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Chapter Text

The room smelled faintly of popcorn and nerves. Rows of plastic chairs stretched out in tight formation across the lecture hall, half-filled with first-years clutching tote bags, water bottles, and the wide-eyed look of people pretending they weren’t terrified. Overhead lights buzzed. An RA in a bright red shirt tried to get people to smile by yelling facts about campus squirrels.

Harry sat rigidly in the third row, next to a blonde boy named Niall who’d greeted him five minutes ago with, “Hi, I’m Niall! Want a fruit roll-up? We’re gonna be best friends.”

Harry blinked. “Sorry?”

“You’re Harry, right? Harry Styles? Room 412A? I saw the name on the door. It’s on the roster, too.” Niall beamed, proudly holding up a crumpled sheet of orientation materials. “Farm kid from Kansas. We’re gonna get along so well.”

And just like that, Harry had a roommate and—he suspected—a friend.

That had never happened before.

He kept glancing sideways, half-convinced Niall would suddenly realize that Harry was weird or boring or just not worth the effort. But Niall was a steady stream of smiles and stories, the kind of person who could talk about dairy cows and horror movies in the same breath without breaking stride.

"I worked hay bales and milked at 4 a.m. all summer," Niall was saying, unwrapping a pack of Twizzlers. "But now I’m free. Free, my dude! We are kings! Well… freshman kings. Frosh lords. Like, dirt royalty."

Harry laughed despite himself. It was a rusty sound - he truly couldn’t remember the last time he laughed.

He hadn’t planned to like anyone. Not here. Not yet.

He’d driven the whole way from Kansas in a rattling old sedan that had barely made it through Missouri. It had rained for the first two hours, windshield wipers dragging across glass like tired arms. The trash bags in his trunk were damp at the edges, but they held everything he owned. Every t-shirt, every book, every scrap of paper that felt like his.

He kept seeing it. That moment. His father was standing on the porch, red-faced and shouting. Get out and don't even come back, you fucking faggot. You are no son of mine.

Harry hadn’t cried while it was happening. Not when his father threw the duffel bag into the mud. Not when his mother stood silent, arms crossed. Not even when Gemma stood beside her, trying to keep her face still and brave while her eyes welled up.

He cried somewhere in Iowa. Not loud. Not long. Just enough.

Madison was a new chapter. No one here knew him. No one expected him to pretend he liked girls or baseball or the Bible. No one here knew how much he shook the first time he clicked on a queer subreddit or how long he sat in the dark before pressing play on a gay movie. No one knew anything.

Except for Niall, maybe. Because somehow, Niall already seemed to get him without Harry saying a word.

Harry stood to go to the bathroom.

When he came back, his seat was taken.

“Uh… I was sitting there,” Harry said.

The boy in the chair turned around slowly. Brown fringe. Ocean-blue eyes. Tanned skin, sharp cheekbones, smirk locked and loaded. He blinked lazily, then looked Harry up and down like he was a riddle wrapped in discount flannel.

“You weren’t,” the boy said.

“I was,” Harry replied.

“No offense, scarecrow, but I think I’d remember,” the boy said, twirling a pen between two fingers. “And if you were sitting here, maybe don’t leave it unattended like it’s a dog bowl with nothing in it.”

Harry blinked. “What is wrong with you? What does that even mean?”

“What is wrong with me ?” The boy stood, hand on hip. “You’re the one causing a scene over a seat at freshman orientation . Sit somewhere else. It’s not kindergarten.”

“I literally left for two minutes.”

“And I took the seat. Happens. Get over it.”

“I’m not getting over it. You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”

“Okay, children,” came a voice from the front. One of the RAs leaned into the mic, exasperated. “If the audience could be silent or go out into the hall, that would be great .”

Murmurs rose around them. Harry’s ears went hot. Niall was still chewing on a Twizzler like this was the most entertaining thing he’d ever seen. “Dude,” he said through a bite, “chill.”

“Yeah,” muttered a voice nearby. Zayn, slouched two seats away, gave them a look of bored disdain, dark eyes half-lidded under artfully messy fringe.

Liam leaned toward Louis and whispered, “Just let it go.”

Louis scoffed. “God, Liam, you’re like a human rulebook. How are we even friends?”

“You’ve known me since birth,” Liam replied dryly.

“Right. Our mums were in prenatal yoga together. Fate,” Louis said with mock reverence, then turned back toward Harry. “Still, you’d think the freshman football poster boy would have better taste than that buzzcut. What is that? Law-abiding chic?”

Zayn rolls his eyes fondly. He and Louis had been friends their whole lives, too, except Zayn moved away when he was seven, and they stayed in touch and never stopped sharing that mind meld that they had.

Liam rolled his eyes. “You're the one who told me to cut it for preseason.”

But Louis was already on his feet. “Fine. You wanna fight about it? Let’s fight outside.”

“Let’s,” Harry bit back, hating how his voice cracked.

They left the lecture hall under a dozen amused glances. The door clicked shut behind them.

“I cannot believe you’re this pressed about a chair,” Louis said as they rounded the corner into the hallway.

“I cannot believe you’re this dramatic about one,” Harry snapped.

“Okay, first of all,” Louis held up a finger, “you don’t get to call me dramatic when you’re the one throwing a tantrum like a sad Victorian orphan.”

“I wasn’t throwing a tantrum. You were literally—”

Louis grabbed him by the collar.

Harry froze.

And then Louis kissed him.

It was fast, and hot, and furious. All lips and teeth and fury.

Harry’s brain completely short-circuited.

Louis pulled back, panting slightly. “What, you don’t want this?”

“I—what?”

“I said, do you not want this?”

“I—no—I mean, yes—I mean—” Harry’s thoughts were jammed. “Wait, what is happening ?”

Louis smirked, eyes narrowed, cocky and dazzling. “Don’t tell me you aren’t gay, because I’m pretty positive you’re gay.”

“I—yeah. No. I’m gay.” He said it like it might burn. But it didn’t. It slid out and left something behind. Air. Breath. Space.

Louis grinned.

Holy shit , Harry thought, he’s going to kill me and I’m going to thank him for it.

“Excellent,” Louis said.

And then he kissed him again.

Harder.

Dragged him into the nearest boys’ restroom and pushed him against the door like he had something to prove.

Harry wasn’t even sure his feet were touching the floor.

He kissed back like he was drowning and Louis was the last gasp of air. His hands were shaking. His soul was shaking. His heart was beating in places he didn’t know had nerves.

This is my first anything and I am sure it is going to be everything, he thought.

—

Inside the lecture hall, Niall had moved down a seat without complaint.

As part of a RA-led activity meant to teach responsible drinking habits, students were given fake liquor bottles and measuring tools to see if they could accurately pour a standard drink. Zayn had taken the empty spot beside Liam and was sketching in a small leather pad. His eyes flicked up once to study Liam’s jawline as the football player carefully measured out one ounce of fake vodka.

Liam’s pour was exact.

Zayn smirked. His cheeks were just the tiniest bit pink, his posture softening as he looked at Liam like he was something captured from a dream. There was a distant, awestruck glaze in his gaze, like the drawing wasn’t a task but a need.

“You’ll be married by graduation,” Zayn said, half-dazed, half-teasing, still not taking his eyes off Liam’s face as his pencil moved in steady, worshipful lines.

Louis, re-entering with tousled hair and a stormy expression, barked a laugh. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Louis narrowed his eyes. “Who’s proposing then?”

“You,” Zayn replied calmly, smudging a shadow with the edge of his finger.

“Oh, so just because I like men, I don’t get to be proposed to like everyone else?”

“You can take the kid out of the theatre,” Zayn said, finally glancing at him, “but not the theatre out of the kid.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Zayn, I am literally a drama major.”

“Thank you for proving my point,” Zayn said. “Now shut up. I’m concentrating.”

When Liam sat down, Zayn handed him the sketch.

Liam stared at it.

Said nothing.

Zayn didn’t either.

He just started a new drawing like nothing had happened. Liam and Zayn knew each other more through Louis than they actually knew each other. But now that they were here together in the same room, they seemed inevitable.

Louis stared across the room.

At Harry.

Harry wasn’t looking back, but Louis could still see those green eyes.

“God help me,” Louis muttered.

Zayn sighed without looking up. “It’s gonna be a long four years.”

Chapter Text

The generic club music thumps around them, but Harry tries to tune it out. He looks down at his lap and futzes with the stray thread on his Jayhawks cap. His lips quirk into the ghost of a smile. Harry was born and raised in Kansas, and while he swapped his allegiance from the Sunflower State to the Cheese State long ago, he loves his worn Jayhawks cap. 

His refusal to swap his cornflower blue Jayhawks hat for a bright red Badger one was a point of contention for him and Louis the entire time they’ve known each other. Honestly, at this point, bickering about it has become such a staple in their relationship that Harry can’t imagine ever wearing anything but a Jayhawks hat ever again. He and Louis are both stubborn bastards, and while Harry caves to the will of his boy more often than not, he will never give in on this. 

Harry loves Wisconsin. He truly does. He bleeds Green and Gold, laughs in the face of a cold front, drinks Spotted Cow like water, and can make virtually any combination of ingredients into a wonderfully cheesy casserole. He craves fish fry on Fridays and will shout to anyone about how American cheese is NOT, in fact, a real cheese, and a braut is not “just a hot dog.”

 Wisconsin feels like home to him in a way Kansas never did. His soul feels settled in the Dairy State more than any place he has ever been. He feels like he can breathe here, like he can have a full life here. Harry truly feels like he can find peace here, and that is something he thought would always elude him.

The irony is not lost on him, however, that the first day he moved to Wisconsin, he fell in love with a lifelong Wisconsinite who dreams of nothing but getting the fuck out of the state as fast as possible. In Louis's defense, he is a lactose-intolerant city boy who hates the cold, so the universe really must have had a good laugh at his expense when he was born in rural Wisconsin, but alas. Harry’s love of the upper Midwest state more than balances out his lover’s disdain for it.

Harry runs his ring-adorned fingers through his brown curls to try and shake his mind free from reminiscing about Louis. He can already feel the intense wave of affection for the other boy turning bitter and biting as regret and longing take up residence in his heart. 

Harry sighs deeply because, once again, for not the first time and probably not the last time, Harry and Louis were broken up.

Still gently pulling at the fraying blue hat to soothe his nerves, Harry looks up, hoping to distract himself from the painful ache of missing Louis. This is an ache that nothing can soothe; it permeates his entire state of being. He doesn’t know how  not to   miss Louis. 

As his green eyes scan the bar, he thinks about how he ended up here. When he first arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the first things he did was look into how to join a fraternity. Eighteen-year-old Harry had been so desperate for some semblance of family and just an ounce of acceptance, so it was not shocking that he turned to the fraternity system. Everything Harry knew about frats was that they were all about brotherhood and family, and that was what Harry had been looking for his whole life.

He sailed through Rush Week, knew how to talk to girls (a skill that was truly wasted on him), and he already had a fake ID, so he was invited into the bar crawl fold quicker than most. But if he is honest with himself, he hates the stupidly overpriced drinks and generic fucking club music. Tonight, however, he hates something even more. Harry hates how Louis commands all of his attention when he is trying so hard to distract himself from the blue-eyed boy’s larger-than-life presence. But Louis has always been inescapable to Harry, and tonight was no different.

Harry huffs a deep breath as he brushes back his curls and puts his Jayhawks cap on backward, just the way Louis always liked. Sometimes, Harry hates himself for how so much of what he does revolves around Louis and what Louis likes, but here he is. They drive each other insane, but no matter how many times they break up, they are always drawn back together. Louis has his devotion, but man, he can hate him sometimes.

Harry adjusts his hat so it sits just right on his curls and braces himself as he looks up at the dance floor. He knows his eyes will be drawn right to Louis without even trying. Harry zeroes in on Louis immediately, and what he sees feels like a gut punch. Louis is between two men, grinding the way only he knows how. Harry is intimately familiar with how heavenly it feels to have Louis grinding against his cock. Harry’s dick starts to perk up at the sight of Louis spinning and grinding his hips like that.

Before his dick can become too interested in the scene before him, Harry can’t help the flood of memories that hit him like a tidal wave. He and Louis have been together on and off all through college - literally since Louis stole his seat at freshman orientation, and then they hate-fucked in the bathroom about it. 

Harry still remembers Louis's bright blue eyes, long eyelashes, and abused red lips stretched around his cock as he fucked the boy's mouth in the handicapped stall at orientation. 

A strong current of desire zings up Harry’s spine at that particular memory.  Not only was that the first time he and Louis had fooled around, but it was also the first time Harry had fooled around with a boy.   He knew in that first second that Louis took Harry’s heavy cock into his warm mouth that he was definitely, irrevocably, fully and completely gay.

He shakes his head at that particular memory as he wills his cock to calm down. He adjusts himself as he prepares to stand up and get another drink. If he has to endure this stupid outing to assure all their friends once again that he and Louis can get along just fine, even though they’ve broken up (again), he at least needs some damn whiskey. 

Harry navigates the crowd of people celebrating the start of the new school year and makes his way to the bar. He clasps his hands together as he leans his forearms against the permanently sticky bar, waiting for the bartender to take his order. The new bartender is extremely busy, but, well, Harry knows he will get served soon. He may be gayer than a two-dollar bill, but he knows what he looks like. 

With a bright smile, the blonde bartender, who is a vision of exactly who his parents would love for him to marry, comes over in under 30 seconds. He is running a bit low on funds since his summer job ended and his semester job hasn’t started yet, but he is pretty sure that if he plays this right and turns on the Midwest frat boy charm, he won’t be paying for anything.

“What can I get ya, handsome?” she almost purrs, batting her eyelashes and leaning into his space just enough to catch his attention but not enough to seem desperate. 

Oh, she is good, he thinks. Getting great tips from all these liquored-up Badger boys must be like taking candy from a baby.

Harry turns on the charm and smiles at her smoothly. “Can I get two shots of rail whiskey and a Spotted Cow on draft?” 

“Oh, a true Wisconsin man after my own heart!” She puts her hand over her chest, once again drawing attention to her full breasts spilling out over her top. “I was thrown off by the KU hat, but you really are one of us!” 

Harry flashes her a bright smile, making both his dimples pop. “I may be from the great state of Kansas, but don’t worry, darling, I bleed Green and Gold,” he purrs back and leans forward into her space just enough to make her think he is interested. His conscience twinges a bit, but a poor boy has gotta do what a poor boy has gotta do.

As she hangs on his every word, she reaches down for the rail whiskey without breaking eye contact. “Is this shot for a lucky lady?” She asks, reaching up to grab two shot glasses before plunking them down on the bar between them.

Ah, yes, this was the moment he was waiting for. “Hmm, I don’t have one of those.” Still leaning on the bar, he looks up slightly as if thinking deeply about her question. He taps his bottom lip twice with his pointer finger and then slowly drags it down to accentuate his bottom lip. Right when he makes eye contact with her again, he lets his finger drop from his lip, rocks forward a bit, and says sweetly, “You wouldn’t happen to know any good Wisconsin girls interested in a shot of good ole whiskey, now, would you?”

He watches the blush spread across her cheeks as she tries to tear her eyes away from his slightly red and swollen bottom lip. “I think I could help you out with that. I am a good Wisconsin girl, after all,” she says cheekily. 

She makes eye contact with him confidently as she pours the shots. As he watches her, Harry thinks that she really is a great bartender; the shots are poured perfectly without her even glancing down. 

As they both reach to grab their shot glasses and clink them together, she leans forward just a bit to accentuate her chest again. She whispers breathily to Harry, “Besides, speaking as the bartender, no one has to know about these. No one is going to miss a little rail whiskey in inventory.” 

Harry leans in to whisper back, “This is why no one is better than a Wisconsin girl,” and blinks at her as they clink their shots together.

They both throw their low-budget shot back quickly. Harry focuses on the burn of the shit whiskey to distract him from how gross he feels. He hates himself a bit for leading this surely very nice bartender on for free drinks. But, well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as his father always said. Harry feels a bit of whiskey in the corner of his mouth. He slowly wipes it off before sucking that last drop of stray liquor off the tip of his finger. 

The enraptured bartender, whose name he never even learned, watches him suck his thumb before he pops it out of his mouth with a quiet but obscene pop and smirks back at her.

She clears her throat, the first time she has outwardly shown that she is affected by this. “Let me just go get you that Spotted Cow, - ?” The inflection in her voice indicates she is asking for his name.

“Harry.”

“Alright, Harry, I’ll be right back.” She winks and turns around with an extra pep in her step. 

As she walks over to the taps, Harry turns his body towards the spot on the dance floor where he last spotted Louis. He casually leans back on his elbow to get comfortable while he waits. Harry surveys the dance floor and freezes when he can’t find Louis. 

As the panic grips his heart and his lungs feel like they are shriveling up inside him, making it nearly impossible to draw breath, he frantically scans the crowd, looking for his boy. 

Where the fuck is he? Harry pushes off the bar without thinking, frantically scrambling forward through the crowd,  eyes frantically searching for the man he loves. 

Suddenly, Harry spots Louis heading off the dance floor. He is giggling, hand in hand, with one of those fuckers he was grinding on, heading down a dark hallway toward the bathrooms. 

In that moment, Harry has a one-track mind - mine, mine, mine. The nausea hits him like a truck when he thinks about someone else having their hands on Louis. Beautiful, lovely, sexy, soft, incredible Louis. His Louis, his boy, his love. Harry can’t breathe. He can’t breathe . 

God, Harry is so tired of this. They do this fucking dance back and forth of breaking up and making each other jealous and getting back together, and it is exhausting. Still, they’ve never, never fucked anyone else. That has always been an unspoken agreement. So it is beyond his comprehension why it seems like Louis is heading off to fuck this random dude in this stupid fucking club with him here, right? 

Harry’s blood starts to boil. As he pushes off the bar to propel himself forward, the cheeky bartender and his beer order long forgotten, he can’t hear anything but his blood pounding in his ears. His eyes track his ex-boyfriend and this man as they disappear around the corner. Harry’s feet carry him forward automatically. Together or not, that is his boy and always will be. Harry is absolutely not letting his boy get fucked in the bathroom by some random guy, especially not when he is right here. 

Harry quickly attempts to push himself through the crowded bar and across the packed dance floor to where he saw Louis disappear just seconds ago. When Harry breaks through the crowd, he all but runs down the dark and dingy hallway.  He quickly spies the other man pressed fully against Louis. Harry feels the whiskey-laced bile rise up the back of his throat - how many times has he pushed Louis up against this same wall and claimed his soft lips with his own? 

As Harry gets even closer, he realizes not only are they making out, but Louis has his hand on his dancing partner’s groin like this is any other night, and he does this all the time.

Suddenly, he sees red. He doesn’t even think. He just storms up, grabs the fucker by the back of his neck, and spins him around to shove him face-first against the opposite wall. 

Harry crowds into this man’s space and hisses in his ear, “I am going to let you go, and you are going to leave this fucking bar. Don’t you ever even look at him again, or I’ll fucking kill you.” As Harry leans back to let him go, he feels his ex-boyfriend shove him in the shoulder.

“God damn it, Harry! Go the fuck away! Go back to flirting with your fucking bartender! This doesn’t concern you!” Louis yells at him. “We aren’t together anymore, you don’t fucking own me!” Louis shoves him again for good measure. “Jesus Christ - get it together and go be a possessive piece of shit somewhere else!” 

