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The air stuffed itself into the room, mixed with unfamiliar tension and uncomfortable silences. The suffocation infiltrated Louis' lungs and veins and filled him up until he was heavy with it. Fog climbed along the wall of glass windows, curtaining the city skyline behind it.
The room was cast in the saddest blue; light and clouded thick with no hope of sunlight.
“What do you mean ‘you’re done’?” Louis stared at Harry, who was more focused on his foot as it traced circles into the rug. He was hunched forward in his armchair, arms crossed over his knees as he leaned his weight into them. His hair fell over his face. Louis couldn't see if Harry felt as torn apart as he did right now.
“We don’t work, Lou. You feel it, too—” His voice stayed low, as if he was finding his way through his thoughts, slowly.
“No! No, I don’t feel it. Yes, okay, we’re a little messy, maybe a little broken, Harry. But we’re not done, yet. I love you and I won’t be done loving you, even in the next life. Or the one after that. It wouldn't be enough." Louis’ words burnt against his tongue; they were out before he formulated them, but he believed in them as if they’re a second skin. "That is what I feel, right now.”
He stood, a few metres away from where Harry sat and stared at the boy he was in love with, silently praying that he didn't let him go. He breathed in and out, not to calm down, but because he thought that if Harry left he wouldn't remember how to anymore. He wouldn't remember why he should.
Harry opened his mouth as if to speak before he bit his lip, the words melting away on his tongue. His chest moved heavily as he took in a breath and thought and tried to string together the perfect way to break the heart of the person you love.
“We don’t work, Lou. We want different things–”
“Harry, please—” His palms pressed together against his lip and he leaned towards Harry, thinking he would get on his knees to beg him to stay if he asked him to. But Harry would never ask him to beg, Harry would never ask him to give himself up for their love.
“I thought I could be a shadow, if I was a shadow with you, Lou. But I can’t hide who I am, and who I love, anymore! I’ve done that already, and I’ve done it for too long.”
“I can’t give you that. You know I can’t give you that.” He turned away and paced, pushing his hair back, over and over, until the action turned into him pulling at the strands.
He stopped his pacing, mid-step when he saw Harry staring up at him. He was still leaning into himself, still shielding his heart by curling into himself, but his face was turned up and his viridescent eyes reflected Louis’ pain to him.
“I wish I could love you in front of the world, Lou, or not at all,” Harry told him, in his own slow way that punctuated each word with a stab to Louis' heart.
Louis swallowed down the envy he felt for the world, who could love Harry the way he wished to be loved.
“And I wish you could love me, despite the world.” His insides burnt under a quick flame, leaving nothing but ash and smoke. Everything seemed to leave him, all at once, faster than he could understand that he was about to lose his universe to the world. “What about us? Are we not enough? I love you! You do hear me when I say I love you, right?”
“I hear you.” His voice was quiet and low, like the final echo in a cave, still ringing long after the voice has left, “I just don’t know what that means, anymore.”
Louis knew Harry wasn't a liar. He knew that Harry twisted his words and bent around the truth and laughed when he wanted to say no and smiled when he wanted to say yes and, okay, sometimes he spoke in half-truths. But he was not a liar, and he was never a half-truth teller to Louis. He gave Louis all of him, all his honesty, in a world that sewed masks on people as if it was skin.
Louis wished Harry was a liar. He wanted Harry to serve him ‘I’m not leaving you’ coated in sugar, instead of the truth. But Harry doesn’t lie to him and he was telling him that he was letting them go. Louis looked away from the boy he loved and he found himself in an armchair, facing the accumulating fog and, behind it, the beginnings of a glistening city skyline. One light in the distance flickered in and out before it either extinguished out or was out-shone by the other the city lights. Louis understood that it is easy enough to lose sight of beautiful things, especially when there was a whole world surrounding it.
They sat in silence, once more. When Harry left his chair Louis didn't notice. It was only when he spoke did Louis realise that some time had passed.
“I’ll see you around, Lou—”
“No. I don’t think you will.” Louis bit the inside of his cheek then released it with a breath. He slumped into the back of the chair, “You know the way out.”
The door clicked shut.
