoaster for everyone, getting them to this point. When they told the boys the news Niall had looked like a kid in a candy store, Liam looked proud, but Zayn was livid, had stormed off and made Liam relay messages for a good hour before they convinced him that it would not end like the first time did, that they did a little growing up and they’re capable of having a healthy, functioning relationship. Then he came around, hugging them tight while whispering threats in their ears. Sweet, well intentioned threats, though.
Once they’ve calmed Niall down enough to send him on his way, Harry moves to make a cup of tea. He’s been practically living here for three whole months (and now he’s actually living here) and he still opens the wrong cabinet.
“We could move the mugs and cups back into that cabinet, if you want,” Louis offers from where he’s sat at the kitchen island, pen and notebook right next to him. He’s been on a writing kick these past few days, constantly scribbling in the book, the tip of his tongue just poking out of his mouth.
Harry thinks about it for a moment, then shakes his head, “It reminds me of how much has changed.”
Louis looks at him for a second, nothing but love in his eyes, before opening the notebook and writing that down.
Harry tastes roses, then, and he remembers how his throat used to be shredded by their thorns, how the vines used to stretch and crack his ribs, and he remembers how all of Louis’ “I’m sorry”s used to hurt him, bruise him, and he remembers how many promises were broken, and he remembers the scarf they’ve long since thrown out, and he remembers how “I love you” was a knife, a deep cutting wound.
Everything has changed.