Harry eases his grip on the other man and turns to face Louis. If Louis wants a fight, he can have a fucking fight. But before Harry even turns around enough to face the shorter boy completely, Harry hears Louis's almost partner open his mouth, and Harry is so, so not in the mood.

“Yeah, man, he said he is single, back…”

Harry isn’t sure what the rest of that sentence is because he turns around and headbutts him. As the nameless blonde’s head snaps back and makes contact with the wall, Harry rushes forward, presses his arm against the man’s throat, and holds him there. 

Harry is pretty sure he broke this guy’s nose based on how freely the blood is flowing. Actually, Harry is also pretty sure he cut himself in the process if the cold trickle of blood down his face is any indication, but whatever works. 

“I do not believe I was speaking to you,” he hisses. “I believe I was speaking to my boy.” Harry presses his arm just a bit harder against the other man’s neck; he sees the fear in his eyes now. “This is your last chance to get the fuck out of here before I really hurt you.” Harry all but whispers, the promise of violence clear in every syllable. 

Harry presses his forearm against this man’s trachea one last time for good measure before backing up. The other man falters a bit as he scampers away out the back exit at the end of the hallway. Harry turns to face Louis.

“Harry! What the fuck! You can’t just…” 

Again, Harry isn’t sure what the rest of that sentence is because he swiftly moves forward, grabs Louis's face, and backs him against the wall before roughly smashing their lips together. 

Regardless of the circumstances, finally kissing Louis again felt like coming home. For the first time in two months, Harry felt alive.

Chapter Text

As Harry continues to kiss his ex-boyfriend like his life depends on it, which, to be fair, it kind of does, he draws himself up to his full height. He and Louis aren’t really that far apart in height, but Louis always makes himself a bit smaller when submitting to Harry, and Harry loves to take advantage of this. He is able to tower over his boy a bit as he moves forward as much as he can, using his full body weight to trap Louis between him and the wall.

As he swipes his tongue against Louis's bottom lip to gain entry into his mouth, he can feel Louis trying to shove him back. Harry quickly gets a taste of the only man he has ever kissed - vodka and Redbull mixed with the metallic taste of Harry’s own blood - and then lets Louis push him back.

As Harry tries to get his bearings, he remembers where they are and how they got here. Honestly, Harry is so done with this back-and-forth fucking nonsense - they may fight and break up and fight and break up, but they love each other. Harry isn’t sure of much, but he is sure of that and is just so tired of fighting.

“Harry, god damn it, stop!” Louis shouts out while roughly wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You can’t keep doing this. You don’t fucking own me! We aren’t together anymore.” Louis doesn’t break eye contact with Harry, chest heaving as he tries to regulate his breathing. “Jesus Christ, you were just all over that fucking bartender why are you even here pretending to be upset I was with another guy?”

Harry can tell Louis is turned on but also that he is genuinely angry. Harry sighs heavily as he leans against the opposite wall. Why is Louis even talking about the bartender? How many times has Harry told him he is gay? Like super duper, not at all interested in women gay. Harry can’t help the fact that his family cut him off, so sometimes he needs to flash his dimples and finesse the system a bit to get free stuff. Honestly, he is so tired of this - tired in a bone-deep way that no amount of sleep would solve.

All he has ever wanted is a nice, stable relationship with Louis. He just wants them to be happy. He wants to wake up with the sun streaming into their bedroom and kiss him on the cheek before he gets up for his morning run. He wants to brush Louis's soft fringe out of his eyes while he wakes him up with a cup of tea. He wants so much it scares him.

But this is what always happens - they break up for some stupid reason which is probably related to Harry being a jealous bastard with the emotional range of a teaspoon; they avoid each other for a month, then they have some big blow-up fight, fuck, and get back together. Harry knows what is expected of him here. This is how it always goes. And while he is exhausted by this toxic relationship dance, if this is what he needs to do to get past this part, he will play his role. If Harry knows how to do anything, it is to figure out what people expect from him and play his role. Right now, he needs to be the possessive ex-boyfriend so they hate-fuck and get back together. Fine.

Harry lifts his head, opens his eyes, and refocuses on the scene in front of him. He takes a step forward and takes in the way his blood is smeared across Louis's face. Harry’s already hard dick twitches in his jeans while he rolls his eyes at Lou’s outburst. He has heard this all before. Whether Louis can see him roll his eyes in the dimly lit hallway or if he just knows because he knows Harry and knows this dance, Harry isn’t sure, but the next thing he knows, Louis shoves him as hard as he can, and Harry stumbles backward into the opposite wall.

“No, fuck you, Harry. I TOLD you this was it. I TOLD you that was the last time. We aren’t getting back together again. We are fucking awful together! All we do is fuck each other and hurt each other. Just go find some nice girl and get married and have 2.5 kids and the whole fucking Midwest dream! I’m DONE with you, Harry. Do you hear me?! I am DONE. I don’t care anymore.”

Harry leans his head against the wall and waits for Louis to be done. He has heard this before - “I’m done,” “Go find a woman,” “I don’t care.” He tries to take deep, even breaths before his mind starts to spiral.

But what if he means it this time? Maybe … maybe Louis really is done with him … Maybe Louis realized he was never worth the trouble to begin with … Harry had told him that time and time again, but Louis always promised him he was wrong … but what if Louis realized he was right ... what if Louis was done … what if Harry really was truly, wholly, completely unlovable and his parents were right all along …

Suddenly, he is pulled from his own spiraling thoughts because Louis is grabbing his arms to shake him. Harry slips back into his cool, calm, collected mask just a bit too quickly, even for his own comfort. Harry looks down and makes eye contact with his hopefully-soon-to-be-not-ex-boyfriend.

“Are you fucking LISTENING to me, Harry?! I. Don’t. Want. To. Do. This. Anymore.” Louis punctuates every word in that last sentence through gritted teeth as his grip gets increasingly tight on Harry’s arms. Harry ponders for a moment if he will have fingerprint-sized bruises tomorrow. That is a pleasing thought, though. It would give him something lovely to dig his fingers into tomorrow while he sits in some boring lecture he doesn’t care about and remind himself of his boy.

As Harry looks into Louis's deep blue eyes, he feels at home again. Even if Louis is mad at him, even if Louis is yelling at him, at least he is with him again. At least Harry is sharing the same air as Louis again. At least he has his attention, even if it is negative, for a moment.

Harry knows he is part of the problem, most likely all of the problem if he is really honest, but he sometimes feels like his feelings for Louis are so big they make him feel like he is going to jump out of his own skin. And sometimes, instead of feeling those feelings, he lashes out so Louis will withdraw a bit, and Harry can catch his breath with how overwhelming it is to love this incredible boy in front of him. Harry just doesn’t know how to tell him that, so he tries to show him, but he fucks that up too most of the time.

Harry has always been a fuck up, and at a certain point, maybe he just needs to accept that he is fundamentally broken. But right now, all Harry wants is to hurry this up a bit so they can get to the fucking part and then his favorite part: getting to love Louis.

It has been a minute since they were together - almost two months, which is way longer than they normally hold out before falling back together. Louis still has his arms in a punishing grip, but he has backed up a bit. However, he is still close enough for Harry to see how blown his pupils are in arousal, regardless of how angry he is. Harry rolls his hips forward a bit and rubs his hard cock against Louis's groin. They are both wearing jeans, but even the hint of friction of them rubbing together is enough to force Harry to bite back a moan as he closes his eyes to revel in the feeling of impending sex. What can he say? He misses his boy in more ways than one, and it had been two months after all.

Louis must be able to feel Harry’s quick dismissal of his anger because he surges forward and grabs Harry’s face again to try and force him to make eye contact with him.

“God damn it, Harry, just let me GO,” Louis spits out. “I don’t miss our fucked up relationship. I don’t miss you and your jealousy. I don’t miss you and your need to flirt with everything that fucking moves. I am not doing this with you anymore. Let. Me. Go.”

Louis is so angry he is panting. Harry can feel the stinging of Louis's nails as they dig into Harry’s pale skin. Honestly, it is turning him on more and more by the second. Maybe it seems weird to be turned on by Louis yelling at him, but the alternative is believing what he says about being done to be true, and that is a horrifying thought Harry can’t even begin to let himself explore.

Harry barks out a sour laugh. He can feel Louis tighten his grip on Harry’s face as he quite literally laughs in his face. It is almost comical really, because this is nothing new. Louis will never be able to break away from this cycle with Harry, and Harry knows he doesn’t want to because he feels the same.

“Oh really, Lou? You don’t miss me at all?” Harry grinds against Lou again, harder this time. “You don’t miss my cock? Hmm?” Harry grinds against him, and Louis bites his bottom lip so hard to contain a moan Harry thinks Louis might start bleeding himself.

Harry leans forward a bit to whisper gruffly, “You don’t miss how I fuck you?” Harry says this like a prayer as he gently rubs his nose against Louis'. He knows by doing this that Louis will be able to feel Harry’s breath running over his lips. He knows how Louis loves the teasing moments before he gives into his desires and lets Harry wreck him.

When Louis doesn’t use his punishing grip on Harry’s face to push him away, Harry knows he has won.

He grins as he tilts his head and leans closer to Louis's right ear, close enough for his lips to brush against Louis's ear lobe as he teases the boy more with his raspy voice and filthy words.

“We both know I ruined you for anyone else three years ago. You know it, and I know it,” Harry drawls out. “You can’t ever have anyone else because you’ve had the best, and nothing will ever compare, will it?” Harry smirks a bit there and he can feel his dimple pop under Louis's fingers. Harry knows he may not be particularly lovable as a human being, but he is certainly a good fuck.

As Harry pulls back to assess the impact his words have on Louis, he sees his lover's eyes darken even more. Harry can see the anger being chased away by arousal, by pure need.

However, while his eyes are telling the same story of arousal that Harry is used to, Harry also notices something different. Suddenly, he feels Louis's body stiffen. Before Harry can ask what is wrong, Louis lets go of Harry’s face and takes a step back. Harry unconsciously follows him, unable to let there be any space between them, even in this dingy hallway where they are fighting.

Louis turns his back to Harry. Harry sees how his shoulders are hunched, making him even smaller, and he can tell Louis has wrapped his arms himself as if that gesture will protect him from whatever he is about to say. Harry’s mind is just screaming comfort, protect, comfort, protect over and over again because his better half is in pain, and Harry would rip his heart out while it's still beating to take away Louis's pain. Just as Harry is reaching out to close the space between them and gently place his hand on Louis's shoulder, Louis starts to speak.

“You aren’t anything special, H. You think I’ve just sat around waiting for you this time? Huh? You still think you’re the only one I’ve had? Pathetic.” Louis scoffs as he turns around to face Harry again. “You aren’t so special. You aren’t anything to me anymore, Harry. We are DONE.” But before Harry can try and read Louis's emotions and even begin to process what he just said, Louis punctuates his point by spitting in Harry’s face.

If the desired effect was to get Harry to back up, it worked. Harry stumbles back a bit up against the opposite wall, slightly shocked that Louis spit in his face, but truly shocked by the admission that he had supposedly fucked someone else. He had always been the boy’s one and only since they started dating, and thinking Louis had fucked someone else, or god forbid, let someone else fuck him, made Harry sick to his stomach and violently angry at the same time.

Harry hangs his head to try and quickly pull himself together. He balls his hands into fists so hard that he is pretty sure he is going to cut the palms of his hands open with his own fingernails. The sharp pain grounds him as he takes a few deep breaths to gather his bearings and then he looks up.

Louis is pressed against the opposite wall and is bracing himself with both of his hands on the wall beside him. Even this angry, Louis is a vision to Harry. His breathing is ragged, his cock hard in his tight black skinny jeans, and he is radiant even in this dark, dimly lit hallway. Harry loves him so much that he aches with it. But if Louis wants to say Harry isn’t anything special, Harry will remind him just how well he knows his body and how well he knows how to take him apart. If this really is the last time Harry gets to have Louis, he is going to destroy him.

With two fingers, Harry wipes Louis's spit off his face. He pulls his fingers back and realizes Louis's spit is mixed with Harry’s blood from earlier. Or maybe Louis did cut his lip from biting down on it so hard and spit it at Harry. Harry’s cock becomes impossibly harder at this thought as he looks up from his fingers toward the other man who has not moved. It is dark in this hallway, but Harry knows Louis. If he was scared, if he really wanted to run, if he really didn’t want this, he would leave. Louis wants this just as much as Harry does.

With Louis still trying to regulate his breathing, chest heaving at irregular intervals, Harry makes a decision. He moves forward and shoves his two fingers covered in Louis's own spit and the remnants of either of their blood into Louis's mouth. He immediately accepts the intrusion and runs his tongue around Harry’s fingers. Harry groans as he imagines sliding his wet fingers into Lou’s tight hole.

“You are such a good boy, baby,” Harry purrs while Louis licks and sucks on his dirty fingers. “Get them nice and wet, because that is the only thing I am going to use to open you up before I fuck you.” As Louis breath hitches and he sucks harder on Harry’s fingers, Harry leans forward to whisper breathily into his boy’s ear. “You won’t be able to do anything but think about me for days because every time you move, you’ll remember how I fucked you right here.” Harry’s voice is no longer vibrating with anger; instead, it is smooth like butter.

Louis moans around Harry’s fingers at this, and Harry wastes no time. He reaches behind himself and gropes around until he finds the handle to the bathroom door. At the same time, he pulls his fingers out of Louis's mouth, grabs his face roughly, and kisses him. Louis melts into the kiss, and they back up together and all but fall into the open bathroom door, kissing passionately as they go. As soon as they are both in the bathroom, Harry slams Louis against the door, never breaking their lips apart.

The bathroom is harshly lit with fluorescent lights, and the grimy white tile running from floor to ceiling doesn’t help the overall dirty and dingy vibe. It isn’t a single stall, and there isn’t a lock on the door, so anyone could come in and see them. They have fucked in many bathrooms before, including this one, and Harry knows Louis likes the thought of getting caught, of someone seeing Harry wreck him. Like he said, he knows his boy.

Harry drops his hands down to start undoing the other man’s jeans. Louis's head is hanging back against the door, legs shaking and breath labored like he just ran a marathon.

“Aww, baby, you are so desperate for me you can’t stand it. How can you ever pretend you can stay away from me when I haven’t even touched you yet, and you’re practically falling apart, hmm?” Louis's hands fly up to grip Harry’s biceps as he unbuttons and unzips his pants. “Be a good boy and beg for Daddy. You know you want to. You know you need to.” Harry starts tugging down the other man’s jeans and looks down, ready for his first glimpse of Lou’s hard cock, and instead sees red lacy panties.

Harry groans and runs his fingers along his boy’s beautiful lace-covered cock. Louis bites his lip again and lets out an involuntary high-pitched whine as Harry touches him. No matter how hard Louis bites his own lip to try and contain his noises, he has always been noisy during sex. Harry misses Louis' noises so much that he reaches up with his free hand and uses his thumb to tug Louis'ss bottom lip free from his teeth. The brunette boy’s mouth falls open obscenely as he draws in ragged breaths. Harry is desperate to hear his lover’s sounds of pleasure once again, so he strokes his lover’s length with his other hand.

“Oh, baby, who are you so dressed up for? Can’t be me, right, since you said you are done with me? Didn’t want me anymore, hmm?” Harry says teasingly, still slowly stroking Louis's cock. “Did you put on my favorite pair of your panties knowing we’d end up here, or did you put them on for someone else? Were you trying to get fucked and ruin these panties I bought you with someone else’s cum? Hmm? Was that your plan? Or were you just trying to be a fucking brat all night, knowing I’d eventually teach you a lesson?” Harry squeezes Louis's cock a bit harder on the upstroke when he says lesson, knowing Louis loves a bit of pain mixed in with his pleasure.

As Harry tightens his grip just a bit extra around the head of his leaking cock, Louis outright moans. Harry feels Louis's cock twitch in his hand as it blurts out a big bead of precum. Harry smirks because he knows he has hit the nail on the head.

“Oh, that is it, isn’t it, baby?” Harry keeps stroking the other boy’s cock. Harry grabs his face to tilt Louis's head to make eye contact with him. Louis's blue eyes are so dilated they have been reduced to glassy, black orbs with a ring of blue on the outside. Harry squeezes Louis's cock a bit harder on his upstroke, desperate to see the other man’s reaction. Louis closes his eyes, groans, and starts trying to thrust into Harry’s hand.

“You dressed up for me knowing you were going to be a brat and hoping that wearing my favorite panties was going to spare you from some of your punishment, is that it? You thought Daddy would see his favorite little panties around his favorite little cock and be nice to you? But you don’t really want Daddy to be nice to you, do you? You like it when it hurts a little.”

Harry moves his hand up to the tip and squeezes just a little harder, and the shorter man lets out the most heavenly whine from the back of his throat as Harry essentially squeezes more precum out of his throbbing cock. He keeps Louis's prick in a punishing hold and roughly but slowly jerks him off. Louis squeezes his eyes shut again, and Harry can see the tears trying to escape. He can see Louis's beautiful eyelashes start to get damp as he tries to hold the tears in. Harry’s own cock is pushing against the confines of his tight jeans at the sight - Louis was always so beautiful when he cried during sex.

Harry places his hand on the door behind Louis's head and leans closer while he continues to pump his hand slowly as Louis thrusts into his too-tight fist, whimpering and trying to chase his release.

“You act like a brat and dry hump men on the dance floor and think you can get away with it?” Harry chuckled lightly. “I caught you in that hallway touching another man’s cock just a minute ago. Did you think you could get away with that? Did you think I’d allow you to get off scot-free after that little stunt? My cock is the only one you have ever known, and it is high time I remind you of the fact that you belong to me.”

If Harry thought Louis was done being a brat, he was dead fucking wrong.

Louis opens his eyes and before Harry can get distracted by his beautiful boy's eyes lined with glistening tears, Louis spits out, “I told you, Harry, you aren’t the only one anymore. I didn’t sit around and wait for you this time. You certainly didn’t wait for me so I’m done waiting for you. You don’t own me anymore. I’m not just yours…”

At that, Harry drops his hold of Louis like he was burned and backs up. He turns around to try and catch his breath. Harry can still faintly hear the bass of the music over the glaring buzz of the fluorescents. He feels Louis come up closer behind him. Harry leans over and grips the sink so tightly that his knuckles turn as white as the dirty porcelain underneath him.

Harry’s chest heaves as his mind runs a mile a minute.

Could Louis have really fucked someone else? They had always talked about how special it was that they were each other’s only ones. They had always cherished that.

Did Louis really not care anymore? Were they really over? Did Louis really not want anything to do with Harry anymore? Had he really moved on?

And what was he talking about Harry not waiting for him? What is he talking about? Harry had worked on campus and off campus all summer. He was working 12, 14, 16 hours a day at literally any job he could find to try and survive the summer alone in Madison. He didn’t do anything but work, sleep, and think about Louis. What the fuck was Louis on about?

Harry is trying to take deep breaths as he can feel Louis's breathing getting steadier and steadier. But Harry’s ears are ringing, and he can’t catch his breath, he just can’t.

