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Nothing beats a morning run.
Nothing beats the sudden influx of gooseflesh across Harry’s skin as he steps out into the night that's barely peeled into the morning, watching the dim lampposts flicker out as he warms up on his way to the city centre. Nothing like making the city his own as everyone wakes to their Mondays and Tuesdays, and their todays and their tomorrows.
Absolutely nothing else compares to the mild way his heart doesn’t pick up anymore as he picks up in speed and the way his sweat has learnt to freeze over as he breathed the London air in and out of him. Nothing quite like Stormzy rapping in his ears as he makes a turn around the street to the next.
There’s no denying that he’s sated as he drags himself home at six in the morning with the rest of the day at his disposal and the rampant need to rush into the shower to fight off the pleasant ache in his muscles. Or knowing he has to fight his hunger till he’s done and eat his fill of homemade bagels, cream cheese, and smoked salmon for breakfast, and cheat on it with a cheeky little custard cream dipped in his tea.
But there’s also…
The only thing that beats it is walking into the house after his tedious run and finding Louis at the kitchen table, sullenly drinking his cup of milky tea.
Louis’s eyes are slipping close over his cup, his biscuit on the verge of plopping into his tea. He's sat next to the vase of sunflowers Harry got him yesterday, and strangely they don't hold a candle to him. The whole room smells of his stupidly expensive raspberry-mint shampoo, and the proof is in the streaks of wet hair jetting out in directions around his tired face. He can’t complain when he often finds himself pressing his face to his stupidly soft hair while Louis snores away. To top it off, he’s wearing Harry’s favourite jumper- the one that belonged to Louis which Harry stole and stretched out before the mountain of unfolded laundry passed it back to its rightful owner. It's never returned to the way it once was.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he can’t help but say softly as he makes his way over.
Louis startles before his heavy eyes flicker to him. “’Ello, love. Good run?”
Harry nods, and he wants to look away and find himself something to do. It’s perhaps, that he…can’t.
Louis was there; in their bed when he woke up, but while in a hurry to leave the house to get his blood flowing, he’d completely forgotten that Louis had come home the day before. After months of being away on tour. He had come home to Harry, to rest while the public did what they did best- speculate.
And, now he was all Harry’s. For the next few weeks, at least. For the most part of them, at least.
The rush he feels lingers between familiar and foreign, and Harry decides that he loves it.
The custard cream is sinking to the bottom. Harry reaches out, swipes the cup up and takes a large slurp.
“Oi,” Louis protests softly. “Make your own.”
Harry rolls his eyes playfully. “It’s cold anyways.”
“Kettle’s still warm,” supplies Louis. “Could just make me another when you make yourself one.”
Rolling his eyes again, Harry strides past him to the cupboards. He flicks on the kettle even though it’s hot and pulls out the teabags as he listens to it sputter and cry beside him. A Yorkshire for Louis and a Tesco peppermint for him. Louis likes to nag him about the Tesco bit but he’ll drink it out of Harry’s cup any day.
In the time that Harry brings them their tea, Louis is slightly more awake. He’s scrolling through his phone as Harry clinks the cups on the table. He quietly puts the phone away and thanks Harry as he takes a hasty sip and burns himself like he always does.
“Car on its way?” Harry asks as he hops down onto the chair. He thinks he can laze around a little long before he can decide on a shower. He also thinks he can convince Louis to have breakfast with him.
“Yeah, twenty minutes max.”
“Egg on toast?”
Louis purses his lips. “Oli’ll probably bring me a bacon butty,” he says. “Don’t bother, babe.”
Harry wrinkles his nose. Was it better than the bagels he bought off that bakery stall at Camden yesterday?
When he glances up, Louis is already passing him an amused smile. “We can have the bagels for evening tea.”
He tries not to show that he’s chuffed. “No one has bagels for tea, Lou,” he mutters.
“We do,” says Louis slowly. He’s grinning more than he can manage with his state of awake. “We had shepherd’s pie for brekkie yesterday. Crisps and wine for lunch. And, I suppose...”
“Hmm?”
Louis’s gaze slides onto his and clicks into place. “You. I had you for dinner.”
In a daze, Harry forgets what he was trying to say. Until his heavy tongue lets up at the last minute. “Don’t say it like that,” he manages to choke out.
“Yeah? What are you going to do about it?”
Harry levels his look with a challenging one. “I don’t know,” he pretends to be aloof. “I might do something stupid like kiss you.”
Louis narrows his eyes, huffing as he lightly crosses his arms. There are two small blotches of pink hovering atop his cheeks. Of course, Harry stores away this memory like the millions of others. “Oh no,” he deadpans. “Whatever shall I do?”
“I have morning breath.”
