Work Text:
December 7th, 2014
Louis has a bit of a compulsive nature.
The only thing Harry cares about when he enters a hotel room is if there’s a bed and how big it is – it happened once, at the beginning of their careers: the hotel was overbooked because of an event and they gave them half a suite, the half without the bed. They made it work. They made everything work, then – the frantic schedule, the endless interviews, the eating and sleeping and living always on the clock. Everything seemed so wonderful and bright and hilarious at the time.
“Do you remember the time they gave us a room without a bed?” Harry asks, watching Louis bent over, his face stuck in the minibar.
Because of his compulsive nature, Louis always has to check every little detail of every room they are in, even if it’s just for one night.
Amsterdam yesterday. Rome today. Home tomorrow, hopefully. Always on the run as if there’s a bounty on their heads.
Louis cackles, the sound echoing through the fridge. Harry can feel the cold from where he’s lying. He brings the duvet higher on his bare chest.
“Oh, I do,” Louis answers, taking two small bottles in his hand and standing up, pushing the door closed with a hip. “Somewhere in America, wasn’t it? I don’t think we even tried to go to sleep that night.”
He turns around, waving the bottles at Harry. “Gin and tonic alright?”
Harry’d like something sweeter, smoother to swallow, but he nods, if only to see Louis grab two glasses and pour the drinks, his wrist dancing in the air, drawing curves like compasses on paper.
“What got you thinking about that?” Louis asks as the soda fizzes with bursting bubbles in the glass. He hums, then, sending Harry a pleased smile, when the soda settles into the glass at the perfect height. One couldn’t say that Louis doesn’t take his liquor seriously.
“Nothing in particular,” Harry says, scratching his belly under the covers. Louis is still in the white shirt from the filming, and it makes Harry itchy. “I’m just grateful whenever we get a bed, now.”
Louis’ cackle makes the glass he’s holding shake, the liquid threatening to spill. As if anyone would dare not give us what we want, now, Louis’ eyebrows say, but he stays silent, only tilts his head to the side.
Louis has a bit of a compulsive nature, and a lot of love for balconies.
“Do you seriously want me to get up?” Harry whines, throwing an arm over his eyes. “We can drink in bed. I promise I won’t get mad if you make a mess.”
Harry hears Louis’ socks shuffling on the floor, and the chinking of glass as it touches the wood of the nightstand, all before a hand closes around his wrist and lifts it. He blinks lazily as he readjusts to the light, Louis’ face coming to focus above him.
“You love it when I make a mess,” Louis states, with the voice he uses when he knows he’ll get what he wants. He’s not wrong. “Up now, Haz, come on.” He slides his hand into Harry’s and tugs, tugs until Harry groans and sits up.
Harry lets his feet fall to the ground and shifts to trap Louis between his knees, bringing his free hand on Louis’ hip. “You are a pain in the arse, you know that?”
Louis tries to take a step back, but he’s stopped by Harry’s legs squeezing him in. “I wouldn’t talk about arses today if I were you, Mister Anus.”
Harry falls back with laughter and clutches their joined hands to his chest, and Louis can do nothing but follow him, tumbling half on him and half on the bed. The mattress gives a distressed creak underneath them, making them laugh harder, tangled in the fluffy covers, their arms bending at weird angles but their hands still clasped together.
“I don’t think I’ve ever told you,” Harry says, staring into Louis’ eyes, into what little blue is still visible from how much he’s smiling, “but ti ano very much, Lou.”
“I anus you too,” Louis answers, with enough certainty and simplicity to overwhelm Harry beyond the silliness of their banter. “The fans are going to have a fucking field day with this, aren’t they?”
“I won’t even need to remember the day it airs. I’ll just wait for my twitter feed to be invaded by talk of bums.”
“To be honest that sounds like quite the dream come true,” Louis says, leaning more comfortably on his side and bringing a leg over Harry’s thighs.
If Harry’s careful, he’ll trick Louis into staying in bed with him for long enough he will abandon the idea of braving the December weather at night. He needs to be subtle but compelling.
“I’m a bit partial to one, though,” he says, dragging his free hand from Louis’ knee upwards, stroking the firm flesh of his thigh and letting it rest on the swell of Louis’ bum. Harry can feel the muscle contract beneath his fingers even with Louis’ joggers in between.
