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They are born.
When Harry, all of six months old, first turns up on the doorstep of the orphanage – veins vibrant blue under his translucent skin, wide eyes glinting green as marbles – he’s the tiniest, most malnourished thing they’ve ever seen. Well, aside from one-year-old Louis, who seems to have some kind of developmental delay.
And from the moment Louis toddles over to Harry as militantly as a midget baby in a pastel blue onesie can, snatches his dummy right out of his mouth and pushes him over onto the tiled floor, only to receive a slightly gummy, slightly wobbly smile in return…well, they become inseparable. Louis instantly takes it upon his tiny self to look after Harry better than any of the nursemaids and volunteers, who come and go and stare at them pitifully, ever could. Sickly Nicholas, with his allergies to everything and his unfortunate lung infection, finds that out the hard way when he accidentally takes Harry’s bottle during naptime. The bite marks along his arms don’t disappear for weeks. The fear in his eyes remains for years.
To Harry, Louis becomes his blanky, his soft toy; a minute plug to fill up a massively gaping hole. To Louis, Harry is his brand-new life’s new-found purpose.
Yet they’re as different as two children can be. Harry’s quiet, a little slow, but impossibly sweet. His large, round eyes charm the women who work there, who take turns enveloping him into their warm, pillowy embraces and bringing him extra treats, which he magnanimously shares with Louis. The only extra things Louis ever receives are sighs of exasperation and time outs on the bottom step of the staircase. The middle-aged women don’t understand how an innocent child such as Harry could end up being best friends with a demonic thing like Louis. The thing is, Louis doesn’t mean to make smart-aleck remarks and push the other kids over in the sandpit, he really doesn’t. But sometimes, all the happiness and anger and sadness and everything is too much for his small body to contain and he just has to let it out. Harry spends a good amount of time sneaking Louis food when he’s been sent to his room without dinner and sitting with Louis on the stairs until he’s allowed to play again, but he doesn’t mind. To five-year-old Harry, these times seem like the best of all – when it’s just the two of them, just him and Louis.
They, like all children, grow.
Along the way, a middle-aged couple who want to adopt come to the orphanage when Louis is around eight years old, but looking about six. They pick his little, dirt-smeared face out of the thirty gathered, naïvely expecting a warm welcome. Louis gets dragged into the director’s office for a first meeting, where he kicks the woman in the shin and sticks his tongue out at the man, declaring them both to be the ugliest people he’s ever met, and no way would they be able to pass for his parents, and ends up spending another long afternoon wearing a hole in the naughty step.
Tiny and passive Niall, all rounded cheeks and an endless pit of a stomach, goes home with them instead, dumpling-shaped hopes for happiness shining in his eyes. The other children’s eyes watching from their bedroom windows follow them unblinkingly along the drive and through the gates, trying not to think next time, next time maybe. They know all too well that next times are few and far between.
“Why didn’t you go with them?” Harry tentatively asks Louis later that night, as they do a puzzle together in the rec room, trying to match up pieces of the sky. “Don’t you want a family?”
“Stupid,” Louis scoffs, gathering clouds and sunshine. “I already have a family.” And all Harry knows is that his entire being is being filled with emanating joy.
And so, Harry and Louis continue to grow together. Harry attains a sort of waif-like form that matches his mildness, and Louis remains soft and deceivingly cute. Louis finds that he doesn’t have to defend Harry much anymore – Harry smiles indiscriminately at everyone and they can’t help but to smile back. And Louis thinks it’s like he’s spreading sunlight with every crease of his eyes and every dimpling of his cheeks.
They are ten.
At age ten the orphanage organises a kind of camp for the children. They’re taken far out into the woods around the property to pitch tents, barbeque skewers and play murder in the dark. The deep wild woods are the perfect playground, with coniferous trees rising haphazardly around them in warm greens and yellows, and speckling the ground with leaves and patchwork light. At nine o’clock they sit around the campfire and a couple of the other kids, Matt and Nick, who’s older now and only slightly scarred, tell them of the witch of the woods. Scorned by an ungrateful lover, she had killed herself on the hill that stands dark and ominous above them, and now wanders the forest looking for innocents who will love her for eternity. The younger, the better, Nick says, glancing meaningfully at them both. Louis and Harry walk quietly back to their tent, arms pressed together and jumping slightly at every snap and rustle and hoot. They lay in the dark, eyes wide open and sleeping bags clutched tightly in white-knuckled hands, watching the branches of the trees sketch moving spirits on the canvas until Louis can’t take it anymore.
“Haz?” he says slowly. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah,” is Harry’s soft reply. “What?”
“I need to take a piss.”
“Then go,” Harry hisses.
“But…then I would have to leave you all alone,” Louis says, hedging.
There’s a moment of silence before Harry says considerately, “Well, it’s pretty dark out there, so I suppose I can’t let you get lost.”