“I fucking told you, H.” Louis starts again. “I TOLD you I was done. Just because you fucked me the first time when I was 18 and stupid doesn’t mean you own me.”

Harry can feel Louis closing the space between them before he starts up again.

“Just because I was a stupid virgin who got on my knees for the first hot boy I saw and you’ve had me dick-whipped for three years doesn’t mean you own me,” Louis states matter of factly. “Besides, you clearly had fun this summer on campus without me, so I had some fun too. Just because we have good sex, Harry, doesn’t mean we are meant to fucking be together,” He spits out, full of a venom Harry has never felt from Louis before.

Harry can’t breathe. Did Louis really think that? Think that it was just about this? Just about sex? Harry loved Louis. Didn’t he know that? Didn’t he know how much Harry loved him? That every bit of Harry’s soul loved every bit of Louis's? This was never just about sex for Harry. Was it for Louis? All this time, had it just been about sex? Harry’s heart breaks even more, thinking it might have been just that for Louis. And what the fuck is he going on about this summer?

Not letting go of the sink, Harry tries to take a deep breath and asks, “Louis, what the fuck are you talking about me having fun this summer on campus without you?”

Harry’s head is still hanging down as he stares at the bottom of the sink like it holds all the answers to the universe while he waits for Louis's answer. But all he hears Louis bark out a bitter laugh.

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Harry. I know what you did this summer.”

Harry lifts his eyes up just enough to make eye contact with Louis in the dirty mirror. “No, seriously, Louis, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“You were shacking up with some blonde and fucking her all summer, Harry, don’t pretend you didn’t.”

At this Harry spins around like a wild man. “Louis, I don’t know who the fuck told you that, but Taylor is just my friend. She - “ Harry looks down and feels the heat of shame crawl up his neck. Fuck, this was embarrassing. “She was letting me sleep on her couch because I didn’t have anywhere else to go, Louis. I - ” He clears his throat before starting again. “I was all alone, Louis. Taylor let me stay with her but nothing happened, Louis, nothing would ever happen.” Harry swallowed roughly and looked up at Louis. “Louis, I am gay. Fully, completely, totally gay. I wouldn’t have slept with Taylor even if she wanted to, which she didn’t, because I am gay. How many times do I have to tell you that? Can’t you just believe me?” He stared at Louis imploringly, begging him, literally begging him, to just believe that he was gay. If Harry wasn’t gay, why would he have given everything up and endured what he had? It didn’t make any sense as to why Louis didn’t believe him.

Sometimes, just sometimes, Harry felt like he was working just as hard to convince Louis that he was gay as he had to try and convince his parents. His parents always saw his queerness as their cross to bear from God. Like forcing Harry to be straight was their golden ticket into heaven. Eventually, they gave up trying to get him to stop liking boys and just tried to get him to also like girls. And when that didn’t work, when he couldn’t even get it up to fuck a woman, they were so mad. He had never seen them that mad. He had never felt them that mad…

Harry turns around, squeezes his eyes shut and presses the palms of his hands into his eyes. He is trying desperately to ground himself before he gets lost in his memories.

Suddenly, Harry isn’t standing in a shitty college bar bathroom in Madison, Wisconsin. He is sixteen years old and in his childhood bedroom in Lebanon, Kansas.

He can hear his mother’s friend from church sneaking into his room in the pitch black, smell the cloying scent of her perfume mixed with sweet Moscato on her breath and the sour smell of her sweat. She is whispering to him with slurred words that she is going to help him, show him he isn’t broken so his parents will love him again, so that God would love him again. As she lifts up his blankets and crawls into his bed, she whispers promise after promise that it is all going to be okay and to just trust her.

Trying not to get stuck in that memory, trying to pull himself out, trying to not spiral back into the worst night of his life, Harry turns back and grabs the sink again. He squeezes it so tightly he is worried it will break. But he is so desperate to get out of this loop, get out of his own fucking head, that he doesn’t care what he breaks. He just needs to be able to breathe.

At some point, Louis had started talking again.

“...all over campus, Harry. You weren’t being fucking discreet. And so if you want to go out and fuck pretty little girls, I can go out and fuck pretty men. I am my own person. I can fuck whoever I want and I WILL. I have. I don’t - ”

Harry’s consciousness is jumping back and forth between the worst night of his life and Louis yelling at him and he just can’t take it anymore. Honestly, he can’t let Louis finish that sentence because no matter what it is, it will kill him. Louis doesn’t love him? Doesn’t need him? Doesn’t care about him? Doesn’t want him?

Whatever it was, Harry can’t stand to hear it. He knows he isn’t worth anything; he knows that like he knows his own name. But Louis always told him he was. And even though Harry never really believed Louis, he still can’t stand to hear him say it. Harry, well, he just won’t survive it. He has survived a lot, but hearing Louis put his own worst fears into words - well, he wouldn’t survive that.

So Harry does the only thing that comes naturally to him - he punches the mirror in front of him and it shatters.

The shattering glass falling around him in that instant is comforting. It pulls him back to the present and out of the hellscape that is his mind. Destruction, broken things, and the bite of something sharp running over his skin are things he understands. They are familiar feelings. They remind him he is alive, he is in this moment, and most of all, that he isn’t sixteen anymore.

Before he can see if he has any new cuts, he spins around, grabs Louis's face, and pulls him in for a punishing kiss. He licks into the smaller boy’s mouth like he is a dying man and the only thing that can save him is a taste of his lover. After a moment, Harry leans back slightly, still gripping Louis's face with two hands. Harry can see the blood dripping down from his knuckles onto the other boy’s neck.

“Fuck you, Louis.” Harry can’t keep the wobbling out of his voice. Fuck, this hurts. Louis has always known how to love him but also how to hurt him.

“Fuck you. You KNOW how I feel about you. You KNOW I fucking love you. Fuck you for trying to hurt me. Do you think I want to be playing this stupid fucking game? You always blame me for these fights and these break-ups, but this isn’t just my fucking fault, baby. You live for the drama. You can’t ever just let me fucking love you.” Harry knows he is crying, he can feel the warm tears on his cheeks, but he is too far gone to care.

Louis looks at Harry, glassy blue eyes wet with unshed tears and tinged with anger and arousal alike. “Fuck you, Harry. You don’t know anything.”

They both stare at each other, each willing the other to break. Each hoping the other will say something. Harry surges forward again and kisses Louis with everything he has. They are pressed up against each other from head to toe. After a moment, Harry pulls back slightly and leans his forehead against Louis's so that as he talks, Harry’s breath will be the only thing he can taste.

“What is your color, baby?”

Chapter Text

“Green,” Louis blurts out. He doesn’t even hesitate. “Green, Daddy, it is Green. Green, green, green.”

Louis closes his eyes again and rolls his hips forward, and his red panties rub against Harry’s clothed crotch. Harry looks down and sees the wet spot darkening the panties where his boy has been consistently leaking precum. Louis's ragged breathing is the only thing Harry can even hear anymore.

“Good boy. Thank you for telling Daddy your color.” Harry leans forward and kisses Louis gently on his nose. “Now, let’s have some fun.”

Harry releases his face and backs away slowly. Louis whimpers at the loss of contact. Harry drinks him in as Louis slumps against the grimy wall. His tight skinny jeans are unbuttoned. His red lace panties are just a few minutes from being totally wrecked from that ever-growing wet spot. His hair is sweaty and matted to his forehead, but all Harry can think about is how beautiful he is.

Harry can still see the smear of his own blood from earlier on Louis's bottom lip and cheek from when he tried to wipe it away earlier. Louis's eyelashes are still damp from the tears he didn’t quite cry earlier when Harry had a punishing grip on his leaking cock.

“Pull your pants down over your beautiful ass and bend over the sink, baby. It is time for your punishment.”

Louis's eyes dart to the door quickly, and Harry sees the moment his eyes widen in shock.

Harry chuckles. “Oh baby, I don’t care that there isn’t a lock. I hope someone comes in and sees you. Maybe I’ll even let them fuck you too. That is what you want, isn’t it? To just give your ass up to any boy off the street? If you want to act like a dirty slut, you can be treated like a dirty slut. Turn around and bend over the sink,” Harry orders, lifting his hand to point to the sink. “Don’t make me ask again.”

As Louis pushes himself off the bathroom door and makes his way over to the sink, he wiggles his pants down just a bit. He uncovers his ass but leaves his cock still covered by the panties. Harry sees how Louis's jeans are bunched up in his crotch and have trapped his balls. It must be uncomfortable, but Harry knows he likes the pain.
Louis leans over the sink and offers his ass to Harry. Harry could fuck everyone on the planet and never find an ass like Louis's. It is plump and firm but jiggles in a way that should be illegal.

Harry walks up behind Louis and runs both of his hands over Louis's ass checks. Grabbing, squeezing, rubbing, Harry groans inwardly knowing what he is going to do to these cheeks soon. “I am going to give you fifteen for acting like such a dirty little whore.”

Louis whips his head around, eyes wide. “Fifteen? H…”

Harry quickly brings his hand down and makes harsh contact with the boys right-ass check. Louis yelps and jumps a bit at the sudden contact.

“Yes, baby, fifteen. You’ve been a bad boy. And you are going to count each” smack

“and”

smack

“every”

smack

“one.”

smack

Louis, breathing heavily, grips the sink and hangs his head down. “Okay, Daddy. I’m sorry. I’ll be good, Daddy. I’ll be good and count. I promise,” Louis whines out as Harry keeps massaging his ass cheeks, the right of which is already turning a beautiful shade of cherry red from Harry’s earlier hits.

Harry can feel the heat coming off of the spot where he already spanked Louis. Harry groans and feels his own impossibly hard cock twitch again in his pants knowing he has just gotten started. He leaves one hand on Louis beautiful ass and uses the other to adjust himself in his own jeans. Harry places his hand on Louis's bare hip to steady him and winds up for his next smack.

“Good boy.” Harry brings his hand down and makes contact again.

Louis shouts out, “Six!”

Harry chuckles as he massages Louis's ass again. “Oh no, baby, that was one.”

Louis shouts and tries to stand up but can’t because Harry holds his hip firmly in his grip and uses his other hand to hold the smaller boy’s back down.

“Harry …” Harry levels another smack on on his ass.

“That one doesn’t count either. You will address me properly or you will be punished even more. I know you’ve become a fucking whore since we broke up, but I didn’t think you’d become stupid as well.”

“Daddy, I’m sorry, but I can’t - I can’t do fifteen on top of what you’ve already done. I can’t. Daddy, it is too much I can’t. I can’t.” Louis begs.

Harry can tell he is crying because he can hear Louis sniffling as he begs. He runs his thumb on Louis's hip softly to provide some comfort. “What is your color, baby?”

Louis continues to breath heavily, not responding to Harry but still pushing his ass back as if asking for more. Harry lightens the pressure on Louis back and keeps stroking his hip gently with his thumb. “Sweetheart, you need to talk to me. If you need a break we can take a break. You are in control, baby, but you need to talk to me. Be a good boy and tell me your color, baby. Come on, baby, tell Daddy your color.”

“Green. So green. I am green I promise. Bright fucking neon green.” At this Louis picks his head up and turns to look at Harry. “I need it, Daddy, please, please punish me. I want to be a good boy for you, please let me be a good boy for you. Please, daddy, please,” Louis whines out the last please and it is music to Harry’s ears. Louis really was the best boy in the whole world.

Harry presses Louis's back down a little bit more so Louis's ass pushes out towards Harry, fully on display and ready for more. “Thank you for telling me your color, baby. Daddy is so proud of you. You are daddy’s best boy.”

Harry smacks him again, harder than before, and Louis lurches forward from the impact and whimpers. “Are you ready to start for real, Lou? Are you ready for your punishment? Because every time you argue with me, I’ll spank you again, but I won’t let you start counting until I’m satisfied.”

Louis sniffles and picks his head up. He makes eye contact with Harry in the broken mirror. Even through the splintered glass, Harry can see that his boy is crying. The tears streaking his cheeks are evidence of that.
“Okay, Daddy. I’ll be good. I’ll be a good boy for you. I promise. I promise.”

On the second promise, Louis's voice goes so high as he whines and sticks his ass out further to present himself for his spanking. Harry runs his hand over his ass again and hums. He knows the boy’s ass must be stinging from the punishment, so he rubs his hand softly over Louis red and beaten skin.

“Mmm, such a good boy. Such a good boy for Daddy. This is why Daddy doesn’t need anyone else because you are such a good boy. You can start counting now, baby. Remember, it is fifteen.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Louis huffs out, “Fifteen, I am ready, I promise.”

Harry starts spanking Louis at a punishing pace, sometimes alternating and sometimes hitting the same place over and over again. Louis keeps falling forward hitting his hips against the sink as he counts out each spank Harry gives him. At ten, Louis is breathless and crying and his entire ass is red as can be. As Louis whimpers out “ten,” they both hear the door creak open.

Louis doesn’t even move, his hands gripping the sink as he tries to stay up, but his head is hanging down. Harry can tell that Louis is going to try and catch his breath, thinking Harry will give him a moment of reprieve as he tells whoever it is to go away.

Harry looks up and makes eye contact with whoever is in the doorway, frozen at this scene. Holding eye contact, Harry lands another smack on Louis's ass and he cries out “eleven!” in total shock.

“Get the fuck out!” Harry bellows at other man. Louis hasn’t even looked up but Harry waits to make sure the man is gone. He knows Louis doesn’t actually want an audience.

“Color, baby?” Harry whispers, just to make sure Louis is okay after being seen like this.

“Green,” Louis huffs out, sounding like he has run a marathon.
“Good boy,” Harry croons as he shoves two fingers back into Louis's mouth. While he wants Louis to count the last four slaps, he also needs him to get his fingers wet because Harry isn’t going to last much longer without getting his dick in Lou’s tight, red ass.

“Come on, baby, you are almost done. Get my fingers nice and wet so he can open you up and fuck you like you need,” Harry says roughly, his voice heavy with arousal.

As Louis groans around Harry’s fingers, getting them soaking wet, Harry lands his last four spanks on Louis's ass in quick succession. Louis cries out around Harry’s fingers after each spank. After the fifteenth, Louis slumps forward, panting heavily. He collapses onto his forearms and rests his forehead on his arm, seemingly desperate to catch his breath.

Harry stands behind Louis taking in how beautiful his ass looks all marked up with Harry’s handprints. Even Harry can admit a total of twenty-two spanks was a lot in one go for Louis.

“Thank you, Daddy.” Louis mumers into his own arm as he starts to catch his breath.

Harry uses his dry hand to pull Lou’s ass checks apart and reveal his tight, bare, pink hole. Harry almost cums himself just from that sight alone. Harry runs his two fingers lightly over Louis hole and spreads Louis own saliva over his puckered hole. “Of course, baby, anything for you. I will always give you what you need,” Harry says gently as he rubs his wet fingers over Louis's center.

At this, Louis pushes back against Harry’s fingers and lets out a desperate mewl. “Daddy, please. I need you. It has been so long.”

Harry keeps running his spit-slick fingers over the boys hole and chuckles. “Oh yeah, baby? I thought you had been fucking other people? I thought you didn’t need me anymore?” Harry applies just a bit more pressure but not enough for his fingers to penetrate Louis.

“I was lying! I was lying! It has always just been you. Just you, Daddy, just yo-”

Without letting Louis finish, Harry grips Louis's hip together shoves both of his wet fingers inside of him roughly. Louis yelps out in surprise. Harry bites his lip hard to prevent himself from groaning out at how breathtaking Louis is and how close Harry is to coming just from seeing his boy like this.

Harry knows that if it really has been two months since Louis has been fucked, two fingers at once will be quite an intrusion, but he knows what his boy can take. Louis is panting and whining while also pushing himself back onto Harry’s glistening fingers.

Louis rambles on as Harry continues to finger him open. Harry smirks because Louis sounds almost hysterical. Two of Harry’s fingers inside of him with no lube and very little prep must be so much for the smaller boy. Harry knows that this is almost too much and that Louis is going to feel it for days, but he knows that is what his boy wants. He loves it. He loves it when Harry claims him and owns him, and reminds him that he is the only one Louis has ever had. Harry pushes his fingers in just a bit further and twists them to hit Lou’s prostate harshly. Louis cries out and instantly cums.

“Oh, baby. Such a good boy, cumming for Daddy.” Louis whimpers as Harry removes his fingers. Harry reaches around and roughly shoves his hand into the boy's now cum-soaked lacy panties. Harry runs his fingers through Louis's cum and gets his fingers soaked. Harry removes his hand from Lou’s spent cock and roughly shoves three fingers into Lou’s waiting hole.

“Your cum will do nicely as lube for Daddy. Thank you for coming for Daddy so he can fuck you. You are such a good boy.” Harry purrs and keeps scissoring his three fingers in Louis's hole as he whimpers again.

“Color, baby?”

Louis pauses for a beat before saying, “Green.”

That pause has Harry concerned so he immediately withdraws his fingers and kneels down to look in Louis's eyes. He pushes the panting boy’s fringe back off his sweaty forehead and assesses him. “Baby, we don’t have to do this. You are in charge here. Anything you want, and it’s yours. Do you want to stop? Slow down?”

Louis swallows. “No, Harry, I don’t want to stop. I just needed a breath, I promise. You -” Louis lets go of his death grip on the sink and gestures vaguely at Harry “- can be a lot sometimes, but I love it. I promise. I am okay. But I also need to be able to sit tomorrow, so can we use the lube in my pocket?”

Harry chuckles lightly and kisses Louis gently. “Of course, baby, I love you.”

Louis smirks, and Harry rolls his eyes fondly because he knows what is coming. “I know,” Louis say cheekily.

Harry gives Louis another gentle kiss while he rifles around in Louis'ss pocket for the packet of lube he brought. Harry will have to ask about that later. He doesn’t let him give in to asking whether or not Louis brought this because he knew he was going to try and goad Harry into fucking him or if he was really going on the pull. Harry shakes that thought out. It doesn’t matter now; they are here together like they should be.

Lube in hand, Harry stands up and snaps back into the character he knows Louis wants.

“Get on your knees, baby. Suck me off and get me nice and wet so I can fuck that tight little ass of yours. Touch yourself while you do it but don’t cum; I’m not done with you yet. You will cum again, but this time only when I tell you.”

Louis sucks in a breath. He gets on his knees on the hard tile floor and Harry watches him take his softening and most likely sticky cock into his hand. As Harry approaches him, he sees Louis flick his eyes to the door.

Harry uses one hand to keep stroking his dick and another to gently touch his love’s face. Harry grabs the base of his cock, desperate not to cum right now, as he runs his thumb sweetly down Louis's face and neck. He gathers Lou’s sweat and tears mixed with a little bit of Harry’s blood and then uses that same thumb to pull Louis's mouth open. Harry taps the tip of his cock on Lou’s bitten red lips a few times and groans inwardly as Louis licks his lips. Harry knows Louis must be able to taste the salty twang of his pre-cum on his lips.

Harry smiles down at the boy on his knees in this very public bathroom.. “Don’t worry, baby, you look beautiful with a cock in your mouth. If someone comes in, they will be lucky to see how heavenly you look with my cock shoved down your throat.”

With that, Harry uses one hand to shove’s his aching hard cock into Louis's mouth and uses his other to brace the door shut. It won’t keep someone out entirely, but it would give Louis enough time to get into a more dignified position if he wanted to.