Time passed as it always does. Seconds became minutes became hours sat in front of a window, watching the sky change colours and wondering where it all went wrong. The sky was a clouded blue a few shades ago, then it was night. His phone had rung earlier when the sky was a burnt orange. It had rung, again, when the sky’s pink was seeping into the evening darkness.
It rang, again, at a quarter passed darkened velvet blue. He lifted himself out of the chair, his body numb from the hours of mindless sitting. His footsteps seemed louder, or heavier, as he walked to his kitchen island in search of his phone. Maybe he was just noticing it more now in the absence of Harry’s laughter in his now-empty apartment. He glanced over the large space, so much space for one person, and felt the emptiness box in on him.
He found his phone on the island. It sat next to the matching mugs Harry chose for them when Louis first moved into this too-big, too-suffocating apartment; blue and green ceramics, teabags still floating in already gone cold tea. He moved the mugs to the sink, dumped the contents down the drain. The teabags flopped into the basin and remained there. Behind him, Louis heard his ringtone stop, and the room filled with dead silence. This home was now the corpse of what it used to be; bright, beautiful, happy. Or maybe he had become the corpse in those few hours, and this house was just his grave.
His phone rang. Again. Reluctantly, he answered and put on his best face.
“Nialler, mate! Bringing flowers to the grave?” Louis strained a smile, ear to ear, “What’s with the missed calls, mate?”
He leaned against the counter, feet crossed at the ankles. Relaxed and completely and utterly fine. Perfectly okay. His smile was hurting his jaws.
“Ergh...What? Lou,” Niall began hesitantly, “Hey, are you okay, mate?”
Louis stared up to his ceiling. He was okay. His smile felt like what he imagined tearing skin would feel like, and his heart hurt like he imagined it would if he had it pulled out of him, but other than that he was really, truly, undeniably okay. He remembered smiles like this one and how Harry and he had faked them for the world, over and over and over. He was okay then, too; he had Harry on his side.
“Yeah, of course?” He twisted his body to lean his arms against the counter, head resting in his palm, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“We all heard about you and Harry, mate.”
“Oh. News spreads fast, huh?” His hands brushed through his hair, which was now a mess and at the edge of greasy from how many times his fingers had run through it, “Yeah, I’m okay, mate. Pretty good, actually.”
His voice was hoarse from the hours of silence. When was the last time he didn’t have someone to turn to, someone to speak his mind to? His throat hadn’t been this dry since Harry starting listening.
“You sure, Lou? You don’t have to pretend to be okay.” Louis almost gave into Niall’s reassuring tone. He almost allowed himself to feel whatever he might be feeling. But the mask stayed on because, really, he was okay. Better than okay.
“Nah, I’m good, mate. ’S not too deep.” He turned his body and bent into the counter, laying his head in his arms. He closed his eyes and welcomed the darkness. He swore that he could hear Niall’s thoughts pacing through the phone. Then, he heard the quiet voice of another man, unheard questions passed back and forth, worry coated like honey on their tongues.
“Okay, Lou, if you say so.” Niall finally spoke into the phone, “But, you free tomorrow night? Liam and I will take you out?”
“Hmm, yeah, sounds good, mate.” He laughed and it sounded completely wrong.
The club smelt of sweat, piss (this made Louis mildly worried) and the bitterness of alcohol. Beams of light swept over the dark room in purples and blues and greens. Everywhere there were people, dancing, drinking, laughing, and so, the room was crowded and claustrophobic. The bar was lit up with honey-like light which only travelled as far as the stools where Niall and Liam sat, engaged in a conversation of clenched jaws and bit lips. Half their faces were covered with the darkness of one side of the room, and the brief seconds of colour, while the other half was lit up with pure gold.
Louis pushed through the crowd of bodies. His practised face was sewn on effortlessly, with a painted smile and bright eyes. He reached the pair, whose conversation ceased at his entrance. Louis made note that the boys should practise their false faces more, the worry was creased in their smiles. The huff that left him was disguisable as a chuckle, and he took the moment to push away all his hammering thoughts.
“Lads!” He signalled to the bartender the order of three shots before sitting on the stool between his friends, “How are we?”
He smiled between his two friends who stared at him as if he was broken glass. His throat felt like it was closing in on a shard of said glass.