What kind of protection they think they can offer each other against a vengeful ghost is a mystery to them both, but holding each other’s hands and giggling as they sprint into the trees and back, there’s a hope, long taken for granted; as long as they’re together, everything would be okay.
They spend their tenth year chasing tails in the yard, catching grasshoppers in plastic containers, sword fighting along the paths to school, and making tents out of their bed sheets, torches raised and walls illuminating the shadow. Under a careful, watchful gaze, Harry grows up stronger and taller, and the soft golden glow that seemed to surround him from birth becomes a brilliant beacon of light. And Louis, still small for his age, makes up for his height with determination and courage and an unwavering loyalty – unless there are ghosts involved.
They are no longer children.
When they begin middle school they meet other kids who are deemed worthy enough to be allowed into their small circle – quiet Zayn, who’s scowly-faced on the outside and sillier than Louis on the inside; and careful, sweet Liam, who manages to talk them out of most of the messes that Louis gets them into. They play soccer and dare each other to do stupid things, and laugh loudly in rolling messes on the ground, because they’re young and invincible and they don’t give a damn about anything. Sometimes Harry and Liam will run off and Louis and Zayn will find them later sitting under a tree just talking, of all the boring, mindless things. But Louis doesn’t mind, because at the end of the day they can walk home together in complete silence, and he knows that’s worth more than a whole day of conversation. And, although they don’t really get it, Liam and Zayn know that it will always be Louis and Harry on one side of the table and them on the other, and that’s okay, too.
Summer is Louis’ favourite time of the year. Others swelter and waver in the somehow always unprecedented heat, but he just soaks it up, drinks it in like a plant churning out oxygen. The day that he looks forward to the most is the orphanage’s Ocean Day, the third Monday of July, when the carers pack them all into a cramped, sweaty bus without air-conditioning and drive them to the nearest beach. Zayn and Liam whine and beg their parents for days to let them go, but one wide-eyed request from twelve-year-old Harry seals the deal. When they reach the coarse-sanded beach, they run down it in hand-me-down board shorts and dive head first into the freezing surf, open mouths washed out with seawater.
After lunch Zayn suggests playing hide and seek, although Liam points out that there aren’t many places to hide on the long, flat beach.
“That’s where the challenge is!” Louis insists stubbornly, determined to back up his partner in crime, and they’re all in too good of a mood to argue.
Harry draws the short stick and is made ‘it’, closing his eyes and counting slowly and obnoxiously. He then looks down at the ground and follows the footprints to the pier, where Zayn is hiding behind one of the thick posts.
“Uh, you know, maybe this game wasn’t such a great idea after all,” he says sheepishly.
Liam’s not too hard to find either, trying to blend in with a bunch of the younger children building sandcastles.
“Did you really think that would work?” Harry asks doubtfully.
Liam shrugs his knobbly twelve-year-old shoulders. “It was either that or pretending to help the grownups pack up the food. And like hell I’m working on a holiday.”
Louis turns out to be more difficult to find. In fact, after half an hour of tireless searching, it begins to appear near impossible. His footprints run in dizzying circles and eventually fade into the surf, and none of the other children seem to have spotted him either. After another fifteen minutes Harry begins to really worry, and they run up and down the beach calling his name, shouting that the game is long over and he can come out already, he’s won!
“Maybe we should tell someone,” Liam says as the minutes pass painfully quick, and Harry can only nod against the lump forming in his throat, bottom lip caught in his teeth.
The adults join the search and so do the lifeguards, asking everyone and anyone if they’ve seen a small boy with spiky hair and worn-out board shorts. They’re halfway down the beach when a little girl in pigtails and a pair of purple ruffled swimmers points towards an over-turned dinghy, half pulled up on the dunes. Underneath the boat, curled into a foetal position, folded up like a picnic chair, is Louis fast asleep.
“You didn’t find me,” Louis grumbles to Harry, rubbing his eyes wearily, after being sternly reprimanded by nearly all involved, words like “irresponsible” and “reckless” still ringing in his ears.
“I’m sorry,” Harry says, and he doesn’t get why he still feels like crying even though Louis is there right in front of him, obviously fine.
Louis looks at him and doesn’t say anything more, just takes him by the hand and walks him over to the other kids, who are gathered to watch the fireworks over the harbour. Zayn and Liam have saved them a spot, and they punch Louis in the shoulder and tease him about all the trouble he’s caused, and don’t ask why Harry’s attached to him like a limpet.
As the lights explode above them, tearing through the darkness and casting rainbow colours onto the deep black ocean and hazy grey smoke into the endless sky, Harry weighs the warm, solid, slightly sticky hand holding his, and hopes he’ll never, ever have to let go.
They are older than their years.