Harry throws his head back and groans loudly as Louis swallows him down. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a few deep breaths to ground himself, trying hard to not let himself cum. The warm, wet heat of Lou’s mouth and the vibrations of his boy moaning around his cock after everything he has already done to him is too much, and Harry can feel his orgasm growing. Harry tightens his grip on Lou’s hair to still him. He doesn’t want to cum in his mouth; he desperately wants to come in his boy’s ass.

Harry takes a few deep breaths, and when he feels like he has regained some composure, he looks back down at his favorite boy on his knees for him. He takes short, ragged breaths as he slowly thrusts in and out of Louis's mouth. “Such a good boy for me, baby. You are doing so well. Daddy just needs to make sure his cock is nice and wet before he splits you open.”

Louis mumbles out what is probably his best attempt at “Yes, Daddy, anything for you, Daddy.” He looks up at Harry with his bright blue eyes, still mostly black from arousal but also tinged with red from crying. Harry has never seen anything more beautiful than Louis looking up at him through those wet eyelashes. This is one of the reasons he could never share him, never really let him go. For better or worse, he really does love Louis and wants to keep him all to himself. It might make him kind of crazy sometimes, but he wouldn’t change it. Losing Louis is not an option.

The way Louis let’s Harry really see him in vulnerable moments like this stops him in his tracks and makes his breath catch in his throat. Louis is so closed off from everyone, including Harry, and no matter how much he has tried to chip away at that armor, the only place Louis seems to feel safe enough to truly let go is when Harry is spreading him open.

Harry pulls out of Louis's warm, wet mouth and slowly strokes his cock until it is fully covered in Lou’s spit and his own precum. While making eye contact with Louis, who was still on his knees, Harry slowly rips open the lube packet with his teeth and squirts it on his cock and rubs it in. “Stand up, baby, I’m ready to fuck you now.”

Louis takes a deep breath and picks himself up off the floor, wincing a bit from the pain in his knees and most likely from his ass as well. He is rock-hard again and leaking, ready to cum again whenever Harry commands it. Harry groans at the sight and squeezes his dick just a bit harder in anticipation of Louis's tight, wet heat.

As Louis tries to steady himself, Harry scoops him up by his ass. Louis hisses in pain as Harry’s hands squeeze his bare, red ass. Harry pushes Louis's back up against the door roughly and it punches a breath out of the smaller boy. Louis wraps his legs tightly around Harry’s waist as Harry uses his hands to pull Lou’s cheeks apart and brush feather-light touches over Louis's hole to spread the lube. Harry holds one ass cheek roughly to the side as he slowly dips three fingers inside gently to make sure Louis's hole is ready and lubed up. Louis arches his back off the wall and whines, desperate for Harry to be fully inside him already.

Harry withdraws his fingers and goes back to holding Louis up by his ass cheeks as he has him pressed againsg the door. “Lou, Lou, baby, look at me.” Louis shakes his head, eyes closed, and his head against the door.

“Baby, please, I need you to look at me, this is important.” Harry pleads with him. Louis takes a few deep breath and looks down into Harry’s deep green eyes.

“Baby, I need you to be honest with me. Right now. I want to fuck you. I need to fuck you. I need to fuck you so hard that you are crying, and then I want to wrap you back up and send you into that club with my cum dripping out of your ass. But I don’t have a condom, baby, so I need you to look at me and be honest - have you let anyone else fuck you? I need you to tell me, Lou. I need you to tell me right now. Because, god, baby, I miss you so much and I want to fuck you right now and make us both feel so good, but we have to be safe.” Harry tightens his grip ever so slightly on Louis holding his breath not knowing how he will respond if Louis says he really had let someone else fuck him.

“No, Harry, it has just been you.” Lou stutters out. He makes eye contact with Harry and says the words Harry so desperately needed to hear: “It has always been you. There is no one else. There will never be anyone else.” Louis closes his eyes again, chest heaving as he waits for Harry’s reaction.

“Louis, baby, Louis look at me again. One more time I promise and then I’ll fuck you, but please baby, look at me one more time.” Harry gently says.

When their eyes meet, Harry leans forward and gently kisses his boy. “I love you. Thank you for being honest. Thank you for waiting for me. I love you.”

Louis huffs impatiently but gently cups Harry’s face as he kisses him lovingly. “I love you too you big oaf. So much that I never let anyone else fuck me every single time we break up but its been two months so for the love of fucking god could you PLEASE just fuck me.”

Harry chuckles and kisses Louis one more time before slowly starting to guide the tip of his rock-hard cock into Louis's waiting hole.

Louis lets out a high-pitched moan again and tries to fuck himself down on Harry’s cock, but Harry holds him steadily against the wall with a combination of his body weight and the death grip Harry has on the backside of Louis's thick thighs.

Louis is getting squirmy now like he always does when Harry denies him. “Daddy, please. I’ll be so good for you, I promise, I promise, please fuck me. Please, please, please.” Louis has his eyes closed again and his head thrown back so hard against the door that it probably hurts. Harry can feel how taut his boyfriend’s whole body is with want. He is desperate to be filled by Harry and Harry can feel that in Louis's every movement.

Harry huffs out a breath and says, “Okay, baby, be careful what you wish for…”

Louis starts begging, desperate for it, but before he could finish his pleading, Harry thrusts up into him and buries himself to the hilt in Louis's warm hole. He shouts out as Harry leans forward and groans into Louis's neck. Harry can tell Louis isn’t quite stretched enough or quite wet enough for it not to hurt at least a little.

Nevertheless, Louis continues to pant and cry out while Harry isn’t even moving, so he runs his hand back up to brush Louis fringe out of his eyes.

“Lou, baby, color.” Louis keeps panting, whining, and squirming with his eyes squeezed shut, not responding to Harry. Harry can feel Louis hole clenching around his cock, and it is making Harry want to thrust with wild abandon, but he can’t before he knows his boy is okay to continue. “Lou, baby, I need your color. You need to give me a color or I can’t fuck you. Be a good boy and tell Daddy your color.”

“Green, green, green….” Louis finally gets out desperately.

“If you say so, baby,” and Harry smiles into his neck and starts to fuck up into Louis as if his life depends on it. He is pounding Louis's ass as if he’ll never get to again. Harry nuzzles his face into his lovers neck and leans down to bite Lou’s collarbone. Lou whines out a sharp cry as Harry bites him and fucks him at the same time.

“Oh god, Oh god, Oh god, Daddy, you feel so good. It hurts but it feels so good, Daddy, thank you, thank you” Louis whines breathily.

Lou’s hole is clenching around Harry’s cock like it is trying to milk the cum right out of it. Harry knows he isn’t going to last much longer. His own breathing is picking up as Louis reaches around Harry’s neck to grab onto Harry’s curls. He knocks Harry’s hat off his head in a frantic effort to ground himself by wrapping his fingers in the hair at the nape of Harry’s neck. Louis pulled Harry’s hair back and exposed Harry’s neck as he groaned and continued to fuck frantically up into his boy.

Louis was flushed from head to toe and barely breathing as Harry roughly fucked into him. Harry could feel Louis tighten his fingers in his curls and yanked him back a little bit more. Harry arched his back, and that small movement meant Harry was now pounding directly into Louis's prostate. Instantly, Louis loosened his grip on Harry’s hair and went limp against the door. It seemed like all he could do was feel Harry fucking him and hitting his prostate over and over again.

“Daddy, I need to cum, Daddy, please, it is too much.” Louis begged through ragged breaths, his sweaty fringe in his eyes as he squeezed them shut and Harry saw more tears run down his face. Harry can tell Louis was so overwhelmed and overstimulated. Harry has set a relentless pace, and Louis can barely catch his breath since Harry had started fucking him.

Harry looks at Louis and drinks him in as they both start to fall apart. Louis looks so beautiful when he is about to cum. Harry had always thought that Louis looks so relaxed and beautiful when he gives himself over to Harry completely. His wet eyelashes flutter open and frame his beautiful, glassy blue eyes as they connect with Harry’s. Harry reaches in between them and grabs Louis's flushed cock as Harry leans forward to kiss him. “Come on, baby, cum for me. Paint us with your cum before we go back out into the club. Everyone will know what we did. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want everyone to know we are each others? Come on, baby, let me have it.”

Louis closes his eyes and throws his head back against the door as he lets a high-pitched whine escape. Harry licks into his mouth and jerks Lou’s cock up and down in time with his thrusts. Harry twists his hand up and down over Louis's already sensitive cock head and Harry can tell he is close to pulling the orgasm out of his lover. Harry bites down on Louis's full bottom lip and that pushes him over the edge. Louis lets out a moan from deep inside and squeezes his eyes shut as the rest of the tears leak out. Louis shoots rope after rope of cum on he and Harry’s shirts as Harry keeps hitting his prostate.

Harry can feel Louis's used hole clench around him tightly as he rides his own aftershocks, twisting his hips down and still seeking that full feeling even though he has to be wildly overstimulated at this point. God, Harry can’t help but think about how much he loves this boy and that thought pushes Harry over the edge in an instant.

He fucks into Louis a few more times before he buries himself to the hilt and feels himself unload into the smaller man’s tight ass. He ducks his head into Louis's neck and breathes him in deeply. As he comes down from his own high, he nuzzles into his boys neck, still sticky from sweat, tears, drying blood, and even a little bit of Louis's own cum. Harry licks up his neck to collect that little drop of cum. He plants a kiss on Louis's jawline before he starts the process of lowering him to the ground.

Louis drops his legs from around Harry’s waist as Harry slowly lowers him to the ground. Harry can tell that his boy is sore and shaky from the way his knees almost buckle when his feet make contact with the ground. Harry let’s go of his hips with one hand and brushes his lover’s fringe out of his face. Harry tilts Louis's head up, “Lou, baby, look at me.”

Louis blinks his eyes as if to clear his head and takes a deep breath before opening them. Harry is holding his breath waiting to see his lover’s blue eyes. Harry is hopeful that he will see love and contentment in those blue eyes he knows so well.

Harry knows this is their cycle - break up, have sex, get back together, so on and so forth. But Harry wants to get it right this time. He loves his boy so, so much and he just wants to love him correctly all the time. Harry hopes with all of his heart that he sees the same thing in Louis's eyes that he is sure is radiating from his.

Harry can feel his heart thumping in his chest and that anxious bubble in his gut where normally he feels at peace after being with Louis. At the last second, Harry panics and closes his eyes and leans forward to kiss Louis lightly. Harry isn’t ready to face the music - he just wants to kiss his boy at least one more time. He takes a moment to breathe him in as he feels Louis's ever soft lips move lazily against his before letting him go.

He takes a deep breathe as he turns his back to the boy he has never been more sure is the love of his life. Harry quickly turns around and hikes his pants back up and tucks himself in. He takes a steadying breath and goes to wash his hands and grab some paper towels to clean up his boy. He hears Louis lean his weight against the door but nothing else. Harry smirks a little to himself - he tired Louis out so much he is just leaning against the door to a public restroom half naked and covered in cum.

Harry pockets the panties because first of all, they are covered in cum and starting to dry in that uncomfortable stiff way. But also, because Harry wanted to remember this moment. Remember the moment he decided he would do anything to get this right. Louis will inevitably ask about the panties and rib Harry for being a possessive bastard, which he is to be fair, but it’s more than that. Harry understands in this moment that it has always been more than that, he just never fully let himself realize it because he was scared. Harry resolves to unpack that later, but for right now, he needs to get his beautiful boy dressed.

Slowly, Harry wipes Louis clean before lifting each of his feet carefully to help put his jeans back on. Harry kisses gently up Louis's strong thighs as he pours him back into his admittedly tight skinny jeans.

Harry sees the moment Louis finally opens his eyes and looks down at him. Harry slowly grabs his ratty old Jayhawks cap off the floor. Without breaking eye contact, he slips it over his messy curls just the way he knows Louis loves - backwards. Harry breaks into a dazzling smile when Louis huffs out a laugh - Harry knows that Louis loves to hate his hat. They have had so many stupid fights over this hat.

Louis, a life-long Wisonconsinite, would sometimes demand why Harry, a native Kansasan who always says Wisconsin is his home, will never replace the University of Kansas hat he got in high school. Harry knows that more than half the reasons he loves this hat and refuses to replace it is because of how cute Louis gets when he gest all riled up about Harry not replacing it. Harry has spent the last three years finding ways to make this remarkable boy smile and when he finds a surefire one like this old ratty Jayhawks hat, he will literally never let it go.

Once Harry gets Louis's very tight jeans all the way up and over what Harry is sure is his very sore ass, Harry stands and turns to pick up another damp paper towel off the sink. Harry gently runs the paper towel around his loves face and neck to clean up the sweat, tears, and remaining bit of what is probably Harry’s blood.

When Harry deems Louis sufficiently clean, he turns to wash his hands and wash his own face free of the remnants of their not-so-quick bathroom fuck. Harry feels at peace in a way he hasn’t since he and Louis broke up for some stupid reason two months ago. He dries his hands off on some paper towels before crushing them up and throwing them in the trash can. He looks up at the mirror he broke and turns around slowly to face Louis. What if now that the post sex haze bas cleared, Louis is still angry? What if he doesn’t feel the same sense of anxious excitement about getting back together and staying together Harry does right now?

As Harry steels himself and takes a deep breath to turn around and face his lover, he didn’t realize Louis had been walking over to him. When Harry spins around, he and Louis collide face-first in a way only they could do. Harry pinches his nose and breaths out “fuck” and tilts his head back, willing his own nose to not start bleeding again. Once he feels like he isn’t going to start gushing blood, he looks down at his boy and smiles while cupping his face gently and running his thumb over Louis's beautiful cheekbones.

“Oops.”

Louis giggles and places his hand over Harry’s, gently stroking the back of Harry’s hand with his own thumb. He looks back up at Harry, and as blue eyes meet green, the shorter man sighs peacefully.

“Hi.”

Under the glaring bathroom lights, both still a bit bloody, sweaty, and pathetic, Harry leans down to kiss Louis softly. Kissing Louis always felt like coming home to Harry - like peace. Louis was his peace.

Harry leaned back as Louis stared up at him with eyes as blue as the skies back in Kansas. Somewhere along the way of these last three tumultuous years, Louis had become everything to Harry. Louis was Harry’s sun, keeping him warm, and his north star guiding him whenever he got lost. Harry gently brushed Louis's fringe back because it was getting long and he knew how much it bothered him when it got into his eyes.

Louis smiled back up at Harry, seemingly feeling the same. The shorter boy slid his right hand down and linked his fingers with Harry’s left. Just like they always held hands, so that their anchor and rope tattoos would be wrapped together - inexplicably linked, just like their lives.

Together, they walked out of the club. Harry felt a warmth spreading throughout him. This time was going to be different, he promised the universe. It was their senior year. They were going to be graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in just nine months' time. Louis was well on his way to being a drama teacher, and Harry - well, Harry wasn’t sure.

But as he looked down at Louis's hand in his, he was sure he was going to be with Louis. He was going to do this right this time. He didn’t want any more fights, anymore breakups; he just wants to find peace in this great love he has found with Louis.

Harry didn’t know much about who he really was, or what he was good for, or what worth he held, but he knows, he knows, he loves his beautiful boy. So that is what he is going to do; he is going to let his love for Louis guide him.

Chapter Text

Hand in hand, Louis and Harry walked home from the club together. They laughed and caught each other up on two months of missed moments, events, and friend group gossip. Louis told Harry dramatic updates about Jenny, the girl in his drama class who was in love with Jessica, who wouldn’t admit she loved Jenny just as much. It wasn’t that Harry wasn’t invested in the Jenny-Jessica love triangle; he just couldn’t do anything but appreciate hearing the sound of Louis’s voice once again. He just loved hearing Louis talk. Harry could listen to his boy tell stories all night and never get bored because to have Louis’ attention was to have the world.

When they returned to Harry’s frat, they walked the creeky old stairs together like they had a million times before. Harry grinned at the familiarity of it and squeezed Louis’ hand.

“What? Why are you smiling like a cat that got the canary?” Louis questioned, narrowing his eyes in playful suspicion as he remembered to jump the last step that had probably been one day away from caving in for decades. Harry was full-on grinning now - dimples and bunny teeth on display - because no matter how long he and Louis had been apart, they always fell back together seamlessly. Probably because they had spent most of the last three years of college together, but Harry also likes to think it is because, at the end of the day, they were soulmates. Just two halves of the same whole who find each other in every universe.

“Nothing, I just love you,” Hary said as he leaned down to kiss Louis softly with a smile.

Louis kissed him back, but as Harry licked across his lips, asking for entrance, Louis broke the kiss and playfully shoved him back. “Ugh, gross, Harry, you still taste like the blood, you filthy animal,” Louis said with a smile as he wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

Harry smirked as he leaned against the closed door to his single room, which was right at the top of the stairs, “you didn’t seem to have an issue with it before…”

“Yeah, well, I had a good fuck and sobered up, I am a changed man,” Louis waved his hand as if he could literally brush away Harry’s statement. “Let’s not dwell on the past.” Louis tried to move past Harry and enter his room, but Harry wasn’t budging.

Louis whined. “Harry, please. I feel disgusting. Can we please take a shower?” Harry could tell Louis was probably about three seconds from either stomping his foot and pouting or a fireman tackling him through the door. The fact that he didn’t know which one was one of the things he loved so much about Louis.

Harry didn’t budge yet, but rather just leaned against the door frame, crossed his arms, and raised his eyebrow, “a good fuck?”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fucks sake, H, a good fuck, a great fuck, a life-changing fuck even, you are the god of dicking me down, please can we just take a goddamn shower.”

“Whatever you say, baby,” Harry said with a cheeky smile as he leaned forward quickly to scoop Louis up and throw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Harry, why are you like this? I am not that much smaller than you!” Louis squawked.

“I know, baby, but sometimes I like to remember how tiny you used to be, and regardless, I am still stronger than you, so it is my right as your boyfriend to manhandle you every now and again,” Harry said calmly as he opened the door to his room and kicked it shut behind him as he walked them both over to the small ensuite shower they had shared a million times before.

Harry put Louis down as he reached over to turn on the water. They both loved that Harry had weaseled his way into his own room with its own bathroom as only a sophomore (a fact Harry will forever be a bit ridiculously smug about). Still, they knew the water would take a hot minute to reach a temperature aside from freezing.

“Boyfriend, eh? So are we officially doing that again?” Louis asks as they shed their sticky, bloody clothes.

Harry can hear the nerves behind the bravado, Louis framing the question as a lighthearted wondering so that he doesn’t seem too desperate. Harry’s heart swells with how well he knows this boy. Louis still hasn’t looked at Harry, but as he finally frees his foot from his tightest skinny jeans, he sees Louis has also finished undressing. Harry grabs Louis's hand and pulls them from chest to chest under lukewarm water. “Yes, baby, I want to officially do this again. Forever, really, if you’ll have me.”

Harry leans down to kiss Louis in the water, and Louis lazily returns the kiss in a way only a well-established couple could. “Do I still taste like blood?” Harry learns back slightly and asks.

“Hmm, a bit, “ Louis mused, “but I guess I can tolerate it. What is a little blood between boyfriends, after all?”