“What about you, Lou?” Liam asks, his eyes searching Louis’ face for cracks in his mask, “We should talk about you and Har—”
Three shot glasses slid up in front of them, burning liquid courage glistening under the lights. Louis had his down his throat before the other two had lifted theirs to their lips. It tasted of forgotten memories and forgotten feelings and all the things he wouldn’t face for a few more hours.
“Payno. Payno. We’re out for a good time, yeah? No need for that depressing shit.” He called out for a second round; his was downed before the boys finished their first. [A/N: Don't drink to cope, kids (or whoever you are). Did that, wasn't good. Better to get a therapist or like a cat, or something.] "Anyways, I’m fine so no bother wasting our energy on it.”
He laughed so the tension eased and smiled until his friends breathed a little easy. Then, he downed shots until the world started looking like smudged glass and light and nothing else.
He found himself enveloped in darkness and pressed against bodies on a suffocating dance floor. He'd lost Niall and Liam a while back. He danced against strangers, foreign limbs strewn across his body until he was mixed into the sea of the unknown. His eyes stared wide up to the ceiling but all he saw were bright circles of merging colours colliding into a blur. The music forged into loud nothingness. His head spun, his feet missed a step, and he closed his eyes and escaped all the pain.
His hands climbed up the nape of another person's neck. He moved closer to the new stranger. This body smelt sweet, mixed with lemon and smoke. They were taller than him and Louis leaned into their touch, eyes still closed.
Hair curled around his fingers in soft ringlets, like it had so many times before.
Harry.
He was just at the edge of giving up hope, but how could he now, when Harry was in his arms. How could he give up, when Harry wasn’t? He brushed his fingers through the man's hair, tracing over the curls. He smiled softly into the other man's chest, whose arms crept over to the small of Louis back. He ignored how the scent of their cologne was a little muskier than it should be.
Louis’ eyes opened slowly, his eyes grazing over the floor and the fast-paced bodies grinding upon each other. His smile was soft, like real skin and not porcelain. His eyes traced over Harry’s arm as he went to look at his face and found it bare, rather than inked in artworks. The rose, the ship, all the parts of Harry that were a part of Louis, all of it missing.
Louis’ felt the shard from earlier twist into his heart.
“You’re not Harry.” He looked up at the stranger.
The stranger was a trick of the light or an unfortunate rabbit down the magician's hat. His curls fell wrong across his sweat-stained forehead. His nose curved wrong. His smell was wrong; the sweetened smoke smelling more of ash now. Objectively, he was beautiful. But he wasn’t Harry and Louis saw nothing else.
“No, I’m… not?” The not-Harry replied but Louis was already pushing through the crowd of limbs.
He was at the bar, again. Shots seemed to glide down his throat smoother than the thoughts of Harry speeding through his mind. They wouldn’t go away; a new thought, a new regret, a new fault, found themselves at home in his head as the shots continued coming.
His drink soon started tasting like water.
The room dimmed as he fought to keep his head from falling from his shoulders. His entire body felt so heavy, like dead weight or hurt carried in hearts. He called out for another shot, obnoxiously loud, as he slumped against the counter. Through his collection of shot glasses, the world looked completely deformed.
He felt a hand settle on his shoulder. Voices crashed around him, seemingly distant through the noise of the club and the drink pulsing through his brain and all the thoughts running through his mind. He could feel the breath fall from their lips against his ear as they tried pulling him up.
“Lou, mate, I think you’ve had enough,” the voice told him. “Come one, let’s get you home.”
Home. That was the last place he wanted to be, with its space and emptiness and the walls slowly closing in on him. With the blue and green mugs still waiting in the sink to be washed or thrown or broken. The silence. He brushed the hand off.
“’Nother shot 'ere! Please!” He pushed himself up as he called out his order. “Fucks sake…”
The hands were back around his elbows and biceps or somewhere on him, Louis couldn't tell. But he felt the fucker on him, pulling him up with more strength than before and he still hadn't even received his next shot. He leapt off his stool, pushing at the man's chest as he faced him. The stool fell to his feet with a clang disrupting what peace was left in the noise-brimmed club. Strangers stared.
The world spun around Louis, golden lights and shot glasses and a fucker who looked a lot like Liam all merging into one entity. He leaned to rest against his stool but stumbled into the hard counter.