Louis is fourteen when he finds out that his parents have died – parents that had no intention of ever meeting him, that had only held him once and glanced at him before giving him up, that had probably gone on to have other lives and other children, all without him. He only finds out because one of them (or both, he’s not sure) has left some small, miniscule inheritance to him – from guilt, perhaps? – which gets placed into a trust fund. But even knowing this doesn’t stop a small hurt blossoming in his chest, and Harry can only watch as Louis draws into himself, isolating himself. He spends most of his time alone, and snaps whenever anyone besides Harry gets too close. Yet even with Harry, he crawls inwards away from prying questions, and Harry knows it’s selfish, but he’s never felt so isolated in his life. He’s so used to Louis slipping into bed after a bad day at school, slotting himself into his neck when he doesn’t have to words to express how he feels. Now there’s a cold tightness to his movements, in his smiles, and even though his everything is telling him to press in close, he’s so scared that Louis will turn even further away.
He doesn’t understand, because his parents had left him cold and abandoned inside a rubbish bin, and all the parental love he’s ever felt has come second-hand from paid caregivers. But he thinks he’s lucky, because while the others at the orphanage fall into the trappings of feeling unloved, Harry has never, ever felt that. The one burning a hole through his chest every moment Louis seems to slip away is the only love he has ever considered real.
It’s their music teacher Mr Harrison that ends up being his saviour in a way. Music is the only class Louis ever pays any attention to – is the only one he can manage to concentrate in for longer than five minutes, frankly, besides sport. He seems to have an innate, natural rhythm and a voice that can hit all the right notes in a high, raspy tone. His and Harry’s voices seem to go well together, too, and it makes Harry sit up a little straighter, cheeks slightly flushed, with every compliment they receive from their classmates.
On his last day of teaching, Mr Harrison hands over his guitar to Louis who, for once in his life, is made speechless.
“Don’t give up,” he says, and they seem like the exact right words at the exact right time.
Louis dedicates himself to learning the guitar like he has nothing else in his life. He spends hours after school picking at the strings with his fingers until they blister and bleed and harden. Melodies flow clumsily, humming drowns out the squeals of the younger children stampeding down stairs, notes are hastily scribbled on paper, and Louis’ growing bangs fall over his eyes only to be irritably pushed back again and again. And suddenly, when Harry sits quietly and looks at Louis – as he stares and stares and falls into the unknown – he thinks there’s something there. Bright and sharp and blinding but still softly angelic, and Harry doesn’t know why everyone else can’t see that there’s something there.
One day Louis puts down his guitar, looks at Harry with brilliant blue determined eyes, and says, “I’m going to make it big one day. I’m going to get out of this place and see the world, and I’m going to take you with me. Just you watch.”
And Harry doesn’t doubt him for a moment.
They are soon sixteen.
They’re walking home from school by the forest after football practice one evening in September, light that’s barely there filtering through the trees and casting tribal patterns across their faces. Harry feels wild and free, like he wants to throw his hands to the heavens and scream – as if any moment he’s going to break free from the ground like a stringless kite and fly far, far away, like he knows he’s meant to in the not-so-distant future. As he does just that, voice cutting through the thick air, the sky cracks in two and rain – dazzling, life-giving rain – begins to pelt down on them mercilessly.
Louis barks with laughter at the sight of a shocked, bone-soaked Harry with arms held high, and runs for him, grabs at him, drags him and pushes him forward, his arm around Harry’s shoulders and his bag held vainly over their heads. They stumble through the grass, laughing giddily and muddying their feet, until they reach the cover of a large oak tree, which they fall heavily against, their backs lined adjacent to the mottled, ridged trunk.
There’s adrenalin coursing through Harry’s veins. When he turns to see Louis, cotton shirt transparent and sticking against his skin, and rainwater dripping off the tips of his hair and along the line of his jaw and from the end of his nose, and he just—
Sometimes Louis tells Harry that there’s a bigger world out there just waiting to be explored; that it’s so much more than they could ever imagine in their small, insignificant town. But right now Harry doesn’t believe it. He’s got more than he’s ever wanted right here.
In the brilliant rain, trembling fingers brushing the drops from Louis’ face and green eyes staring wide and wordless and full of wonder, Harry presses his lips softly against Louis’. And there’s a smile forming on Louis’ mouth as he winds his arms around Harry’s waist and pulls him forward with a promise that Harry’s been holding onto since he was twelve.
Louis is his first kiss, and his second, and his third, and his everything. They spend the next two years creeping into each other’s rooms when everyone’s already asleep, and then sneaking back out before they wake. Running back and forth and finding hiding spots where no one would ever find them; soft, secret places where no one would ever know. And as Harry curls into the endless warmth of Louis’ side, keeping time to the beats of his heart, he thinks, the word perfect doesn’t really cut it.
But they aren’t teenagers forever. In the blink of an eye they’ve transformed from small children, flittering away sunny, summer days like they could last forever, to almost adults, longing for just a little bit more time.
They are, before long, all grown up.