Harry smiled and leaned down to kiss his boyfriend again just to enjoy the sensation of them both smiling and giggling into the kiss like school children. Even after all this time, sometimes their kisses were just a clashing of teeth because they couldn’t stop smiling.

After they showered and Harry had lovingly cleaned every inch of Louis up from their messy fuck in the bathroom, they crawled into bed together. Louis pressed himself against Harry’s back and fit there like he had never left. Louis quickly fell asleep, as he often did, but Harry always lingered awake.

After about an hour or so of being unable to sleep, Harry couldn’t stop thinking about all the times he and Louis had broken up and gotten back together over the last three years. Harry replayed every single fight he and Louis ever had and realized that so often, when he was screaming until his throat hurt, he was not yelling at Louis; he was yelling at his parents. He was screaming everything he never got to say to the people who brought him into this world just to break him. They had never shied away from telling him how they felt about him. They had never shied away from showing him how they felt about him. There are only so many times your parents could beat the shit out of you and tell you it was them trying to help expel the devil before you start to believe that maybe you are permanently tainted. But Harry never said anything back - because what was the point, really?

He had never really told Louis about his parents. Harry was too scared that if he told Louis everything, he would realize his parents were right and that Harry was defective, and he would leave him too. Harry could withstand his parents' hatred; it was all he had ever known afterall, but he couldn’t withstand that type of derision coming from Louis. Harry had told Louis his parents were homophobic and not supportive of him being gay. He had told Louis that his parents had been known to get a bit rough with him, but he had never really told Louis all of it.

He had never told Louis that his first memory was his mother beating him with a hairbrush for crying when he was three and telling him she would beat the demon out of him if she had to.

He had never told Louis that his hands were so rough and calloused, not just because he grew up on a farm, but because any time Harry’s father felt he was being “too gay,” he would make him work the farm until his hands bled and then some. Harry could still feel how slippery and sticky the wooden handle of the shovel or pitchfork would get as his blood poured down it and into the earth below his feet. Oddly enough, he can’t remember the pain in his hands. Maybe he was just so used to it, or perhaps it was the least hurtful part of the experience.

None of that was the worst part, though. The worst part was when his father got impatient and decided Harry wasn’t working fast enough and, therefore, not bleeding fast enough. Then his father would grab whatever tool Harry had been using and beat him with it. Rain or shine, winter or summer, in the field or barn, it was never different. Harry would work until he bled enough to appease his father, and then his father would wield the bloody farm tool like a weapon until Harry stopped crying and just took it. That was the critical thing Harry learned - to cry just long enough to make his father feel like the gayness was leaving him and then to stop and just take it “like a man.”

Harry had tried not crying at all, and that had just spurred his father on to beat him harder and harder until he cried anyway. He knew running for his mother didn’t help - she’d just shriek at him for getting blood on the floor and tell him that if he didn’t have the devil in him, his father wouldn’t have to do this.

Harry developed a routine of sorts: cry, apologize, accept the beating, and then wait there wherever his father left him until the bleeding stopped and he wouldn’t ruin his mother’s floors. He’d then drag himself inside, wash and bandage his hands and any other open wounds, check for any signs of broken bones, and crawl into bed, hoping he didn’t have to do it again the next day.

Harry’s father was brilliant - aside from the wounds on his hands, Harry’s cuts, scars, and bruises were never visible outside of his regular clothes. He always appreciated that he never had to try that hard to hide them. It isn’t like anyone would help him anyway. Harry was pretty sure anyone he told would just return him to his father for more, or even worse, maybe help beat the devil out of him.

Harry took a deep breath to ground himself in the moment. He snuggled back into Louis’ warmth a bit and got settled. Harry could feel Louis even breathing on his hair, yet his arms were still closed a bit tighter around Harry in his sleep. Harry smiled just a bit, knowing Louis wanted him near, even when asleep.

Harry knew, though, that if he and Louis were going to make this work, he needed some help. He couldn’t fix this on his own, and for the first time, he didn’t feel like he needed to. Gently, as to not disturb Louis, Harry reached to the nightstand for his phone. Once he quietly unplugged it and opened his browser app, Harry took a steadying breath and Googled therapy at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Harry knew nothing about therapy; his parents had always told him therapy was for people who didn’t have Jesus. So, after a quick Google search while his boy was fast asleep spooning him, he found out that the Student Support Services offered free therapy to all students as long as they understood that the therapy was done by grad students who were still learning. Harry didn’t care; he just wanted to try and get better.

Harry knew many big blowouts he and Louis had were due to his inability to be genuinely vulnerable. Harry would lash out and yell at his boyfriend to prevent having to deal with how he was really feeling and it would just spiral from there. Louis could be a hothead, and once the two of them got going, there was no stopping them. They had said some truly reprehensible things to each other over the years, but somehow they always found their way home. Harry knew if this was going to work, really work forever like he wanted, he would need to process the things that had happened to him and stop fighting Louis as if it were his fault. Harry acknowledged that Louis wasn’t perfect and had his own things to work through, but he was a good man and Harry needed to own that the mistakes he was making were rooted in something that had nothing to do with Louis.

As Harry is snuggled deeper into Louis under the comfort of darkness and stillness in the bed they had been sharing on and off for years, he quietly taps out an email asking for help for the first time in his life. He was scared, but he wanted to do this right. He needed help to be better for Louis but also to be better for himself.

As his thumb hovered above the send button, Harry could he could hear his father’s voice telling him to man up and deal with it

“Harry, you don’t need therapy - you need Jesus, boy! The only thing you need is to have your faggot ways beat out of you - then you will be fine. Just man up and do the right thing and you’ll be fine! ” Harry cringed as his dad threw his coffee mug right by Harry’s head and focused on the drip-drip-drip of the hot coffee not decorating the kitchen wall.

“Now go muck out the stalls. I don’t have time for you right now. I’ll come out later to check your progress and see how much support you need.”

He knew that ‘support’ meant to see how much he was bleeding before his father decided how much time he had to beat him before school. Sometimes, Harry considered sneaking out a knife and slicing his hands open so they would bleed faster so his father would be happy, but he knew if his father ever found out, he would probably turn around and slice him open with it, so it was better not to risk it.

Before turning to go out the back door to the barn and begin his presence, he looked up slightly to see his mother doing dishes as if the TV had a daytime drama playing in the background, not her husband sending her own son out to fertilize the soil of Kansas with his own dirty blood. Sometimes, Harry wasn’t even sure she knew she had a son.

He knew better than to look for Gemma - she was never around. The highest of high achievers with the perfect Kansas boyfriend. The valedictorian cheerleader boyfriend to the quarterback - truly a midwest princess. Sometimes Harry wondered if she knew, and that is why she stayed away to keep herself safe. Sometimes, he wondered if she didn’t know. In the darkest of moments, he convinced himself she had to know, and she was in support of his parents, which is why she left them to it.

His mother’s voice telling him therapy wouldn’t help him and that he just needed to accept he was broken. She would never come to him until he was clean and in bed crying softly.

“Harry, your father loves you so, so much” she would say gently as she gently ran her fingers through his hair. “He wants you to have a wonderful life and a wonderful family with Christ and have everlasting happiness in heaven with all of us. He is doing this for you! For us! You just need to accept it, dear. You just need to accept that God has given you a heavier cross to bare by giving you these …. Thoughts. Your father is trying to expel the devil inside you and ease the burden of that cross. Don’t you want to be happy? Don’t you want a wife, children you can raise in the image of God and his love? That is all we want for you, baby boy.”

Harry was most often completely comatose aside from the tears running down his cheeks. Honestly, he was always shocked he had any tears left to cry - not entirely sure they weren’t just streaks of blood. His mother generally wouldn’t say much else and just leave him alone to dissociate until he fell asleep.

Harry flashes back to the present where he is in a warm bed with the man he loves. He isn’t bleeding and bruised, but he is terrified. He hasn’t seen or spoken to his parents in over three years since the day he left for college, but somehow, he could hear their voices as loud and clear as a church bell in his head.

With a shaky breath, he tapped send. Gently, he placed his phone down on his bedside table and snuggled deeper into the warm and loving embrace of the boy he knew would be his family forever.

As Harry drifted off to sleep, he thought about how he was going to get himself on more stable emotional footing, and he then he was going to propose to Louis. He was going to make him his family permanently. Sleep finally came for him, and as he felt Louis’s warm breath on the back of his neck, he felt only one thing: home.

Chapter Text

The quad outside of the frat houses was already humming with life because it was Homecoming Weekend. Across the lawn, students shouted over the sound of speakers and clinking coolers. Red and white stretched in every direction—flags, folding chairs, face paint. Someone was handing out mini donuts and spiked cider near the economics building. Everything smelled like cinnamon, sweat, and the scent of early victory.

The sun was still low enough to slant golden through the trees, casting long shadows across the quad. The air was cool, the way it only stayed this late in October, and everything—every breath, every rustle of wind—felt crisp and alive.

Harry sat cross-legged on a flannel blanket with Liam and Niall, a cup of spiked iced tea sweating in his hand and a warm, gentle buzz already working through his limbs. All three of them wore red Wisconsin hoodies—Niall’s with a snarling badger, Liam’s with the bold white “W,” and Harry’s borrowed from Louis, red with “Wisconsin” in big white letters, slightly too small and snug across his chest. It smelled like Louis: citrus, cedarwood, and confidence. Harry’s jeans were too tight at the waist because he’d dried them too long, and he’d forgotten sunscreen, and he hadn’t been this happy in a long time. Maybe ever.

They had a bag of Doritos between them and a cooler that Niall had, somewhat illegally, filled with spiked teas and Bloody Mary mix. Liam, who had to play in the game, sipped quietly from a water bottle and judged them all from a respectable distance.

Liam leaned back on his elbows, looking clean and unbothered in his Wisconsin hoodie, squinting at the sun like it had personally offended him. Niall, already on his second Bloody Mary, was narrating the intricacies of brunch tailgating with the enthusiasm of a Food Network host.

“…and then I realized the little sausages were just hot dogs, chopped up and pan-fried. Which is genius, by the way.”

Harry grinned, tilting his head back. The sky was so blue it almost hurt.

Things had been good lately. Not just bearable. Good.

He’d been walking to class with earbuds in and clothes he felt comfortable in and his hair growing out and not thinking about who might be watching. He and Louis had been… easy. Not effortless—nothing with him and Louis ever really was—but fluid. Comfortable. Like warmth soaked into his bones. They’d started doing the mundane stuff that made relationships feel real: brushing teeth in the same sink, sharing grocery runs, falling asleep during bad movies on Louis’s tiny dorm couch.

And they’d been having a lot of sex. Like, a lot.

“I just—” Harry broke the lull in conversation with a laugh, “—I didn’t know sex could be fun. Like, actually enjoyable and not some weird mix of stress and confusion and anger and am-I-doing-this-right.”

Liam snorted. “It helps when you are irrevocably in love with the person.”

Harry blinked, mouth parting slightly.

Liam caught his look. “Oh, come on, don’t pretend it’s not obvious. You’re obnoxiously in love. You have been since freshman orientation. You do that thing where you look at him like he hung the moon.”

“I do not.”

“You do,” Niall chimed in. “It’s gross. We support it. But it’s gross.”

Harry felt himself flush, but he didn’t deny it. How could he? Every time Louis laughed—like really laughed, that crinkle-eyed full-body laugh—Harry felt like he was being cracked open in the best way.

Liam took another sip of Gatorade, then said casually, “It’s better when you trust someone. Me and Zayn... we get that.”

Harry blinked. “You guys are...?”

“Totally verse,” Liam said. “No shame. Zero.”

“Wow. Go off, Captain,” Niall said proudly.

“Don’t call me that,” but Liam rolled his eyes fondly all the same.

Harry raised his cup in a mock toast. “To loving and fucking. Preferably in that order.”

They all laughed. Then, almost as if choreographed, they turned to Niall.

Harry nudged his leg. “Alright, Horan. The floor is yours.”

Niall shrugged. “Not much to add, actually.”

They blinked. “Respect if you’re keeping things private with Ella,” Liam offered.

“No, it’s not that.” Niall stared at the condensation dripping down his thermos. “She’s great. She’s amazing. I just... don’t really care about sex. Not much.”

Harry frowned. “Wait, really?”

Niall nodded. “Yeah. I mean, we fool around sometimes. But it’s not a big part of our relationship. It’s not what makes me feel close to her. I’d rather fall asleep holding her hand than get off, most days.”

A silence fell between them. Not judging—just listening.

“I always thought I was weird,” Niall continued, a little softer. “Freshman year, I talked about sex a lot. Had a lot of it. Mostly drunk. Thought that was normal. But I didn’t like it. Not really. I’d wake up the next morning and feel... empty. Disconnected.”

Harry felt something twist in his chest. He knew that feeling.

“I thought something was wrong with me,” Niall said. “So I kept doing it. Kept trying. But the relationships didn’t last. They’d think I was bored, or cold, and I didn’t have the language to explain. So I’d leave before they could.”

“But with Ella...?”

Niall smiled, slow and real. “She took a gender and sexuality class last spring. I helped her study. And I read about gray ace people—folks on the asexual spectrum who still experience romantic attraction, maybe even enjoy sex sometimes, but just... don’t need it. And I was like, ‘Oh. That’s me.’ She’s not ace, but she doesn’t mind. She loves me. And I love her.”

Naill began again, “It’s like, sex just isn’t a central part of our relationship. I love Ella, completely. I love kissing her and holding her, and being around her. But sex isn’t something I need or really want most of the time.”

Harry blinked. “Really?”

“I think I’m gray ace. Sex-positive, sometimes into it, but mostly? I just don’t care. I didn’t have the words until last spring.”

He shifted. “I thought something was wrong with me freshman year. Got drunk. Hooked up. Hated it. Pretended. Felt like I had to perform. The relationships never lasted, and I always felt so uncomfortable and just gross. But Ella doesn’t think I’m broken. She just loves me.” He smiled. “She flicked a cigarette into a compost bin and then argued about paper filters being biodegradable. I was done for.”

Harry stared down into his drink. He thought about all the years he’d tried to force himself into molds that never fit. About the nights he cried after hook-ups with girls back home, thinking he was broken because no matter how hard he tried, it never felt right. He never wanted it. He just wanted to be accepted and loved by his family, his town, and God. But then there was a boy Harry put too much trust in, and he was outed to his family, community, church, and school. He didn’t need to try to date girls anymore because he was the town pariah, but none of that mattered, and he knew deep down it never did. He was gay. He was always gay, and he was always going to be gay. But still, he never told anyone about those years. He didn’t want people to know how deeply he tried to hide and the things he did to try to conform. He was pathetic and stupid then, and no one needed to know. Not even Louis.

“Thanks for sharing all that,” Harry said quietly. “That’s... brave.”

“Yeah, well.” Niall bumped his shoulder. “Takes one to know one.”

“I’m just saying,” Harry said, picking up his former train of thought mid-rant, “I didn’t know it could feel this okay. Like, I walk to class with my earbuds in and I’m not even bracing for something to go wrong. And Louis and I—things are good.”

Liam smirked. “Good, how?”

Harry flushed. “We hang out, we talk, we laugh, we—”

“Bang like bunnies?” Niall offered.

“Shut up,” Harry said, but he was laughing. “Yes, okay, the sex is great. But it’s more than that. It’s fun. Easy. Like... not scary.”

Niall leaned back on his elbows, grinning. “Look at our boy. All grown up and in love.”

Liam raised an eyebrow. “You’re glowing.”

“Gross,” Harry muttered. But he didn’t disagree.

They talked a bit longer, voices light and relaxed, until the chill started to creep in and Liam checked the time.

“I need to start getting ready soon, and this sun is killing me,” he said.. “Y’all coming in?”

—

The house smelled like stale beer, waffle mix, and laundry detergent—a weirdly comforting cocktail of college Saturday mornings. Outside, the band was still warming up, the horns distorted by distance, and the buzz of campus life carried through the open windows.

Inside, Harry dropped onto the sagging couch while Niall sprawled out on the floor and Liam hovered near the door, already half in game-day mode with cleats hanging from one finger.

“You know,” Harry said after a moment, “this year feels different. Better.”

Liam nodded slowly. “With Louis?”

Harry nodded too. “Yeah.”

He let the quiet settle. “Remember freshman orientation when we got into a fight because he stole my chair? And then we fooled around in the bathroom, but in an angry way? I thought he was a little shit. He still is. But he has always been my little shit.”

Niall snorted.

“But it was like gravity,” Harry went on. “We were pulled toward each other like magnets. I was in love with him from the very beginning. Still am. Always have been. I’ve never been afraid to say that.”

Liam sat on the arm of the couch, listening.

“But we were toxic. Our fights weren’t gentle, and our breakups were always nuclear. We tore each other apart. Said things we didn’t mean. Shut each other out. Hurt each other.”

“I know you guys played the together—broken up—hate fucking—back together—broken up dance since freshman year. But the breakup before the summer always felt different. As if it were an inevitable thing you decided on. We could set our watches by it. You’d start fighting more and bickering more at the beginning of May, and have a huge blowout the night before Louis was going home for the summer. He goes home and sulks, and you just disappear on us all summer,” Niall finishes.

Harry squirmed a bit, knowing he was always the one pushing towards ending their relationship before summer, but nodded. “Every year. It was like clockwork. And every fall we’d come back and fall straight into each other again.”

Liam asked, “So what changed?”

“I did,” Harry said. “That night at the club, Louis taunted me by saying he had slept with someone else, and I just felt my whole world collapse. The idea of really losing Louis just shook me to my core. I couldn’t imagine life without him. Even if it was always a mess, I needed us to be a mess together.”

He smiled a little. “He makes me feel safe now. Seen. Like I don’t have to choose between being who I am and being loved.” Harry hesitated, not sure if he wanted to let his friends in on the secret that he was in therapy. It wasn’t that he was ashamed — well, okay, maybe he was still a bit embarrassed in a traumatized child way. And he really didn’t want Louis to know because, god forbid they have a nasty fight and Louis throws that in his face. Harry knows they are both guilty of being toxic as fuck when they were fighting, both dragging each other to hell in a handbasket. So Harry decided to just keep this to himself, just for now. Therapy was going great. He loved his therapist, Oliver, and he just wanted to keep that little bubble for himself. 

“And the sex is good,” Niall added helpfully.

“Incredible,” Harry confirmed, grinning. “But it’s more than that. It’s fun. Easy. Like... not scary. And romantic. We make love sometimes in such a deep, universe-colliding inside of each other kinda of way it takes my breath away.”

“Oh my god, ” Liam groaned. 

“You said it first! Last week! You literally said ‘sex hits different when you’re in love.’”

“That was private!”

“You said it while eating kettle corn and watching The Bachelorette. It wasn’t private.”

Liam pointed at them both. “You’re the worst. I’m going. If I score, I’m pointing at Zayn and licking my wrist.”

Harry nearly spit out his drink. “You won’t.”

Liam made intense eye contact with Harry. “Watch me.”

Before Harry could reply, the front door creaked open behind them.

They turned in unison.

Zayn stepped into the sunlight like a cinematic reveal, black boots crunching on fallen leaves, sunglasses too cool for a college campus. Harry nearly choked on his drink.

“ Zayn Malik, ” Niall hissed. “No one is allowed in this frat house forty-eight hours before a formal. How the fuck did you get in?”