“Oi, where the fuck is my shot?” He called out to the side, still facing Liam.
“You’re not getting a shot; come one, let’s go.” Liam calmly pulled at his shoulder, towards the exit.
“Get the fuck off me!” He used his arm to push Liam's arm off him and shoved hard against his chest.
He cursed under his breath, glaring at his friend as they stared at each other, Liam's face at a distinct crossroad between worry and bewilderment. He felt himself going insane, slowly, and he felt all the eyes on him and, shit, where the fuck was his mask?
“Thought you said you were fine, mate.” Liam’s voice almost flew over his head but Louis heard that word ‘fine’ ringing in his ear, over and over, like a bad joke.
He laughed. It started as a chuckle under his breath before building upon hysteria, throwing his head back, fingers tugging as they splayed through his hair. He could feel Liam, patient and calm as ever, move closer to him as the air shifted around him. He wondered if it was time for the mask to come back on but the drink in his system had already dulled his senses against any good decision making.
Instead, he lunged at Liam, grabbed his shirt in his fist and pulled him in close enough to fan the stench of bitter alcohol across his face. Any previous hysteria was gone. Liam didn’t fight back, just watched Louis with calm eyes.
“Does this look like fine to you, Payno; or are you just fucking [A/N: Pronounced 'fooking'] dense?”
He didn’t remember who dragged him away, or who dragged him out of the club. He didn’t remember the cab ride home. He didn’t remember the minutes or hours between all the parts he thought he should remember. He didn’t remember shit but when he woke from his nightmare of a night, he woke up alone and only remembered the worst.
The night was cold, wind pushed past his open window and layered over Louis already cold-sweat soaked body. His bed was cold and empty and he splayed his fingers out trying to fill the space. When he couldn’t, he collapsed under the loneliness he had not felt since the first time Harry walked into his life.
He found himself on a familiar street. The lamps shone a warm gold against the cold midnight sky. (It reminded him of a painting Harry once showed him. Well, he didn't remember the painting, per se. Louis never had the heart to tell Harry that he never really looked at the painting. That he was always too busy watching Harry's face glow with infatuation, instead.)
He found himself in front of a familiar door. He knocked on the door, twice. He brought his hands up to his face, cupped like a prayer, blowing out heat to compensate for the cold temperature. Wisps of breath escaped past his fingers in puffs. Turning his back to the door, he waited, listening for footsteps to let him know he hadn't wasted his night.
He knocked on the door, again. Three times. He rocked from his toes to his heels. The street, the door, all of it was familiar. He could’ve found his way here in his sleep. He had been in this place in his dreams. He had just never been here like this. Like, maybe, he shouldn’t be. He knocked again and the door opened before his knuckle could meet the wood a second time.
Harry was ethereal. Washed up in the golden light, eyes glistening against the dull brightness. His clothes hung at angles across his body, as if he had just gotten out of bed, or woken up from a terrible nightmare. His cheeks were flushed. Probably from the cold. Yeah, it was probably from the cold. Louis brought his fist down, shoving it into the pocket of his jeans.
The air in Louis’ lungs crushed out of him. Or maybe, it was stuck in his throat. Maybe he wasn't even there, and none of it was real and, maybe, it was all just a dream. He had been here in his dreams before, he knew.
None of it made sense except that it was Harry. Just Harry. And seeing him here, now, like this, made Louis regret the way he had let Harry leave the last time.
“Hi,” Louis smiled, biting onto the corner of his lip.
“Louis,” Harry didn't smile back, “What are you doing here?”
“I… Well. You know… Well, I…” His voice wavered off, and that air that escaped him earlier seems to have travelled up to his head and, maybe, his world was spinning, “I just found myself here.”
“Great. You know your way back home, then.” He began to turn away from him, closing the door as he did.
Louis’ hand shot to the door framing, blocking the door. Pain sparked through his bones and he felt a bruise already forming against his knuckles. The door pulled back wide open, Harry’s eyes were crazed as he glanced between Louis’s hand, still against the door frame, and his crouched figure. He was looking down at the ground, his back leaning into his knees. Night-time shadows surrounded him in layers of navies and indigos. He swore under her breath.