In his eighteenth year, Louis readies himself to leave with a plan to make his way to London and fulfil his dream. He’s never going to pass his A levels, but they were never the goal, everyone knows that. The caregivers who had spent all that time shaking their heads at him and wishing him gone, cling to him tearfully and tell him to write, to never forget them. Harry holds on just as tight.
“Come as soon as you can,” Louis whispers into his shoulder. Harry can only nod silently, trying hard to memorise everything about this moment, instead of thinking of all the other moments that were theirs and theirs alone, and can now never be returned to. Louis tilts his head so that his nose brushes against Harry’s cheek, and Harry can feel his lips on his jaw, where they kiss him warm and sweet, and he doesn’t want him to leave, he doesn’t.
Then Louis picks up his guitar and walks towards the gate, turning around for a final salute and looking for all the world like a soldier setting off for war. And then he’s gone.
The first month is relatively easy. Harry dedicates himself to his studies, his exams looming up ahead. He might not be the smartest kid at school but he comes close, and he’s smart enough to know that he can’t rely on others for the rest of his life. With no distractions, Liam and Zayn by his side to keep him on track, and a new sense of responsibility, Harry aces his exams and gets into the education department of London South Bank University, even managing to score a scholarship. The only thing to do after that is work as hard as possible for the next four months, doing a number of part time jobs so that he can actually afford to live in London. He really shouldn’t have time to think about Louis, but everything’s a reminder – the shirt he left behind, the crack in the wall where he hit it with a chair that one time in a fit of anger, the smell of him on his pillow.
At night Harry dreams of Louis, a mixture of flashbacks and hopes and things he’s sure he’s remembered all wrong. In his dream Louis is tackling him in the yard, being red-carded in soccer (he never did learn to control his emotions), and just there, sitting in his room with a mischievous grin plastered on his face like he did every single day that he took for granted.
“Hey, play that song again?” dream Harry whispers in Louis’ ear, making himself comfortable against his shoulder. Louis shrugs a little because Harry’s breath and curls tickle.
And then a song flows and echoes off white plaster walls, telling a story of sword fights and growing up and ghosts in the dark, and unforgettable, rainy September afternoons.
They think they are ready to face the world.
From the first moment Louis arrived in London he had struggled as a young musician with no connections and hardly any money, going from busking to bars to every single record company he could find.
He receives many a discouraging reason for the lack of interest, ranging from “Your sound just isn’t very current,” to “If you would just agree to wear some sequins…”
Through it all he hangs onto the day when Harry arrives, marking them off on a handmade calendar on the back of a scrap of cardboard. One month, 16 days, 9 days, two…
Just before the long-awaited day Louis wakes up and looks at his mess of a room in panic. It had been difficult finding a job, let alone a place to live, and it’s not exactly in the most welcoming state. This fact isn’t lessened by Louis’ piles of clothes and his somewhat chronic aversion to putting things back where they belong. Louis shoves his things unceremoniously into the corner of his wardrobe and rolls them up in his futon, and then out again when he realises how absurd that is. The part of his brain that remains logical reminds him that Harry’s seen him at his worst, and his worst is really nothing compared to a few old takeaway containers and a slightly shut-in hoarder vibe. But it’s just… it’s been five whole months.
You’re being ridiculous, Louis tells himself sternly, giving himself a mental slap across the face. Get it the fuck together, seriously.
He still goes out and buys new sheets.
On the day Harry is set to arrive, Louis is waiting at the train station an hour earlier than scheduled, hands shoved in pockets and walking up and down painted lines. People bump into him in annoyance, and more than once has an attendant given him a distant up and down, as if determining the likelihood of a bomb strapped under a hoodie.
And then, finally – oh hell, finally – Harry is stepping onto the platform, brand new luggage trailing behind, and owl eyes blinking, glancing up and scanning the crowd. His right hand comes up to push away too-long untameable curls, cheeks sucking in slightly, and Louis’ mouth goes drier than the Atacama Desert.
He’s taller, gotten impossibly broader somehow in the few months they’ve been apart, probably from the construction work he’s been doing, Louis thinks absently. His torso stretches down under his loose teal V-neck into tight black jeans and endless legs and—
Fuck. Fuck, has he missed him. Like water and air and all those other clichés. He’s just missed him so much.
Louis breaks through the crowd, heart shuddering wildly in his chest, and then Harry catches his eyes with a smile. And suddenly, the whole platform – the whole planet, really – is irrelevant.
The vastness separating them disappears, and Louis reaches out to slide fingers along Harry’s tanned neck and sturdy shoulders, and Harry’s hands are already at his hips, pressing insistent half-moons, his bag discarded on the ground with a thud. Their faces stay barely an inch apart, and for a moment they just stop. Eyes closed, Louis breathes Harry in deeply, and he smells of freshly cut grass and the ocean and summer and everything that he’s ever truly loved. He can feel the hole in his chest, left gaping and cold only five months before, being filled in through artery and chamber and it’s like it’s learning to beat once more.