“You underestimate where your brothers fall on the Kinsey scale, my friend,” Zayn replied coolly, smirking.

Liam didn’t even look surprised. “I didn’t help. But no, I’m not shocked. No one says no to Zayn. He’s Zayn.” Liam walked over and gave Liam a quick peck before saying, “Gotta go get ready for the game, babe. I love you. I’ll see you after?”

“Of course,” Zayn said and leaned forward, kissed him gently, then gave Liam a gentle pat on the cheek. “Always.”

As Liam bounded off, Zayn turned to face Harry and Niall, tilted his chin, then turned to Harry and looked him up and down like he was assessing him. Zayn had an uncanny ability to evaluate people at a glance. It made him quite an exceptional fashion designer, as his major was, because he could tell exactly what people needed in a look.

“You’re happy lately,” he said softly. “But scared, too. You’re walking around like you’re holding your breath.”

Harry’s heart thumped hard against his ribs.

“Don’t wait too long to exhale,” Zayn said. “It’s okay to want everything. ”

The words are rooted somewhere deep. Harry hadn’t realized how much of himself he was still holding back—how he hadn’t told Louis about the lipstick he had hidden in his medicine cabinet and hadn’t talked to Louis about the possibility of growing his hair out longer. He hadn’t spoken to Louis about how maybe he didn’t feel like being masculine all the time. Harry was hoarding all these parts of himself, still waiting for something to go wrong.

Harry swallowed hard.

“Don’t,” Zayn said. “Don’t brace for pain when you’re finally safe.”

Then, without missing a beat, knowing Harry probably wanted a reprieve from being so seen: “Also, I’m mad at Liam for making me enjoy watching football. I used to have taste.”

“You say that, but you screamed when he scored last week,” Niall pointed out.

“That was a private moment,” Zayn deadpanned.

Harry stood. “I’m just gonna hit the bathroom before we go.”

Zayn raised an eyebrow, knowing, not unkind.

Niall nodded. “We’ll wait.”

Harry didn’t hesitate. He hopped up and jogged into the bathroom. 

Once there, he tugged at the hem of Louis’s sweatshirt, snug and soft. It hugged his waist, his hips. It made him feel solid. It made him feel like him.

His reflection met his eyes in the mirror. His hair curled gently now, longer than before. His face was soft in a way he liked.

He pulled out the lipstick. Just a dab. Berry red, shimmering. He swiped it on, pressed his lips together.

He didn’t really look different.

But he looked like himself.

And he wasn’t hiding anymore.

—

The stadium was electric. Red and white everywhere. Harry spotted Louis immediately—grinning, wild, electric—and wearing Harry’s sweatshirt.

It hung off his shoulder, drowning him. His hands were lost in the sleeves.

Harry stared. Louis grinned. “Took you long enough.”

“That’s my hoodie,” Harry said.

Louis shrugged. “Hard to grab the right one in the dark.”

Niall dropped into the row. “You two aren’t even the same size. Must you share everything?”

Harry smiled. “Looks better on him anyway.”

Louis leaned in, voice lower. “I like how it smells.”

Harry’s breath hitched.

The game kicked off, and it was chaos in the best way.

Liam caught a lateral and ran . Twenty-five yards. Touchdown.

Then, pointed at Zayn. And licked his damn wrist.

Zayn turned pink. Niall shrieked. Louis collapsed against Harry with laughter.

“You love him,” Harry said.

Zayn scowled. “He’s very lucky he’s hot.”

Then—the shift.

A late hit. Liam went down hard.

The stadium fell silent. The crowd held its breath.

The ref didn’t call it.

Booing echoed across the field. Zayn was on his feet. Louis was pale.

Liam got up and walked over to the bench to get checked out as the crowd cheered their lungs out for him, but the fact that he was walking by himself means he was probably fine and just a bit shaken.

Then, the Badgers struck back.

First play: sack . The quarterback crumpled.

Second: incomplete.

Third: risky throw. Intercepted.

Sixty yards. Block. Cut inside. The stadium roared.

Touchdown.

Niall grabbed Harry in a hug. Louis wrapped an arm around his waist.

“I’m so fucking glad we are back,” Louis breathed.

Harry leaned his forehead to Louis’s.

“Me too.”

And for once, he wasn’t afraid of being seen.

He wasn’t holding his breath.

He was exactly where he was meant to be.

___

The party back at the frat had long since died down, but the heart of it remained: the six of them curled up on the worn-out sectional and the living room floor, surrounded by string lights, half-empty bottles, and the unmistakable scent of weed and popcorn.

Ella was curled under Niall’s arm, laughing quietly into his shoulder as he recounted some disastrous attempt to grill hot dogs with a flat iron in sophomore year. Zayn had wedged himself between Liam’s legs, head resting on his chest, eyes half-lidded and content. Liam was running his fingers through Zayn’s hair like he had been since freshman year, but still with the same look of awe and reverence. Liam treated every bit of being with Zayn as a precious gift he can’t believe he gets to have, but cherishes it with every bit of his being.

Harry was tucked against Louis on the couch, his legs stretched across Louis’s lap, the now familiar feel of Louis’s oversized hoodie (his hoodie) comforting in its weight. Louis’s fingers traced light patterns across Harry’s thigh, lazy and thoughtless.

Someone passed a joint around, and Harry took a hit before handing it to Zayn, who took it like he was too blissed out to be cool about it.

"Remember freshman year," Niall said, "when you," he pointed at Harry, "tried to jump off the roof to impress Louis and missed the landing so hard you sprained your ankle and blamed it on uneven pavement?"

Louis snorted so hard he nearly spilled his drink. “I knew that was a lie.”

“I was high and eighteen and wildly in love,” Harry said, grinning. “Give me a break.”

“We were already having sex, Harry. What else did you need to impress me for?” Louis laughed.

Harry glanced down and picked at the label on his Leinenkugel. “I wanted you to be my boyfriend.”

“You could have just asked,” Louis snorted.

“I wanted you to ask. I wanted you to want me,” Harry shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal when in reality he felt like he was baring his soul.

“Well, it worked. Because when you showed up at my dorm with a limp and your foot wrapped in an entire roll of athletic tape. You looked so pathetically adorable, I had to ask you,” Louis said fondly.

Everyone was laughing now, warm and loose with buzz and memory.

“I remember when Liam went to that one party and someone offered him a Jell-O shot and he asked if it was gluten-free, ” Zayn added, deadpan.

“I have a sensitive stomach,” Liam protested, turning red.

Ella was laughing so hard she had to wipe her eyes.

The laughter softened after a while, settling into that late-night lull where everything feels suspended—realer somehow, like the world stopped spinning for just this group of people, in this house, on this night.

Louis rested his chin on Harry’s shoulder. “I think I want to do it. Like... really do it. Theatre. All in. Try for grad school or summer stock or something. Maybe move to New York. I don’t want to half-ass it anymore.”

Harry leaned into the weight of him. “You shouldn’t. You light up when you’re on stage.”

Louis looked at him, soft and searching. “Would you come with me?”

Harry smiled, just a little. “I’ve been thinking about grad school, too. Social work, maybe. I’m a psych major but... I think I want to do something that helps people. Real people. Kids who need someone.”

“Like you did?” Louis asked gently.

Harry nodded. “Exactly like me. I want to be the adult I needed as a kid.”

Their eyes stayed locked for a long moment. Harry reached up and brushed his thumb across Louis’s cheekbone, then leaned forward and kissed him—soft and sure and familiar.

“I’d follow you anywhere,” Harry whispered.

“You don’t have to,” Louis whispered back. 

“What if I want to?” Harry smiled into their kiss. Louis didn’t respond.

On the floor, Niall and Ella were curled up in a shared bean bag chair, half-asleep and smiling. Zayn had fully turned in Liam’s lap and was drawing sleepy little shapes on his chest through the fabric of his hoodie. Liam pressed a kiss to Zayn’s forehead like he’d done it every night of his life.

Harry let his head fall back against the couch and took in the room: warm bodies, sleepy love, empty bottles, and full hearts.

This—this right here—felt like a beginning.

And for the first time in a long time, Harry was ready to imagine a future.

Chapter Text

The dorm room is still, hushed like it’s holding its breath. Golden hour filters through the blinds, painting long bars of light across the surface of Harry’s desk. The bottle of nail polish sits open beside him like a question he’s not sure he’s allowed to answer. It’s pink—soft, pearly, delicate. The exact shade of Louis’ shirt from the theater banquet last week. The one that made Harry feel something sharp and hopeful twist in his chest.

He lifts the brush. His hand trembles.

The first stroke goes on uneven, pooling at the corner of his nail. He swears under his breath, grabs a tissue, and wipes it off too hard, leaving a faint stain and a nicked cuticle.

His stomach knots.

What if Louis hates it? What if he laughs? What if he doesn’t even notice?

The thought comes like a punch—small, but aimed directly at the softest part of him.

He presses his fingers to his temples, tries to steady his breathing, but his mind is already sliding, already taking him back—to the chair in Oliver’s office, to the warmth of lamplight and the way the silence there feels like permission.

—

Oliver’s office is small, warm, and filled with light. The couch Harry always curls into is mossy green and soft with wear. There’s a sound machine running by the door, the low white noise humming beneath the ticking of a wall clock. It’s the only space on campus that doesn’t make Harry feel like he’s bracing for something.

“Hey, Harry,” Oliver says, voice gentle. “Good to see you. How are you today?”

Harry shrugs, pulling his sleeves over his fists. “Okay. Not really. I—I wanted to talk about gender stuff today.”

Oliver doesn’t flinch. “Of course. Wherever you want to begin.”

Harry stares at the floor. “I was painting my nails this morning. Pink. To match Louis’ shirt. And I just—froze. I couldn’t do it. I wiped it off right away. I was shaking.”

“What came up?” Oliver asks.

“What if he thinks it’s too much? Or not enough? What if he doesn’t even notice?”

Oliver nods, slow and steady. “Okay. But what if it doesn’t matter?”

Harry blinks at him. “What?”

“Are you painting your nails for Louis? Or are you doing it for you?”

“I love him.”

“I know. And I believe he loves you. But do you love you?”

Harry looks away.

“I think…” His voice catches. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to do things to make people love me. Be the right kind of kid, the right kind of boy. Like if I said or wore or hid the right things, maybe I’d finally be enough. My parents—they never just gave love. You had to earn it. With silence. With obedience.”

He swallows.

“When I was five, I got into my mom’s makeup. Lip gloss. Just one swipe. I remember loving how shiny it looked. It made me feel… I don’t know. Magical.”

Oliver doesn’t speak, just waits.

“She screamed. Dragged me into the bathroom. Shaved my head right then and there. Said she had to ‘get the girl out of me.’ Told me to stop acting like a little queer. I remember looking in the mirror afterward and thinking I must’ve done something unforgivable.”

Oliver’s voice is soft. “That’s an enormous weight for a child to carry.”

Harry nods, jaw tight. “I think every time I touch something soft or bright or pretty, I hear her voice. I feel like I’m about to be punished again.”

“But you’re not five anymore,” Oliver says gently. “You’re not in that bathroom. You’re here. You’re safe. And you get to choose who you are.”

Harry wipes at his eyes. “I want to believe that.”

“I think you already do. That’s why you picked up the brush in the first place.”

Harry sniffles. “I want Louis to love all of me.”

“That’s fair. But it’s also dangerous when love becomes a condition for your self-worth.”

Harry looks away.

Oliver watches him carefully. “Harry, what happens when you and Louis break up?”

Harry winces. “I fall apart.”

“Specifically?”

“I stop eating. I stop sleeping. I drink too much. Hook up with people I don’t even like. I don’t—try. Not at life.”

Oliver nods. “You’ve told me that before. You become reckless. Not because you want to die, but because it stops mattering whether you live.”

Harry’s breath is shaky.

“I need him,” he whispers.

“No,” Oliver says gently, but firmly. “You want him. That’s different.”

“But I—”

“Harry. What if he died tomorrow?”

Harry flinches like he’s been slapped. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I need you to think about it. What if he was gone? What would happen to you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do. And I think you need to build a version of yourself who survives that. Who stands, even without him there to remind you that you’re worth loving.”

Harry doesn’t respond for a long time.

Eventually, he whispers, “I’m trying.”

Oliver smiles. “That’s everything.”

—

When the session ends, Harry thanks Oliver with a quiet nod and steps into the hallway, the familiar hush of the counseling center settling behind him like a closed book. The air smells like old wood and something lemony and clean. He feels wrung out and weightless, like his bones have been scrubbed raw and left to dry in the sun. The fluorescent lights flicker overhead like they’re tired too.

Outside, campus is gilded with early evening light. The air is soft, just starting to cool. Students drift past in loose clusters—laughing, shoulders bumping, skateboards clattering across the concrete paths. The world seems to hum along, completely unaware that Harry feels like his skin doesn’t quite fit right anymore. Or maybe like it fits better —but in a way that leaves him exposed.

Past the quad, where a group of girls sit cross-legged on a blanket, giggling over a phone screen. Past the library, windows glowing amber, silhouettes bent over books and laptops. Past the student center, where someone plays piano behind glass walls, their melody floating faintly through the air like a secret.

His hands are shoved into the sleeves of his hoodie, fingers curling tight into the fabric. He keeps seeing that flash of memory—his mother’s hands in his curls, rough and unrelenting. The buzz of the clippers. Her voice: Don’t you ever think about trying something like this again. You are a BOY. Harry can almost feel his mother hitting him across the face with the heavy wooden brush she was using to brush through his hair before shaving his head. Five-year-old Harry couldn’t stop crying - he liked his hair, he didn’t know why his mother was mad, and she was brushing his hair so hard it hurt. Stop crying. No one likes a whiny boy. 

He walks faster trying to shake off the memory. 

Oliver’s voice echoes in his head:
You’re not that little boy anymore.
You’re here. You’re safe.
You’re allowed to explore who you are without punishment.

Harry isn’t sure he believes that. Not completely. But he wants to. And maybe that’s enough—for now.

By the time he reaches the frat house, the sun is low enough that it casts golden bars of light across the porch. He slips inside through the front door and climbs the stairs to his room, careful not to step on the one creaky board that always gives him away. His heart is thudding—not in panic, but with urgency. Like his body is trying to keep up with something his mind has already decided.

The hall is quiet. Distant bass thumps from a speaker down the hall, but it’s muffled by thick walls and closed doors. In his room, everything is still. His bed is unmade. The window is cracked. A half-read novel sits face-down on his desk beside a cluttered tray of rings and cologne bottles.

He drops his backpack on the floor and goes straight to the drawer in his desk.

The pink nail polish is still there.

He holds it for a moment, turning it over in his hand. It glimmers faintly in the fading light, soft and brave. Like maybe it knows what it is, even when Harry doesn’t.

He sits at his desk, unscrews the cap, and takes a deep breath.

The brush touches down on his thumbnail.

The first stroke is a little shaky, but he keeps going. He paints carefully, methodically—each nail a quiet declaration. A whisper of defiance. A permission slip signed by no one but himself.

With every swipe, his breathing evens out. His chest loosens. He doesn’t feel smaller.

He feels stronger.

More him .

When he finishes, he lifts his hands to the window. The polish catches the light like it belongs there—like it’s always belonged. There’s a tiny smudge near his pinkie knuckle, a line that’s not quite straight on his middle finger. He doesn’t correct it.

He doesn’t need to.

This isn’t about perfection.

It’s about presence.

It’s about becoming someone he’s no longer afraid to see in the mirror.

He lets his hands rest on the windowsill, lets the air brush past his skin, lets himself exist .

Still scared. Still healing.

But here.

And starting to feel whole.

— 

The scent of polish still lingers in the air—sharp, clean, oddly comforting. Harry stays by the window for a few minutes longer, watching the light shift from gold to gray. The trees outside sway in the breeze, and laughter drifts faintly from the backyard where a few brothers are throwing a frisbee around, as if the world hasn’t changed at all.

But Harry has.

Maybe just a little.

He sits on the edge of his bed, turning his hands in the fading light, admiring the gentle sheen of color on his fingers. They don’t look like someone else’s hands anymore. They look like his.

He doesn’t feel brave, exactly.

He feels real.

He exhales slowly, then reaches for his phone on the nightstand.

A soft buzz lights up the screen—a message from Niall in their group chat:

NIALL : ella said she’s gonna wear heels that make her 5'11" tonight. pray for me 🙏

Harry smiles, then clicks open his private thread with Louis.

His thumbs hover over the keyboard for a second. Then he types:

HARRY : you still wearing that pink shirt tonight?

It takes less than a minute for Louis to reply.

LOUIS: obviously. i’m doing it for the brand
LOUIS: why? you trying to outshine me?

Harry bites his lip, fingers tapping quickly.

HARRY: maybe
HARRY: we should coordinate. you wear the shirt. i’ll wear matching nails. we’ll psychologically destroy liam and zayn with our combined beauty.

LOUIS: don’t threaten me with a good time
LOUIS: i say we show up arm in arm and pretend we’re royalty. like full-on red carpet “we’re better than you” energy

HARRY: yes
HARRY: and then we convince ella and niall to enter the formal backwards and refuse to explain why

LOUIS : i’ll tell zayn the theme is “vampire couture” and see what he does with it

Harry laughs out loud, the sound echoing softly in his room.

He types:

HARRY: thank you
LOUIS: for what?
HARRY: for making me feel brave

A pause. Then:

LOUIS: baby. you’ve always been brave.
LOUIS: i’m just lucky enough to watch you figure it out.

Harry presses the phone to his chest and lets the words settle over him like a blanket. Warm. Gentle. Real.

He doesn’t reply right away. He doesn’t need to.

Outside, the last of the daylight fades. The campus shifts toward night, toward celebration, toward all the softness that still waits ahead.

And inside, Harry breathes.

Not smaller.

Not hiding.

Just himself , exactly as he is.

— 

The frat house smells like beer, cologne, and Axe body spray—a lethal but familiar cocktail. The energy is chaotic but charged. Music plays too loud from someone’s speaker. Laughter echoes down the hall. Someone’s shouting about mixing drinks with Mountain Dew again.

Harry stands in front of the hallway mirror, adjusting the collar of his white satin shirt, three buttons undone showing his sparrow tattoos, trying not to think about his hands. His nails—soft, glossy, pink—stand out starkly in the mirror.

He curls his fingers, then uncurls them again. He keeps pretending he's fixing his hair, but really, he's checking to see if Niall or Liam has noticed his nails.

Niall is next to him at the mirror, tongue poking out the side of his mouth in concentration as he artfully musses his blonde hair. He’s got mousse, a diffuser, and some sort of sea salt spray lined up like surgical instruments on the bathroom sink. He fluffs a section with his fingers, squints, then nods with approval.

“I’ve never seen someone take their hair so seriously,” Harry says softly.

“It’s a performance,” Niall says. “This?” He gestures at his head. “This is my legacy. ”

Harry huffs a laugh, feeling the knot in his chest loosen a little.

Harry smirks faintly. “You’ve spent longer on your hair than I did on my whole outfit.”

“Dude,” Niall says with mock seriousness, “this is art.”

Liam appears in the doorway, already dressed in a crisp navy suit that looks unfairly perfect on his broad-shouldered frame. He holds a solo cup in one hand and a lint roller in the other.

“Anyone seen my tie?” he asks.