Louis’ breathing gets louder and Harry follows the swift darting of his tongue as Louis wets his lips. “Har-old,” he starts, his voice catching on the r and stumbling on the rest. “Stop threatening my innocence with your awful anal ways.”
“I’m afraid there’s not much left to threaten, pumpkin,” Harry says, and leans in, pulling Louis closer with the hand on his arse and disentangling the other to cradle his face, the sharp scruff on his jaw tickling Harry’s palm.
Only, a moment later he finds himself grasping at thin air and, when he opens his eyes, his lips still slightly puckered, Louis is kneeling on the bed with a triumphant expression.
“Not all of us get off on being made fun of,” he says, although the slight strain in the fabric over his crotch blatantly contradicts him. “Come on now, love. Come watch Rome with me,” he continues, gentler, and Harry wonders how his sight can stay intact with someone so unfalteringly radiant so close to him.
This time, Harry follows him to the balcony, snatching the first jumpers he can get his hands on while Louis takes the glasses.
“Shit,” Louis exhales as he opens the French window with an elbow, the cold pushing on and over them like a wave. He doesn’t protest when Harry tosses a hoodie at his back, only catches it and puts it on as Harry does the same with his.
He doesn’t give up, though. Wouldn’t be him if he backtracked on his bad ideas.
Wouldn’t be Harry if he didn’t go along with it, too, so he crosses the threshold one step behind Louis.
For a second, all he can concentrate on is the ice-cold ground he’s standing on - his feet shivering in his socks and marching on the spot, his shoulders hunching as he closes in on himself, his cheeks prickling as if he’d been slapped.
For a second, he contemplates saying fuck it and going back in – and then he sees it. The moon and the orange lights of Rome vibrating in front of him, catching on the Vatican in the distance the same way they softly caress the cars parked on the street below them. The timeless paradox that is this city, a glitch in the fabric of history, centuries and eras and cultures cohabiting in a single plane, like trees fighting for exposure to the sun and interweaving their branches not to wither away. The way Louis’ figure, leaning on the bannister with his feet crossed, blends with the scenery as if he belong there.
Harry covers the distance between them, coming to stand behind Louis. He frames him with his arms, drops his chin on his shoulder. He expects Louis to complain with high-pitched grumbles about Harry’s hair tickling his neck, and that if he accidentally eats some more of it he’ll start throwing up hairballs like a cat – but nothing comes. Instead, Louis lifts a hand until he can wrap a couple of Harry’s locks around his fingers. He twirls and untwirls them, brushing Harry’s jaw with his knuckles.
“’s better on the balcony, innit?” Louis says, idly, voice raspy as if the words had to be scratched before falling out of his mouth like shards. “More rome-antic.”
Harry presses a giggle into Louis’ hand, still carded through his hair and petting it with meticulous languor. He circles his arms around Louis’ waist and pulls his lithe body against his chest, hands digging in the fabric of Louis’ hoodie. Rome lies spread and still in front of them, and Harry feels they own the world.
He’s about to say it, as absurd as it would sound, his heart buoyant on a sea of Rome and Louis’ smell, but Louis speaks first. “It was in LA,” he says, dropping his hand from Harry’s hair to the bannister. “The bed incident, I mean.”
Was it? Harry has a clear picture of the room – of them so young and in awe of everything. He has a clear picture of it, but it’s like he hasn’t been there. Like the person who saw it had his name and his face, but not the same heart and mind.
It might have been LA. It wouldn’t be the same LA he knows now.
He hums, laying his mouth on the spot between Louis’ shoulder and neck. Louis’ blood pulses under his lips in a wild chase. “I guess.”
Louis turns his head enough to bump into his. “The drinks,” he says, shattering Harry’s hope that he’s finally earned a kiss. “Would you fetch them?”
“Sure.”
Harry lets his arms fall to his sides and walks to the wicker table in the middle of the balcony, grabbing the glasses with a frown. They’re freezing, the floor is freezing, and his arms miss the way Louis’ abdomen undulated beneath them with each breath. He thinks of dashing inside to get at least a pair of slippers, even the white spongy complementary ones would do – but a glance at Louis keeps him rooted where he is.