And then Harry leans forward, body curving to wrap around Louis, nose nudging against his cheek, and Louis’ chin tilts upwards and lips meet. He kisses him; so slowly and softly that it almost breaks his skin.
“Hey,” Harry murmurs against his neck when they finally pull away, and every titter of distaste and disapproval can be heard around them. “Five months was a long time, you know?”
“I know,” Louis sighs.
“Don’t leave me for that long again, okay?”
“Never.”
They find out that maybe they are still just kids.
It’s far from picture-perfect – in fact, it’s harder than either of them could have ever expected. Only a year after moving to London, the money that had been placed in a trust fund for Louis has mostly run out at an astonishing pace, and soon they know how it feels to be really, truly abandoned. Louis works double-shifts waiting tables and serving too bitter, too hot coffee, and Harry begins tutoring between classes in an effort to make ends meet. They come home and eat pot noodles and collapse on their thrifted couch and barely have enough energy to talk. But at the end of the day they roll into each other and smile, and Louis tells Harry that it won’t be like this forever – he’ll be famous, just wait and see. Just wait a little bit longer.
One Sunday afternoon in the beginning of June, Louis places another demo CD carefully in its cover, making sure every word ink-stamped on the paper insert is perfect. After twenty-three rejection letters, he’s still trying to find someone willing to give him a chance. Let this be the one, he thinks, putting all his effort, all his hope and might into the shiny disc, holding it between his hands like a prayer.
Harry’s lying on the futon on the floor, textbook held above his head as he tries futilely to study in the unexpectedly burgeoning heat. Understanding the zone of proximal development for each child is necessary for applying the appropriate scaffolding, he repeats to himself, but the words seem to only buzz around his ears like persistent sand flies. He looks out the windows at the sun shining brightly, ignorant to his plight, and fights the urge to throw his book across the room, because damn it, university textbooks are unreasonably expensive.
Sighing loudly, he turns his head to see what the other is doing, only to find Louis is already staring at him with an amused expression.
“Studying hard, are we?” Louis says, eyebrow raised.
“You know me,” Harry says lazily. “Always study, study, study. Books, books, books, etc.”
Louis laughs. “Yeah, I do know you, and I’m not sure it goes anything like that.”
He walks over to Harry and climbs over him, before settling down on Harry’s thighs.
“Kiss it,” Louis orders, holding out the CD.
“What?” Harry says, trying not to smirk. “I’d rather kiss something else, to be honest.”
“Kiss it for luck,” Louis emphasises, flicking him on the forehead. “Then we’ll talk.”
Harry gives an exaggerated groan and props himself up on his elbows. “Jeez, you’re acting like me.”
Louis leans forward and places the CD between their faces – five whole irritating centimetres separating them.
“Haz, just fucking kiss, the fucking CD.”
Rolling his eyes, Harry presses his lips to the plastic, leaving a rapidly fading mark of kiss-shaped heat. “Satisfied?”
And suddenly, Louis grabs the back of Harry’s neck and closes the distance, pressing down and returning the favour, roughly, wetly leaving his own mark.
Then all too quickly he’s moving away, against the grip of Harry’s fingers trailing down his cotton shirt.
With a wicked grin Louis says smugly, “Now I’m satisfied.”
They are old enough to know the real world.
Luck, like most things, can take time to change.
Unfortunately, patience was never really Louis’ strong suit. Why couldn’t he have dessert now? Why couldn’t they just let him back on the field now? Why couldn’t school finish now? Why isn’t he famous right fucking now?
He tries to push the feelings away at first. Instant success stories might as well be a result drunken Chinese whispers, and scouting music producers are more like good ol’ Nessie – heard of, but never seen. He consoles himself with the cheers at the bars he plays at, and the fact that there are only so many more recording companies that can say no twice.
Harry says, “Don’t worry about it, it’ll happen when it happens,” with all-too-carefree reassuring smiles.
But for Louis the time limit’s up. It’s been three years. Three whole years of waiting and rejection and failure, and even though he’s only twenty-one years old, he’s beginning to feel like he’s forty. He wants to be positive, but he’s doing everything he can think of – at some point you have to realise that maybe if things aren’t happening, they never will. And maybe that promise that you made seven years ago will prove you a liar.
Eventually he feels the sum of everything building up inside him once more; like an earthquake, like an impending thunderstorm. They churn and they pull and every moment he’s on edge, trying hard to hold them in. It’s so inexplicably hard, and he wishes he was five again and he could just throw them all up and then sit on the bottom step until his heart stops racing and his hands stop shaking.
And, somehow, Harry’s still there. Always smiling, always upbeat, always supportive. Yet, somehow, instead of lightening the load, it weighs down on him.
At night, Louis turns and clutches Harry’s shoulder while he’s sleeping, and pushes back his hair to whisper in his ear – “Why are you still here? Why haven’t you left me yet?”