“Ironing board,” Niall calls without looking. “Still damp. You sweated on it.”

“Rude,” Liam mutters, disappearing again.

Around the house, other brothers are still pre-gaming and shouting over music. Someone’s blasting old-school pop from a Bluetooth speaker in the living room. Carter’s juggling three bottles of seltzer and yelling about “the vodka ratio.” Gabe is sprawled on the couch in pajama pants and a bowtie, declaring he’s boycotting the formal unless they let him wear crocs. A couple of guys are wrestling in the hall, both too drunk to realize they're wearing each other’s pants.

The vibe is chaotic in that charming frat-boy way that Harry's finally grown used to. He even likes it—mostly. But tonight he feels exposed, even though everyone’s laughing and relaxed. His fingers curl reflexively, trying to hide the polish. What if someone says something? What if it becomes A Thing?

He swallows and forces himself to breathe. Zayn paints his nails. It’s not weird. It’s fine. It’s just polish.

Suddenly, the door creaks open and Ella walks in, already glowing in a simple purple dress and healed boots.

“There he is,” she grins, walking straight up to Niall and planting a loud kiss on his freshly styled hair.

“You’re gonna ruin the masterpiece,” Niall teases, but he wraps his arms around her anyway.

“You like it when I ruin things,” Ella smirks.

Harry watches them with quiet fondness. Their ease with each other. The softness. He wonders if he and Louis look like that when they’re not fighting each other to avoid fighting their own demons.

Liam pokes his head in. “Tie’s dry. Also, Gabe’s doing shots of whipped cream vodka in the kitchen, so we might want to leave before he burns the place down.”

Ella hops up onto the edge of Harry’s desk. “You guys look amazing. I’m stealing all your hairspray, though.”

“Only if you sing us a ballad while you do,” Niall says, tossing her the bottle.

They’re all laughing now, and Harry lets himself get pulled into the noise. No one’s mentioned his nails. No one’s looked at him strange. For once, it doesn’t feel like a test.

— 

The air is crisp as they walk across campus. Harry’s hands are stuffed in his pockets, but not clenched. Niall loops his arm through Ella’s. Liam walks ahead, checking his phone for directions even though he’s been to Zayn’s a hundred times.

Louis and Zayn’s apartment is tucked just off the quad—two floors up, string lights in the windows, pride flag still fluttering crookedly on the railing.

Liam knocks.

Zayn opens the door.

He looks like he just stepped out of a Vogue editorial—black tailored pants, a wine-red turtleneck, boots that look too expensive for this zip code. His fingers are covered in silver rings, and his nails? Mirror chrome. Stunning.

He spots Harry, grins wide. “Hey, man. I think we match.”

He lifts his hands. Harry instinctively shows his own. Pink and chrome flash in the porch light.

“Oh,” Harry breathes. “Yeah. We do.”

Behind Zayn, Louis appears—his fringe slightly damp, his coat half-buttoned, his mouth already tugged into a soft smile.

He sees Harry’s hands and smiles wider.

“Beautiful minds think alike,” he says quietly.

Harry’s throat feels tight. He nods at Zayn, shy but proud. “Guess we’re the trendsetters.”

Louis bumps their shoulders together as they fall into step. “You look beautiful, H.”

And this time, Harry doesn’t hide his hands.

—

The gym doesn’t look like a gym tonight. String lights are draped in zigzags from the ceiling, casting a warm, soft glow over the dance floor. The smell of lemon cleaner clings faintly to the edges of the space, but it’s overpowered by the sharp, sticky sweetness of punch, hairspray, and whatever mystery cologne Liam doused himself in. Music thrums from rented speakers at the edge of the room, the bass soft enough to feel in your ribs without shaking the walls.

Harry steps in beside Louis, trying not to feel too self-conscious. But he does. A little. His shirt is loose but flowly, the kind of white satin that makes him feel like he is glowing. His nails still catch his attention when he gestures or grabs a cup, feeling like they belong to someone braver; someone closer to who he’s trying to become.

Louis glances at him like he’s thinking the same thing, only with love instead of fear.

“You look…” Louis begins, then trails off, like the words won’t come out right. He swallows. “You look like who you are.”

Harry’s heart twists, sweet and aching. He leans in, bumping their shoulders. “So do you.”

They dance.

At first it’s all movement and noise—friends pulling them into circles, Niall spinning Ella like they’re in a rom-com, Liam trying to wave his hands to the beat and looking awkwardly sincere. The music changes every few minutes—top 40 hits, early 2000s throwbacks, a few poorly timed slow songs that clear the floor and then slowly fill it again.

At one point, Harry and Louis end up in the center of it all. It’s a dreamy pop track, something mid-tempo and glittering, and Louis pulls Harry close by the waist. Their bodies move together like they’ve done this a hundred times, but Harry still feels the newness of it like a live wire down his spine. Louis’s hand slides along his lower back. His fingers brush Harry’s painted nails where they rest on his chest.

“You’re everything,” Harry murmurs without thinking.

Louis’s smile falters. Just for a second.

“Don’t say that,” he says, too light to be casual. “You don’t know the future.”

Harry’s brow furrows. “What?”

“I just mean…” Louis shrugs. “Things change. People change. You might not want this forever. Me.”

Harry’s stomach twists. Not because he believes it—but because he knows Louis does.

He leans in, forehead pressing gently to Louis’s. “I love you. So much. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Louis doesn’t answer right away, but the tension in his shoulders softens. His hand tightens around Harry’s.

Then someone laughs too loudly behind them—sharp, drunken, mean.

“Look at those two,” the voice says, half-snarled, half-sneering. “Flamboyant fucking fags.”

The words slice through the song like shattered glass. Harry freezes. Louis’s jaw locks. There’s more laughter—not from everyone, but from someone—and the music keeps going like nothing happened.

Harry can’t.

He pulls away, barely says anything, just gives Louis a look and walks off the floor, fast and quiet, his heart thudding like a warning.

— 

The bathroom is cold and too bright. Harry grips the edge of the sink, his breath coming fast and shallow. The air feels too thin. His chest is closing in. He turns on the faucet to cover the sound of his gasps, but it’s not enough.

He tries to remember Oliver’s grounding techniques. Name five things in the room. Focus on breath. But all he can hear is the slur, the laughter. The part of his brain that says you brought this on yourself .

The door creaks.

“Harry?”

Louis’s voice is soft. Worried.

Harry shakes his head. “Please don’t—”

But Louis is already there, arms around him. Not pulling, just there , anchoring.

Harry turns into him, shoulders shaking. He hates this. Hates being seen like this. Hates how deep the fear goes, how fast it crashes in.

Louis presses his lips to Harry’s hair. “I will tell anyone in the world,” he whispers, “that painted nails make Harry beautiful.”

Harry sobs, just once, too sharp to hold back.

“And I have known about the lipstick, baby. Since before the football game.”

Harry freezes. Pulls back just slightly.

“You do?”

Louis nods. “The bright red one. You wore it under your mask at the Halloween party.”

“I—” Harry swallows. “I didn’t know if I wanted anyone to know.”

Louis brushes his fingers along Harry’s jaw. “Do you want me to ask about pronouns?”

Harry pauses. Then shakes his head. “No. Not right now. I’m just… exploring. Just wanting to see . Trying things that scared me. Seeing what fits.”

Louis nods. “Then I’ll be right here while you try. No matter what.”

Harry’s heart cracks open in the best way. He leans forward and kisses him, soft and salty.

They don’t go back to the dance right away. They sit for a while on the floor of the bathroom, Louis’s arm around Harry’s shoulders, Harry’s head on Louis’s chest. The music is muffled by the thick door and tiled walls, but they hear it rise and fall—life moving on outside, but not without them.

Eventually, Harry wipes his face, stands, breath steady again. His pink nails catch the light under the flickering fluorescent fixture.

They walk back into the party holding hands.

The rest of the night is good.

Really good.

They dance. They laugh. Zayn drags Harry’s into the bathroom and puts some eyeliner on him before touching up his own. Niall spills cider on his shoes and calls it “a blessing in disguise.” Liam starts a conga line.

And when they leave, Harry doesn’t flinch from the stares. He doesn’t hide his hands.

Louis walks beside him, steady as a heartbeat.

—

The air outside is cooler now, edged with early spring dew. The moon hangs high above the quad, casting soft silver light over the wide grass lawn. Music still pulses faintly from dorm windows in the distance, but out here it’s quiet in the way only a college campus can be after midnight—tired and glowing, like the party’s still lingering in the air.

They’ve all collapsed onto the quad like fallen stars.

Liam lies on his back with his dress shirt open, sleeves rolled to the elbows, his tie draped dramatically across his face. Zayn sits beside him, cross-legged and amused, finishing what’s left of someone’s flask and spinning the cap between his fingers. His rings glint even in the dim light.

Ella’s straddling a picnic table bench with Niall beside her, her heels off, one foot tucked into his lap. She’s laughing at something Niall just said, her mascara smudged in a way that only makes her look more radiant. Niall is flushed, harry messy and frizzed from dancing, tie loose around his neck like an afterthought. He has a smear of something sparkly on his cheek that he hasn’t noticed, and Harry hopes he never does.

Harry and Louis are sprawled on the grass, side by side. Louis’ head is pillowed on Harry’s chest, one leg bent lazily, his shirt unbuttoned just enough to expose his collarbone. His hair is damp with sweat and still smell faintly like cedar and citrus. Harry’s blazer is folded beneath his back like a makeshift cushion, and his nails—now chipped from the night—gleam pink under the moonlight every time he runs his fingers through Louis’s hair.

Everyone’s talking, laughing, but it’s all soft now. The sharp edges are gone. It’s the kind of peace that only comes after a long night of being seen , of choosing joy over fear, of holding onto one another in the face of everything.

“I think I pulled something during that conga line,” Liam mutters from the grass.

Zayn doesn’t even look up. “You pulled dignity, maybe.”

Liam flips him off weakly.

Ella hums a few bars of some ballad they danced to earlier, her voice low and dreamy. Niall harmonizes badly on purpose. Everyone groans and cheers at the same time.

Harry laughs, full and real, and feels Louis smile against his ribs.

“I could stay like this forever,” Louis murmurs.

“Me too.”

Louis shifts, chin propped on Harry’s chest. “But my ass is wet and I want my own bed.”

Harry grins. “And here I was thinking you were a romantic.”

“I’m a realist who likes cuddles. Let’s go.”

They untangle from the grass with the grace of drunk raccoons, stretching and swaying a little as they stand.

“You all good?” Niall calls.

“Yeah,” Louis says, lacing his fingers through Harry’s. “We’re gonna head back to mine.”

“Me too,” Ella says, nuzzling into Niall’s shoulder.

Liam lifts his head. “Zayn?”

Zayn stands slowly, brushing off his pants. “You’re lucky I love a man with poor dancing skills.”

Liam beams. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Go to sleep,” Zayn deadpans.

Louis and Harry wave goodnight, walking barefoot across the damp grass with their dress shoes dangling from their fingers. Harry’s hand is still wrapped in Louis’s, the quiet press of skin and trust.

—

The apartment is quiet when they get there. Louis flips on the soft kitchen light, and they both move automatically—Harry pouring water, Louis dropping his keys in the bowl by the door, toeing off his shoes.

The space smells like the last of a candle burned down earlier—vanilla and sandalwood, cozy and lived-in.

Harry sets their cups on the coffee table and sinks onto the couch. Louis joins him, flopping sideways so his legs tangle with Harry’s.

Neither of them talks for a while.

They don’t need to.

Eventually, Louis tugs gently on Harry’s fingers, inspecting the chipped polish.

“Still beautiful,” he says, and presses a kiss to Harry’s knuckles.

Harry swallows. The words feel so big in his throat, he thinks they might break him open. But he says them anyway.

“I love you so much I feel like I can’t contain it inside of my chest sometimes.”

Louis freezes—just for a second—then blinks, stunned and soft, like Harry’s words just unraveled something in him.

“You do?” he whispers.

Harry nods, heart in his throat. “Yeah. I do. Completely.”

Louis leans in and kisses him. Not urgently. Not desperately. Just with that quiet, overwhelming kind of love that answers the question before it’s even fully formed.

They don’t fall asleep right away. There’s music playing low from Louis’ phone, something with a gentle beat and lyrics that make them both go still and quiet. They stay curled up like that for a long time, skin warm and hearts tired, the world outside held at bay.

Whatever the future holds—whatever questions remain—they have this moment.

And for tonight, it’s enough.

Chapter Text

Harry didn’t cry right away.

He sat on the couch in Oliver’s office, knees pulled tight to his chest, sleeves of his sweatshirt stretched over his fists like a child hiding in plain sight. The room was dim, lit mostly by the golden haze of the standing lamp in the corner and the slow, steady rhythm of rain against the windows. Outside, the campus was blurred to watercolor. Inside, everything was too sharp, too still. His throat burned, but he didn’t speak.

Oliver waited. He always did. He never pushed, never filled the silence with platitudes or questions that skimmed the surface. Just waited like someone who knew the tide would turn, eventually.

Harry stared at the same patch of carpet he'd been staring at for ten minutes. The frayed edge. The loose thread he wanted to yank until it unraveled everything.

“I think my mom hated me,” he said at last. His voice was so small it nearly got lost in the room.

Oliver didn’t flinch.

Harry blinked. “No. Not think. I know . She told me.”

He shifted his weight and pressed his forehead to his knees, curling tighter. “She used to write me letters when I was a kid. Real ones. On that stupid blue stationery with the daisies in the corners. They looked like they’d come from someone who loved you. I kept them. For years. I don’t even know why.”

He inhaled shakily. “They said things like, God gave me you to punish me. And I was supposed to have a life, but then you came along. Or I never wanted a faggot for a son. She signed them with Bible verses. Sometimes Proverbs. Sometimes Revelation, when she was feeling dramatic.”

He laughed, but it was hollow. A sound that collapsed in on itself.

“I was seven when I got the first one.”

Oliver was still quiet, but Harry could feel him there. Steady. Anchoring.

“She said I cried too much. That I looked at other boys wrong. That I walked like I was broken. She used to say it under her breath when I passed her in the kitchen— damaged goods —like I was a bruised apple on the discount shelf. Like it was obvious to anyone who looked at me.”

His voice cracked, but he didn’t stop.

“My dad just—he didn’t write letters. He used his fists. Or belts. Or silence. Mostly silence. He’d look through me like I wasn’t even human. Like I was something shameful he stepped in by accident. And when he did look at me, it was with this… rage. Cold, disgusted rage.”

He sat up straighter, pulling his sleeves down tighter, trying to keep his hands from shaking. “The first time he hit me, I was nine. He found this notebook I kept hidden under my mattress. I used to write stories about me and this boy at school—just dumb, innocent stuff. Imagining what it would be like if someone held my hand without laughing. He read it out loud. Word by word. While I stood in the hallway shaking. Then he tore it up, called me a pervert, and threw me against the wall.”

Harry looked up then, eyes red but dry. “He told me I’d never be a real man. That I’d burn in hell before I ever found love.”

He took a breath that didn’t go anywhere. “He didn’t need to hit me after that. Not really. I started doing it for him. Not with my fists, but with every thought I had about myself. I was twelve the first time I looked in the mirror and told myself I deserved it. That God agreed with him.”

Oliver didn’t interrupt. He was still, but not passive. Open. Soft around the edges.

“My sister—” Harry’s jaw tightened. “Gemma knew. She knew . She saw the bruises. She heard the things he said. She watched my mom tear me apart one Sunday morning because I forgot to wear socks to church and she said I was trying to tempt God.”

He blinked back something sharp. “And Gemma just… left. She left me there. She said nothing. She never defended me. Never took my hand. She’d hug me at night when our parents weren’t around, but it was like she was trying to convince herself she still loved me, not me.”

He paused. “The worst part? She was my best friend. Before all of it. We used to build pillow forts and read Narnia together. She’s the one who taught me to whistle. And then one day it was like… like someone flipped a switch. Like I was radioactive. She stopped looking me in the eye.”

Harry let his head fall back against the couch. He felt like he was floating above himself, watching someone else bleed.

“I don’t understand how anyone could love me when the people who were supposed to couldn’t even pretend. Not even for appearances. Not even to keep up the lie.”

He reached for the words he’d been afraid to say aloud. They throbbed behind his teeth.

“I feel like everything Louis sees in me is a trick. Like I’ve accidentally convinced him I’m someone better than I am. Like if he really knew me—if he knew all this—he’d leave.”

His voice dropped to a whisper.

“I would.”

Oliver finally leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice low.

“What you’ve been through—Harry, this is not a reflection of who you are. This is a reflection of their brokenness. Their hate. Not your worth.”

Harry shook his head slowly. “But what if I agree with them? What if… what if I hate me too? What if I believe it? Still?”

Oliver let the silence hold again, but only for a moment.

“Then that’s the voice we need to get to know. The one inside you that thinks pain is the price of existence. That voice didn’t come from you—it was given to you. Carved into you. And now we start the work of carving it out.”

Harry closed his eyes.

He could still hear his mother’s voice. Still feel the sting of his father’s belt. Still see the way Gemma looked away when he bled.

But he could also feel something else. Something quieter. Warmer. Like standing at the edge of a long, dark tunnel and hearing a voice behind him whisper: You don’t have to go back in.

He didn’t say anything for the rest of the session. Just sat there breathing. But when Oliver handed him a glass of water at the end, Harry didn’t flinch when their hands touched.

And maybe that meant something.

— 

Harry didn’t go straight home after therapy.

Instead, he walked. Through puddles and sidewalk cracks and the damp, green hush of late summer rain. His hood was up, headphones in but playing nothing. The world was distant, muffled by the quiet roar of everything he’d said out loud for the first time in years.

By the time he reached the house, it was almost dark. He slipped through the front door without a word, past the warm sound of Niall and Liam arguing over a movie in the living room, past Zayn humming something low and sad in the kitchen. He didn’t stop. He didn’t look up.

In his room, his own room, his first real space that belonged just to him, he locked the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment, eyes closed, hands shaking.

Therapy had left him hollowed out.

Not in a clean, cathartic way. More like a house after a fire. The walls are still standing, but everything inside is charred and brittle.

He turned on the small desk lamp. Golden light pooled on the floor. He crossed the room and reached under his mattress for the old cigar box—worn and taped at the corners, packed with the only thing that had ever helped him make sense of his own mind.

Three notebooks. Two full, one in progress. All unlined, all filled with messy scrawl and ink smudges and water stains from nights he cried too hard to see straight.

He didn’t let anyone know about them. Not even Louis. He couldn’t. The thought of someone reading them, even by accident, made him sick with panic.

Because what if the words on the page confirmed it? Confirmed that something inside him was ruined beyond repair?

He sat on the floor, back against the bed frame, and opened the third notebook to a blank page. He stared at it for a long time, pen hovering just above the surface, before he started to write.

— 

November 15th

Therapy today hit like a fucking freight train.
I told Oliver about the letters. The ones from my mom. The ones she made look pretty so it would hurt worse when you opened them.
I said the words out loud. She told me I ruined her life.
Seven years old and already a curse.

I talked about Dad. About what he’d yell while he made me bleed. How he’d tell me he was trying to help me by beating the devil out of me. How he demanded I thank him after for trying to save my soul. After that, I took care of not only my wounds, but cleaned up my own blood on the floor.