“Louis, shit.” Harry started, “I’m sorry–”
“Harry,” Louis looked up at Harry, whose curls formed a halo as the light collided with it. Louis' hand was cradled against his heart, his other hand covering it as if it were protecting his heart. “Harry, please, love me again.”
“Lou, you should come in. You know, for your hand. Come on, I’ll get you some ice.”
“You asked me what I’m doing here. I can’t help but find my way back to you. I love you.” He stared up at Harry as if he had everything and lost it all, “Don’t give up on us – me; don’t give up on me, Harry.”
Tears trickled down his face, streaking along the curves and angles of his skin. They flood across his face, screaming loud through the silence. In the background, a bird chirped but it was still hours from daylight. The night was dark and blistering cold, still.
“I’ll never not love you, Lou.” Harry stepped back, one step, into the shadows of his home, “Just not in the way we thought we would love each other.”
There was a pause, a moment, where Harry’s words seemed to catch on his tongue and he looked like, maybe, he, too, was a few syllables away from breaking apart. Then, the moment was gone, chased away along with the stars and their dying parts.
“Go home, Louis.”
The door shut before Louis could tell Harry that he was already there.
The water spilled along his back in soft harmony. Louis sat, cheek against knees, arms holding tight to his legs, against the tiles of his shower. His shirt soaked to transparency, his jeans darkened to a void of black. Tears dripped from his eyes and tasted of salt.
He closed his eyes and there Harry was. Only an arm's length and a mile away, in front of him and completely out of reach. There, in the golden light of streetlamps and night-time shadows. There, where Louis tried piecing their broken pieces together, telling him that he didn’t mind picking up their broken this time. He tilted his head up to the water and the evidence of his heartache washed away with the flood, only the taste of salt is left behind on his lips.
He stayed like that for a few moments. Outside, a storm began. Thunder applauded the broken pair as their curtains draw, their show now over, soon to be forgotten. The rain washed up all the broken places, leaving behind only the remnants of the broken stage.
A sob escaped his throat, strung out through voice-cracked misery. He cried with tears warm against his cheeks and tiles. Water sprayed onto his face but did nothing to wash his heartache away.
He stayed in the shower until his fingers pruned and the thick air made him feel like he was drowning. He found his bed, unmade and cold and empty. He didn't take his clothes off, sticking to his body and dripping onto carpeted floors, before he slipped under heavy blankets. He didn't sleep and he didn't leave. He stared into empty space until night came again, then allowed himself to sink into his dreams.
The darkness brought him, Harry, again. The darkness always brought Harry; the bright light always found its way back to Louis. Maybe, they would only ever meet in his dreams from now. Louis never wanted to wake up again.
He only left his bed for the bathroom, sometimes he took a sip of water. He was too tired to eat or to take off the damp shirt which had started to leave a stench on his body. It had been three days. His phone rang beside his head every few hours, sometimes a few times in a row. But it was never Harry so he never picked up.
The doorbell rang on the fourth day. Then his phone. He didn't hear either. The doorbell rang again, followed by knocking. He heard it this time, and he could see the door through the hallway from his bedroom, but it was so far and he was so tired so maybe if he ignored it would go away. The knocking became banging; fervent and nervous.
He dragged himself out of bed, blankets tugged onto his shoulders. He passed his mirror, glimpsing at himself but almost missing it. He had become a shadow of himself, bags pulling beneath his eyes, cheeks disappearing behind bones. He turned away from the ghost of himself.
He opened the door.
“Hey, mate.” Zayn’s voice softly passed over Louis's head. He recognised the worry in his tone but felt too empty within to understand it.
Zayn pulled Louis into his arms before Louis could process. His arms stayed limp by his sides, his chin rests on his shoulder. The blanket fell from his shoulders around their feet. He stared out into space. Zayn’s hand stroked the back of Louis’ head and he held on tight to him, not like he was fragile but like he needed to be held. The sobbing came before the tears; he broke apart in Zayn’s arms. His arms lifted to embrace Zayn’s comfort, hands gripped to the back of his shirt. Tear soaked into Zayn's shirt.
“He gave up on me, Zayn,” Louis hid his face in Zayn’s shoulder and cried through his broken sentences. “He gave up on me.”
“You're gonna be okay, Lou. You’re going to be just fine.” He didn't let go before Louis was ready.