Though he grimaces, Louis doesn’t exactly move away. “I’ve kissed you in w-”
“If you finish that sentence, it’s done. I’m divorcing you,” Harry slips in.
“Drama queen,” mutters Louis. He still searches Harry's eyes imploringly, provocatively .
As if to add to it, Harry pretends to snarl as he tilts his head down and bites down on the side of Louis’s neck. Naturally, Louis jumps against him, nearly leaning against him for a second before wrenching away. “Oi,” he says sharply. “Haven’t you done enough damage already?”
Harry grins with his very teeth.
Louis glares at him.
The thing about Harry is that he can never stop himself when he comes to Louis. His hands itch by his sides and he reaches for him, fingers pressing painfully into the reddened blooms littered around Louis’s neck.
This time, Louis actually scowls and takes a large step back. “I’m never gonna understand your obsession with this,” he mutters. “With your need to bite and re-bite things.”
Things would be a stretch, though. It’s just Louis. There was something so delightful about leaving pieces of himself on Louis for people to see, and something that made him delirious about wanting to keep renewing the same ones till they had to go away from each other again. Maybe it’s a projection of his younger self he hadn’t quite grown out of yet. It’s nothing he’s ashamed of.
While Harry is left smiling to himself, Louis begins to saunter away, muttering to himself. “Have to wear a fucking scarf now, bloody hell-”
Harry whistles at him, just as his retreating back disappears from the kitchen. He waits till Louis glances at him over his shoulder. “Are you forgetting something?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Are you,” he enunciates, blinking. “Forgetting something?”
For one stupidly long minute, Louis stares at him. For that long minute, it’s only a wonder what could be driven into Louis’s thick skull. But at last, recognition softens his features. He dutifully strides back in towards Harry. He leans in close as he always does and Harry puckers his lips, except he presses a kiss to Harry’s cheek this time, thumb brushing under Harry’s pursed lips. “Find yourself a little lip balm, love? You’re looking a bit rough.”
At that, Harry absolutely - very much out of revenge, really- reaches out and presses a bruise on Louis’s collarbone.
He cackles as he watches Louis jump against from his grip, bound away and disappear. “I’ll be back in the evening! What do you want for tea?” then, he quickly follows it up. “Don’t say me, please!”
Outside the kitchen, Louis’s loud and exaggerated ‘damnit’ reverberates through the house. "My plans are ruined!"
The sound of Harry's laugh trails behind him. Almost like symbolism.
The bagels will not go to waste, Harry decides as he’s out of the loo smelling of Louis’s soap. Simply because he’s dramatic like that and he likes to pretend he’s a Victorian heroine clutching onto the entrails of her man’s leftover scent. He also decides to take a drive in the sun in the convertible that’s been collecting dust in the garage.
It’s only between the traffic lights when he pauses on a red, he remembers. He slams on the radio and flicks through the channels before he settles on the one. The static is sucked out by the sound of Louis’s voice filling the air around him. It makes him smile before he can even think of it.
‘You and me until the end, waking up to start again...’
It feels like a lifetime ago when they used to sit around in a studio together and hash out lyrics written with the ink of tears. How it felt like if they couldn’t say what they wanted to say, or if they had to hold on a little tighter, they might just die. They’ve come far from that- both in feeling and time. Harry is in awe of how it is so casual now. How love and devotion come like a quiet custom between them and the songs didn’t need to scream it out. It was as simple as ‘I write songs for a living, and most of them are about you just because. Because I can’t not write about you’.
There’s a shadow of a sad smile playing on Harry’s lips as he rings back to the beat dropping and Louis singing the chorus- an obvious ode to them, blanketed by the ease Louis tends to present it with.
The red light turns green and Harry is zooming away, Louis singing along like he was right beside him. He nods his head along to the piano backing until it fades out into the radio host’s voice. “If you’re tuning in right now, that was Silver Tongues by Louis Tomlinson, who’s in the studio with us!”
The crowd-cheering goes up once and dims as Louis says hello.
“His new live album has been amazing,” the nice host chatters away. “Top notch. Remind me what it’s called again, Louis?”
Louis’s staccato laugh is tinny through the speakers. ”Cheeky bugger! It’s called LIVE.”
“You’re having me on,” he says dryly. “Speaking of, it’s a sunny day in London. 26 degrees. Perfect to get your picnic blankets out and nip off to Hyde. But,” he holds out the word. “Louis Tomlinson is wearing a turtleneck.”
The sudden turn of dialogue punches a laugh out of Harry. If they only knew.
“F- Bugger off!”
The radio host laughs.
“It’s called fashion, mate! You wouldn't know anythin' about it judging by what you've got on!”
Harry drowns out the rest of their banter for a bask in the sun, smiling as he pulls his sunnies down from his hair and sets them down on the bridge of his nose before racing down the empty motorway before him.