One night, after a gig is cancelled in favour of a more popular band, Louis comes home with that storm spinning in his chest and thunder and rain ready to pour out of his mouth.
“How was it?” Harry asks, looking up briefly from his textbook as Louis shuffles his shoes off at the door. “Did you have fun?”
“It’s not even 9:00pm, Harry. What the fuck do you think?”
Harry glances at the clock. “Sorry, I didn’t even notice.”
“They sent me home,” Louis says, so irritated and not even knowing why, because it’s not like this is the first time this has happened. He goes to the fridge to get a beer and Harry follows him dutifully, shuffling socked-feet across the floor.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just a one night gig.”
“Harry, all I have are one night gigs,” Louis says, barely holding in his frustration.
“Yeah, but there will be more,” Harry says consolingly, reaching out to touch Louis’ hand. “There are always more.”
Louis snatches his hand away, and it’s like the floodgates are opening – the deluge breaking the banks.
“So?” Louis yells. “One more night followed by one more night? Harry, that can’t be my life! This can’t be our life! I don’t want this anymore!”
Harry backs away into the kitchen bench and looks down, wayward brown curls falling over his eyes.
After a moment’s pause he murmurs quietly, “But I like our life.”
“Well I don’t!” Louis shouts, voice filled with vitriol, and he wants to reach over and push Harry’s hair away, wants him to face this.
“This isn’t enough anymore! I just– I can’t live like this!”
He tosses the unopened can across the room, and flees the apartment without waiting to see it skitter and fizz.
*
*
“I’m sorry,” Louis says, guilt and self-hate and other worthless emotions sitting uncomfortably in his belly. “I didn’t mean to yell. I never want to do that. I love you, Haz.”
“That’s okay,” Harry says immediately, all forgiving, hand reaching out to gently encompass his knee. It makes Louis want to burst out and scream again – things aren’t okay, they aren’t, why can’t you see that?
“I love you, too.”
Instead of screaming he just nods and lets Harry wrap his arms around his waist and pull him towards his chest, trying hard not to feel resentful at the warmth and unconditional love that only serve to remind him that he’s not good enough.
They reach an inevitable conclusion.
Sorry hardly ever makes things better. It’s almost as bad as saying nothing at all, because it just gives them an excuse to ignore the real issue – just makes it easier to bide time while the tension builds.
One fight had turned into two, had turned into three, had become more frequent then Harry could count. Even worse was when the fighting stopped and all that was left was the silence, stark and sullen where it used to be calm.
There were good times, too, Harry had to keep reminding himself. Like that first moment he had stepped off the train and into Louis’ waiting arms, and everything amiss with the world had settled back in its rightful place. And when they got their new apartment together, and christened every single room with warmth and laughter. And those quiet times at home when Louis would pick up his guitar and just play and not fret, and Harry would lean back and remember, remember, remember.
But most days Harry could hardly recall what it had been like in the orphanage, where things were stable and secure and predictable. Louis was away more than he was even there, and when he was it hardly seemed the same. What had been complete acceptance and understanding between them had slowly turned into unvoiced accusations and frustrations.
And then, it had happened.
“I didn’t want it to be like this,” Louis had said one evening during Harry’s last year of university, as they sat on crates in their tiny studio apartment eating pot noodles in silence and nursing beers in clammy hands. “I thought I would have made it by now.”
“These things take time,” Harry had replied quietly, no longer knowing what to say that hadn’t already been said a thousand times. The space between them had long been filled with the shame of broken promises and well-meaning support pushed aside.
“I wanted to show you the world,” Louis had insisted. “It was going to be you and me, Haz. I was meant to make it big.”
“That can wait,” Harry had replied doggedly.
I don’t care about that, was what Harry had really wanted to say. I don’t care about any of that, I just want to be with you.
And then, the words that Harry had been waiting for.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore, Harry.”
—and;
“I don’t think we can be together right now.”
Now when he looks back he thinks himself stupid for ever believing things would never change. Louis’ eyes were darker than he had ever seen them that day, and he had left without a touch, without a kiss. For a long time Harry would lie in his bed at night going through all the moments that Louis could finally, possibly be with him that weren’t right now, until exhaustion took over and he was left tangled in blankets in a fitful sleep. It takes longer for him to stop hating himself for not being exactly what Louis needed, just as he hadn’t been when Louis’ parents had died when he was just fourteen. What finally takes its place is a slow burning sense of betrayal and abandonment, because above all else Louis and him had been family, and once upon a time that had been more than enough.
But life moves on regardless of his feelings, and Harry finds that yes, although it’s painful, he can survive without Louis being there by his side. Or at least he’s going to damn well try.
They live as best as they can.
The pain of leaving Harry is unparalleled and unbearable. Everything around Louis seems to be a sadistic reminder. He travels to France, needing to escape and needing a new perspective. All he’s ever known is Harry, all he’s ever had they’ve shared, so he thinks he should go out and experience everything else that the world has to offer. Or at least, that’s his excuse.