Louis is facing him, now, his back to the bannister. The balcony has a light, but they haven’t turned it on – there’s only the light from inside their room illuminating him, brushstrokes of white over his nose and cheekbones, shimmering back over his eyes. Harry is in front of him, handing him a glass, before he can process it, his body moving without him having any real say in it.
“Thanks, love.” Louis takes a glass from him and swirls it around. Harry watches him watch the liquid swim and crease, the light tiptoeing on it. His hand is going numb with how tightly he’s clutching the other glass.
He takes a sip of his gin and tonic, and he’s torn – it’s fucking bitter, and every time he drinks it he tells himself he’ll never let Louis pick again, but he’s also grateful for it when he sees Louis take a sharp intake of breath and open his mouth.
“I mean, it was better than when we were kindly encouraged to get separate rooms, and stay in them,” Louis says, and his voice seems colder too.
“Lou,” Harry says, dropping his glass on the bannister. It’s hardly wide enough to hold it. He imagines it falling, flying in the air with droplets of gin and tonic water in its trail. He imagines it crashing on a sidewalk, on a car, on a man’s head – that’d be an headline, Boybander drops glass and kills pedestrian -, and still Louis hasn’t talked.
Louis smiles to the glass, then, and brings it to his lips. He only wets them, but he swallows loudly and lets out a please hum afterwards. “Perfect ratio, I’d say.” He smirks at Harry, locking their gazes. “You know, I’d rather have no bed than no you anyway.”
Harry hears an echo at the back of his head, would you rather be successful or be with Louis?, and he can’t remember who asked him, or when – must have been a long time ago, when both things were still blossoming, uncertain.
He’s a little glad he never had to give an answer. He thinks he would have picked the right one, but just the thought makes him reach for Louis’ hip, curl his palm around it.
“I don’t know. I’m a big fan of beds,” he drawls, coyly, because Louis does know, instead, and his eyes crinkle and he leans into Harry’s hand. Louis does know, and he doesn’t need Harry to tell him he’d rather have no anything than no Louis at this point. “Big fan of everything that can be done in beds.”
Harry watches their bodies shifting closer, like magnets, enough for him to feel the air getting warmer every time Louis exhales.
“I hope you’re talking about sleeping, Harold” Louis says, resting his glass next to Harry’s. “Because that’s all you’re going to be doing with that attitude.”
Harry’s ever awed by Louis’ ability to keep a straight face even while he’s leaning forward and lifting a hand to Harry’s cheek. “Yeah?” Harry asks, but it’s wasted breath, their heads already tilting in practised angles, Louis’ hand slipping higher, to take a fistful of his hair and tug.
Shouts and cackles from the street below interrupt them, and they turn in perfect synchrony to the source of the sound. It’s a couple, ironically. They’re too far away to see details, but Harry can make out their joined hands, how they bump together a bit too much for it to be just drunken stumbling. They yell, again, in Italian, and a woman from a building nearby opens her window and sticks her head out to shush them.
It only sends the couple into a new fit of laughter.
“A thrilling show, really” Louis comments when the two crash against a wall and decide they like it there, getting lost in passionate snogging just under the light of a lamppost.
Harry just hopes it’ll be them soon.
Louis turns back to face him, his thumb stroking behind Harry’s ear. “Where were we?”
“Arguing about beds, I think.” Harry grins, takes the final steps for their hips to collide. “But, you know,” he trails off with a shrug.
“Oh God. You can say it,” Louis says, rolling his eyes but bringing his other hand to Harry’s shoulder. “I know you’ve been dying to all day.”
Harry snickers, and it’s true, he has. “When in Rome,” he says, struggling to move his mouth in a shape that isn’t a face-splitting, dimple-forming smile. He links his hands behind Louis’ back and rests his toes over Louis’, wiggling them.
Louis stares at him for a moment, an eyebrow raised, before frowning at him and shaking his head, a bit of his fringe falling on his eyes. “Well, are you gonna do it? Are you waiting for a request from the mayor?”
“Oh, shut up.” Harry pulls Louis to him and joins their lips in the sloppiest kiss, all teeth and grins and giggles, and hopes the ghosts roaming the roofs of Rome enjoy the view.