When he arrives, he’s like a fish out of water, and he almost immediately wants to turn back. Everything is colder, lonelier, more expensive, more miserable. In Paris he gets by on minimal conversational French and the others’ superior education, and once again finds himself both playing and serving in bars. But it feels different this time. In his separation, his desolation and ultimate isolation, his lyrics take on a whole new depth. Every note sung is filled with an almost tangible heartbreak that he cannot bear to confront at any other time. For the first time, he thinks he really understands what he is singing about.
The patrons notice. Soon, despite the language barrier, he is gathering crowds too big to fit in the tiny pubs, and after his shows he is approached by English and American and other expats saying, “I understand. I get it. There’s nothing like home.”
But this time, Louis is in no rush. He wants to spend time honing his craft and just write and write and write. And each song is like a lesson in therapy – this is where I went wrong. This is where we went wrong. This is how I wish I could make it right again.
Two years later, after a gig on a Saturday night, a producer comes forward, emerging myth-like from the crowd, and Louis knows his life is finally going to change.
He races home in excited bewilderment and flings open the door. And stares into the silence.
They never stop yearning.
Harry finishes his degree and begins work as a primary school teacher in northern London, teaching a rowdy assortment of temperamental nine-year-olds. He thinks if it wasn’t for his previous experience with large groups of over-excited children then he probably wouldn’t survive. The pay isn’t brilliant, but he’s good at saving and makes enough to get a deposit on a house and a lifelong mortgage. Zayn moves to London too, drawn by the promise of more, and they kept in touch and life is pretty much normal.
But he doesn’t forget Louis. He doesn’t even try.
One day, out of the blue, Liam calls. He’s moved to London for business and he wants to catch up, get lunch sometime. But in the middle of their perfectly normal conversation, Liam suddenly blurts out, fingers clutching nervously at the café’s blue tablecloth, “Harry, go out with me.”
“But I’m already out with you,” Harry says slowly, confused, knife stopping midway through grilled mackerel.
“I mean go out with me. On a date,” Liam says, cheeks burning red.
“Oh,” is Harry’s only response.
“Um, you don’t have to give me an answer straight away,” Liam says nervously. “Just think on it and let me know, okay?”
“Alright,” Harry answers, as seriously as he possibly can, because this is a very long and important friendship that could be easily broken. “I will.”
He calls Zayn when he gets home, because he needs advice and there’s no one else who would really understand the decision he’s about to make.
“I still miss him,” Harry says simply down the line, and there’s no need to explain who him is. “I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I still dream of him sometimes.”
“If you love someone, let them go,” Zayn begins to say, but Harry cuts him off with, “Don’t give me that butterfly bird bullshit.”
“Just…” Harry sighs. “Just tell me what to do.”
“Fine,” Zayn says, exasperated. “Give him a chance. What have you got to lose?”
Liam sounds surprised when Harry calls later that night and gives him his answer, and they quickly arrange a date – dinner, movie, walking, talking. Nothing complicated because they’ve known each other for half their lives and it’s already got the potential for being more complicated than either of them could handle.
And it’s a great night. They laugh and talk and reminisce until thoughts stray too far into the past and Liam drags them towards the present. It’s nice. And Harry feels content and safe.
But.
At the end of the night, standing under streetlights, cold stones shifting uncomfortably beneath their feet and the world still moving at its regular pace:
“I’m sorry,” Harry says, and he’s never meant it more in his life. “I shouldn’t have ever said yes.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Liam says, and his smile is sincere, if sad. “I get it. I just had to know. I’m glad you gave me a chance.”
“I’m glad you gave me one, too,” Harry says.
They are in a different time.
Soon, seven years have passed since they left the orphanage.
It’s early December when Zayn calls Harry out on a Saturday; they haven’t seen each other for a couple of weeks because of Zayn’s new job as a DJ at a club in Soho, where he works odd hours during the week and becomes impossible to reach during the weekends.
They’re sitting in a pasta bar, and Harry’s just finished regaling Zayn with tales of how his kids painted half the school hallway blue/turned the local swimming pool into a frog pond/began a revolution to declare Fridays uniform-free day, while trying not to sound like a smugly proud parent (because, obviously, his kids were the coolest nine-year-olds ever), when Zayn gives him the news.
“I saw Louis,” Zayn says, and Harry almost chokes on his crab linguini. “He was at the club. He did a show and he said he was going off to LA for, like, a couple weeks to finish recording his album. He sounds like he’s finally got things worked out. There were a lot of fans there, Haz.”
“That’s great,” and that’s about all that Harry can manage to say.
“He was asking about you,” Zayn continues, holding his gaze through black-rimmed glasses. Harry merely purses his lips.
“I think he still lo—”
And then Harry has to interrupt, because if he hears any more he might scream.
“Zayn, don’t say it,” he says warningly. “Don’t you know how long it took for me to get over him?”
“No,” Zayn says, eyes narrowed. “Don’t give me that, Harry. You can lie to yourself all you want, but you can’t lie to me. You were never over him.”
In the middle of the bar, all the emotions that he has sworn to never feel again come fighting towards the surface, digging and clawing their way out, and it hurts the same, just like always.
“Just don’t, Zayn. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“He wants to see you,” Zayn insists. “He sang this song…”
“So?” hisses Harry, and he’s not going to cry like he’s one of his kids, because he hasn’t needed saving since he was ten years old. “Who gives about some song sung in a club? Why can’t he come and tell me himself? Why hasn’t he tried to contact me these past three years? Just…just, why couldn’t he…just…”
Harry’s hand comes down on the table in frustration, unintentionally skittering their forks onto the floor. The waiters and other patrons turn towards them at the noise, but Harry can’t bring himself to apologise.
“It’s not all on him, Harry, you know that,” Zayn says quietly after a moment’s pause. “You didn’t try to contact him either.”
Harry refuses to raise his gaze from the polished rings on their wooden table, mouth set in a tight line.
Zayn stares at him and sighs, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper decorated in smudged black ink, and sliding it across the table in front of Harry. It has a date, time and the name of a bar.
A minute later Harry is taking the scrap of paper and walking out of the restaurant.
They meet again.
It’s raining outside, and it comes down hard like shrapnel, making the roof come alive.
It’s five past seven, and Harry’s had his jacket on since six, although it feels like he’s been waiting all week. He stands in front of the door, his hand hovering over the handle, before backing away, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Amongst the lint his fingers find a piece of paper, placed there carefully despite the words already being smudged into indecipherability, and slips its crumpled form into his hands. It calms him for a moment, because he’s here, he’s here, and so is Harry, and it hasn’t been that way for a very long time.
When he stops to think about it, it’s almost impossible to believe that Louis has been away from him this long. From his tottering first steps to the moment they’d left, he’d always been there – always steady, always close, and unwavering like the strongest heartbeat.
As he steps outside, closing the door behind him, the rain peters to a stop. And although it’s dark, Harry can imagine the clouds breaking apart, letting a little light through.
*
Inside the lights are dim and the bodies warm. He grabs a drink, downs it fast and buys another before he can think better of it. On the stage there are a couple of men in black shirts carting gear back and forth and a guy dressed in plaid picks up a familiar guitar, testing a few chords and turning knobs on a sound box.
By his third drink he unintentionally finds his way near the front of the crowd, a little to the side, and there’s a girl with soft dark hair smiling at him and asking him if he’s here alone, and he’s so amazing, when I heard September it just spoke to me, it’s like he really gets it, you know?, and then everything’s too overwhelming and he’s beginning to regret drinking so fast.
Suddenly the room goes black and the people around him have raised their voices, moving forward and crushing him into the waves of adoration and anticipation.
A beat. Another. A G major strummed slow and soft. An approaching roar. And then the outline of an anti-angel in a jean jacket.
And low, not yet confident.
A lilt and a crest.
And—
It’s been three hours since I left,
With my key still lying on the bench,
And my guitar on the floor near our bed.
And my heart no longer
In my chest.
The girl beside him has a hand latched to his arm and an elbow in his rib, and the drink has disappeared from his grasp, but he can’t remember putting it down.
And do you still have my key?
A small memento you’ve deigned to keep,
To remember a time when I was home; ‘cause for me
Your picture’s still the background
Of my phone.
Casting its harsh glare, the lights turn, swinging out towards the audience, and his eyes are drawn, like an undefined line seeking its endgame.
And maybe you’re the home
I’ll seek a little down the track.
But just in case you won’t…
I’ll ask September to take me back.
There’s a smile on Louis’ lips as he sings, and it’s small and it’s sad, but it’s just for him. And even as Harry’s scream of “You hurt me!” cuts across the syncing chants, he knows it’s really meant to be “we were stupid and young and naïve and we hurt each other. And that’s okay.”
Louis plays on, eyes crinkling to a close and every emotion that he’s ever tried to keep hidden etched into his features and sinking heavily into his words. And Harry thinks, there are a lot of things he’s learnt over the years; like that it’s okay to want things and to expect things, he knows that now. It’s okay to believe in forever and it’s okay to never let go, and it’s okay to be upset when things don’t go according to plan.
Later, with a beautiful boy standing in front of him, but already bleeding himself into his future in the same way he makes up the lifeblood of his past, he thinks that maybe it’s also okay to forgive and ask forgiveness even when you’d thought that you’d never have that chance.
“Hi,” Louis says, reaching out to press palms in a tentative hold.
Because there it is. A never-forgotten promise in a clasped hand and linked fingers. And despite everything, this will always be okay.
But just in case you won’t,
Please tell September,
To take me back.
They are here, now.