I made myself small. I made myself quiet. I swallowed every thought before it could come out wrong.

And Gemma. My sister. Who used to brush my hair and braid it like hers. 

Who used to say we were twins born years apart.
She watched it happen. All of it.
And she let it happen.
And that silence? That silence cut deeper than anything else.

I think what fucks me up the most is this:

If the people who made me couldn’t love me, how can anyone else?

Like… they were the ones who saw me first. Who knew me before I even knew myself. If they looked at me and saw something unworthy, something deeply fundamentally wrong , then maybe that means it’s true. Maybe that means whatever it is that’s broken in me was always there.

And if that’s the case… then what is Louis even loving?

Sometimes it feels like he’s loving a version of me that doesn’t exist. A projection. A trick of the light.
He says I’m kind. That I’m brave. That I care so deeply it scares him sometimes. But all I can think is— he doesn’t know everything.
He doesn’t know how black the inside of me is
.
How I still hear my mom’s voice every time I mess up.

How I flinch when someone touches me without warning.

How I brace for abandonment like it’s a guarantee, not a possibility.

How I sometimes hate myself so deeply I can’t tell where her words end and mine begin.

What if he sees it one day?

What if I let myself believe I deserve him, and then he sees it, that black rot under the surface, and leaves?

What if he already knows, and he’s just… waiting for a reason to go?

There’s a part of me that thinks I was born wrong. Not just gay. Not just soft. But wrong . Fundamentally. Like a house with a cracked foundation that no amount of paint or patchwork can fix. A foundation that cracks more and more each day until the whole structure falls down.

I carry this fear like a second heartbeat.
I want to let him in. I do. But every time he gets too close, I want run before he runs first.
Because the closer he gets, the more I think he’ll see the truth:
That I’m unlovable. That I always have been.

And yet…

I didn’t die from saying it out loud today.
I didn’t fall apart.
Oliver listened.
He didn’t look horrified.
He didn’t shrink back.

He said: That voice in your head isn’t yours. It’s a wound.

And for one tiny second… I almost believed him.

— 

Harry sat back against the wall and let the pen fall into his lap. His heart thudded hard against his ribs, like it was trying to remind him he was still here. Still breathing.

He stared at the page until the words blurred. Then he closed the notebook slowly, reverently, like it might crack if he handled it too fast.

He kissed the cover. Just once. Just a habit now. Like telling himself, You survived again.

Then he slid the notebook back into the cigar box, closed the lid, and shoved it back under his mattress.

Safe. Hidden. Like everything else.

But something felt different tonight. Not healed, not fixed. Just… acknowledged. Named.

Harry is used to bandaging and dealing with physical wounds. How often to change the bandages. How often to wash it. How often to apply antimicrobial cream.

But he never learned how to take care of a mental wound. Because until now, it didn’t feel like a wound. It felt like it was just … him. 

Harry crawled into bed fully clothed, hoodie still on, socks damp from the rain. He didn’t bother with the light.

As he drifted off, his mind was still full of that question—the one that haunted him more than anything:

How could anyone love me if my own parents couldn’t?

But underneath it, quieter than a whisper, came a second thought. Small. Fragile.

What if they were wrong about me?

—

“Oof,” Harry said involuntarily as he hit the ground with a thud. Louis landed squarely on top of him, knocking the wind out of their lungs. 

Harry felt Louis giggle, and he smiled involuntarily as he tried to catch his breath. They had been meandering around the apple orchard all day. They were having so much fun doing nothing in particular for hours on end in the way only two people whose souls found peace together could do.

The most recent series of events that led to Harry being in the dirt was an argument they got into about the importance of ranch dressing to the Wisconsinite identity. Harry and Louis had passionately argued about whether you were allowed to call yourself a Wisconsinite if you didn’t like ranch. (Louis was saying yes, but Harry was VEHEMENTLY arguing absolutely fucking not because it was ranch - it was basically the state drink of Wisconsin after Spotted Cow). One thing led to another, and suddenly, Harry was flat on his back with Louis’ full weight on top of him.

Harry took in the moment before opening his eyes.  Cap askew, curls spilling around him, undoubtedly full of leaves and dirt now, Harry was at peace. He wasn’t just happy - he had felt happiness before, but happiness was fleeting. But right now, on this crisp fall afternoon, the love of his life wholly lying on top of him, he was at peace. A peace he felt was settling slowly into his soul and taking root. For once, for once, maybe Harry would get to keep this feeling. Maybe he had finally earned something good. Maybe, just maybe, he would start being able to live life, not just survive it.

Harry felt his dimples deepen as that warm, fuzzy, familiar feeling of peace spread through him. Everyone always talks about his dimples, and he gets it; they are these deep, cavernous things that pop rather obscenely every time he smiles. But what no one appreciated properly was Louis’ dimples. Louis’ dimples were not given freely; they needed to be earned. But when Louis’ dimples appear, Harry feels like the world heals a bit. 

Harry opened his eyes and saw nothing but Louis Louis Louis. Louis was a vision. The sun was starting to set behind him. Still, even as the sun slid down the horizon, it shined brightly behind Louis’ head, making it seem the fluffy-haired brunette had a halo. Not that Harry believed in heaven, but if anything was crafted by gods and sent to earth, it was Louis. 

Everything about Louis was perfectly and finely crafted. The delicate dusting of freckles across his face, his sharp cheekbones, his bright blue eyes, the crinkles when he smiled, everything, and Harry really meant everything, about Louis was perfect. If Harry could paint, he would paint Louis’ face and have it hung high up in a gallery. But in the absence of being able to do that, Harry does know he would burn himself alive without a second thought to keep Louis happy and safe. Nothing mattered more than Louis being happy and being at peace.

Back in high school history class when he learned about the Trojan War, Harry always thought it was absurd that Paris would risk his entire city because of one person's beauty. No one person should inspire that kind of selfish, suicidal devotion. That was just insane. Harry had scoffed as some mediocre football coach had droned on about this war started for “love.” Harry didn’t care. Love wasn’t worth that. All love did was give people a reason to hurt each other and claim it was out of “love,” that it was because they “loved” him. Love did nothing but leave death and destruction in its wake. That was all Harry knew of this so-called love.

But the first time Harry saw Louis’ dimples, he got it. Suddenly, it all made sense. Harry would absolutely start a war for his dimples. He would cut out his beating heart if it would make Louis’ dimples take up residence on his beautiful face. Those dimples were everything to Harry. They meant Louis was happy, that he was comfortable, that he felt safe. Harry even realized that Louis was the one true love of his life the first time he saw those dimples. Harry lived and died by those dimples; of course he would start a war for them. 

Harry saw Louis’ dimples for the first time back in freshman year. Louis was taking a ceramics class and was losing his shit around the time of the final. Something about his pieces drying out and cracking and him having to redo the entire project in 36 hours. Louis was crying at Harry and mumbling about how if he couldn’t finish this final, he’d fail the class and then lose his scholarship and have to drop out and his life would be over or something. 

Okay, to be honest, Harry didn’t retain a lot. He didn’t know fuck all about ceramics, but he knew his boy was crying, and he knew about breaking into buildings. So Harry sprang into action and convinced Louis they could get a ton of shitty snacks and redbull and power through the project together. 

Louis had stopped crying and looked at Harry in absolute disbelief. Harry was on his knees wiping every single tear that fell out of his boyfriend's beautiful blue eyes as fast as they could fall because he couldn’t stand the sight of Louis crying in true distress. Louis was always beautiful, and devastatingly beautiful, but this was the first time Harry had seen Louis really, truly sob and it was killing him. It caused him actual physical pain and he would do anything to make it stop. 

“You - you would do that for me?” Louis had whispered out, seemingly shocked that Harry would help him. 

“Of course, baby. I’d do anything for you.” Harry had whispered reverently, truly meaning it more than any prayer he had ever uttered.

“But, you have finals too? And you don’t know anything about ceramics? And you - “

Harry could tell Louis was about to spiral out of control in anxiety when he looked at the corner and started to list off all the reasons Harry just couldn’t possibly help him. He never was good at accepting help, Harry had noticed. 

“Shhh, baby, it is okay. I have survived on less sleep, and you can teach me how to help you. You are a GREAT teacher, you can teach me. I’ll listen. I’ll do whatever you need. It’ll be okay. I promise, baby.” Harry had brushed Louis’ hair back off his forehead, “Baby, look at me, it’ll be okay, I promise. I’ll help you. We can do this together. I promise. Look at me, Louis, look at me, I promise I will be right by your side.”

Cradling Louis’ face in his hands and gently guiding him to make eye contact with him, Harry poured every ounce of sincerity he could into his next words, “Louis, I’d do anything for you, helping you break into the art building and finish a final doesn’t even rank. I am honored to help you. Please, baby, let me help you. Please .”

Louis’ glassy blue eyes searched Harry’s frantically for some sense that Harry was lying, and Harry guessed he couldn’t find any because Louis took a shaky breath and all but whispered, “okay.”

Harry had sprung into action, worried Louis would change his mind if they didn’t move soon. He raided the fridge and stole a bunch of Niall’s snacks (he would figure out a way to replace them later, but that was a later problem). He threw them all into his backpack and grabbed Louis hand as they ran across campus. 

With just a little sweet-talking of the night janitor, Louis and Harry were able to get into the building before the exterior alarm was set. And Harry, through the nature of his upbringing, could pick a lock with virtually anything because his dad would lock away the supplies he needed to clean up his wounds. Not even 25 minutes after Louis was convinced his life was over, he and Harry were inside the ceramics work room and Louis was doing whatever ceramics things he needed to do his final.

Harry just watched him and took in his beauty. Whenever Louis gave him a direction, he sprang into action, desperate to please Louis in any way he could. 

They spent hours and hours in that room. Honestly, most of it blurred together. Their phones died about six hours in and Harry went on a hunt to find a charger in the empty building. Luckily for him, someone had forgotten a charger in a dark corner three floors up. When he got back, he plugged in Louis’ phone and opened his Spotify and put on a song that never failed to make him dance: Hot to Go! How could anyone not dance to Chappell Roan?!

Harry played the song and grabbed his frazzled, stressed, and tired lover by the hand as he protested that he was too busy. Harry wouldn’t take no for an answer though; Louis needed a break. He had been at it for almost seven straight hours. 

“Baby, do you like this beat?” Chappell Roan sang out through Louis’ tiny speakers and Harry yelled the “na- na na-na na”s with his full chest, desperate to see Louis smile. Harry bounced around the room making a complete fool of himself.

“RAISE YOUR HANDS AND BODY ROLL HOT TO GOOOOOO” Harry sang out like a wild man, lanky limbs moving of their own free will, high on sugar and lack of sleep and adoration for this boy.

Louis was dancing with Harry now and laughing like a lunatic too. They were laughing freely and openly like they only two people who were deeply, deeply familiar with pain and disappointment could. This type of joy was reserved only for people who knew what it was like to truly hurt. But in that moment, they were just two teenage boys who were happy. Nothing else mattered - not the moment before, not the next moment - just this one they were sharing here together.

As the song wound down and transitioned into something calmer, Harry brushed his hair out of his face, surely wild and messy and no longer curly but rather just a halo of frizz and crown. He turned around and found Louis’ eyes. But as he did, he stopped short.

Baffled and in disbelief, Harry moved towards Louis slowly like if he moved too quickly he’d shatter the moment. He reached up and gently brushed his thumb over Louis’ left cheek. “Baby,” Harry breathed out reverently, “how did I not know you had dimples?” 

Harry couldn’t take his eyes off of Louis’ cheeks where his beautiful dimples framed his smile. They were more subtle than Harry’s but they were breathtaking. Harry felt like his entire existence was reduced to those two dimples. That nothing would ever matter in life as long as Harry could see those dimples.

Louis started to blush and look away. Harry could see his dimples start to disappear and felt like the air was being stolen right from his lungs. He rushed to cradle Louis’ face carefully, feeling like one misstep would shatter his heart, “Baby, you are so beautiful.” 

Louis’ dimples deepened again and Harry felt like he could breathe again. “Yeah, uh, I have dimples, as you can see.” Louis chuckled in what Harry knew was his self-deprecating laugh. Harry continued to stare at Louis’ dimples like they held the answer to the universe. He slowly rubbed his thumbs over them. He could feel the stubble growing on Louis’ cheeks from god knows how many hours of not shaving, but the roughness only served to ground Harry - to remind him that he wasn’t dreaming this. That he really got to be here and bask in the beauty that was Louis’ dimples. 

“I, uh, normally only have dimples when I am like really, happy, but not just happy, um” Louis paused and closed his eyes briefly. When he opened then again, he looked deep into Harry’s eyes and continued, “They really only show up when, I am like, really comfortable and feel, I don’t know, safe, and like, I don’t know, at peace, I guess.” Louis shrugged nonchalantly like he didn’t just give Harry the keys to the universe.

Harry’s mind was short-circuiting. He made Louis feel safe? He, Harry Edward Styles, the most broken person alive, gave Louis William Tomlinson, the most perfect person alive, peace? 

All Harry had ever known about himself was that he left hurt in his wake. He had never been good for anything else, but now, suddenly, now, he could make this absolute angel of a man feel not just happiness, but peace? 

In that moment, Harry felt like he was both hit by a train and more grounded than ever before. He could feel his consciousness collapsing and his soul mending at the same time. He loved this boy. He loved him. He was in love with him.

Without the consent of his brain, his mouth blurts out, “I love you.”

Harry and Louis were both shocked into silence. Harry was probably even more surprised than Louis. But, it felt so, right.

Harry slowly ran his tongue over his teeth like he was feeling how the words felt in his mouth. “I love you.”

He leaned his forehead against Louis’, “I love you. I love you. I am in love with you. Oh my god, Louis, I am so in love with you.” 

Suddenly Harry pulled back. “Oh my god, Louis, I am so so so in love with you holy shit.” 

Louis was frozen in place, but Harry felt like he was so happy he was going to explode. He laughed like a crazy man and surged force to kiss Louis. He needed Louis to feel how much he loved him. Otherwise, Harry was sure that this love was going to burn Harry alive from the inside out.

Harry rushed out an “I love you” in between every single kiss. He couldn’t stop kissing Louis over and over and over again. He could never tire of kissing Louis, but now it was even more amazing because he was kissing the man he LOVED. He felt like he was flying. 

Finally, Harry paused for a minute, eyes wild and cheeks hurting from smiling so large. He pulled back a bit and looked at Louis, the man he loved. 

Louis was just staring at him in awe, dimples still illuminating his face. “I love you,” Harry rushed to get out. He couldn’t help it. It was involuntary at this point. It was a reflex. He loved this boy. He LOVED his boy.

Louis smirked a bit, “Oh, can I talk now?” clearly poking fun at Harry just a bit, which was fair, he was acting like a crazy person. 

Harry rolled his lips inside and silently nodded his head, indicating that Louis could speak. Harry didn’t even care what he was going to say. He didn’t need Louis to love him back. He didn’t need Louis to say anything. Harry would be content for the rest of his life just getting to love Louis.

“I love you too, you wild man.” Louis giggled.

In that moment, truly in that moment, nothing else mattered. Harry knew in his soul, in his broken, damaged, fucked up little soul, that they would be okay. That as long as they remembered that they loved each other, as long as they held onto that feeling, they would be okay. Harry knew, knew in his bones, that for the rest of his life, he would see Louis’ dimples and remember this moment. The moment he knew he’d do anything in the world to keep Louis happy. Louis was his present, but more importantly, Louis was his future.

Back in the moment, lying on the hard ground of the apple orchard, he raised his right hand carefully to run his thumb over Louis’ dimple like he had so many times before when he had been gifted with a glimpse of them.

“I love you, Louis.”

“I love you too, you wild man,” Louis said with crinkles next to his ocean eyes.

—

The apartment was warm, fragrant with cinnamon and sugar.

They’d been baking earlier—well, Harry had been baking. Louis had mostly danced around the kitchen in socks, trying to sneak apple slices and getting scolded with soft swats to the hip. Now the pie was in the oven, bubbling and golden beneath the glass door, and the two of them were curled together in bed, wrapped in a too-heavy blanket, their legs tangled. The insulation and the hum of the old radiator muted the sounds of early winter outside. It was the kind of stillness Harry rarely let himself fall into—contentment without condition.

Harry’s head rested on Louis’ chest, his fingers idly tracing the shapes on Louis’ soft skin. Louis gently runs his fingers over Harry’s tattoos. Harry thinks about Louis said he never wanted tattoos, and now they are both covered with tattoos that tell their story. 

Louis spoke quietly, like he’d been thinking about it for a while.

“Can I ask you something?”

Harry turned his head slightly. “You always can.”

Louis gave a soft, uneven laugh. “You’ve never come home with me for the holidays.”

Harry tensed.

Louis feels Harry still, and the arm around Louis’ waist tenses, but he can feel Harry’s heartbeat pick up. “You-“ Harry clears his throat - “you’ve never asked me to come home with you for the holidays and um - your birthday before.” 

Louis rolls them over and props his chin on his hand on Harry’s chest and shrugs nonchalantly, almost like he isn’t sure if Harry is trying to let him down gently or not. “Just figured you had better things to do, that’s all.” 

“I - “ Harry can see the panic start to settle in Louis’ eyes. Louis shuffles under the sheets and starts to sit up. 

“What?” 

As if Harry can hear his mind thinking, he reaches out for Louis’ hand. “Nothing, it’s nothing, Louis, I’d love to come home with you.” 

“Don’t lie to me, Harry.” Louis mumbles while looking down at his hands like he wishes he could disappear. 

“Louis I’m not -“

“Yes, you are Harry, it’s so obvious you don’t want to come, just admit it.” 

“No, Louis, it isn’t that it’s -“ Harry tries to rush out.

“Then what is it, Harry?” Louis looks up, trying to look unbothered and slightly annoyed, but Harry knows better. 

“Why did you think I had better things to do?” Harry whispers so low it’s almost like he hopes no one will hear him. Like he just admitted something dark and dirty. 

Louis looks at him, thoroughly confused now. “I don’t know, Harry, you are so popular and so busy, I figured you did stuff with friends or went home or something.”

As soon as Louis says home, Harry flinches. 

Louis narrows his eyes at Harry, tries to read him. 

“What aren’t you telling me, H.” He didn’t phrase it like a question because it wasn’t. Like he knew Harry was withholding something. 

“Nothing, Louis, it’s -“

“Don’t you say nothing to me again. What aren’t you telling me?” 

Harry can feel Louis watching him as he stares down at his fingers for what feels like an eternity. He keeps fiddling with the silver ring they bought together at the Wisconsin state fair one year ago, as if fiddling with it enough times will reveal the answers to the universe's secrets. 

“I don’t have a home, Lou. I haven’t since I started college.”

“What do you mean, Harry?” Louis says slowly.

“I mean -“ Harry pauses and clears his throat again and then breathes out one last big breath. 

“I mean, I haven’t been back to Kansas since freshman orientation.”

“So, where do you go on breaks and holidays and stuff, Harry? The campus doesn’t let you stay here.”

Harry chuckles out a dry, humorless laugh. “I know.”

“So what the fuck have you been doing, Harry?” 

“It …varies.”

“What the fuck do you mean it varies?” 

“I - “ 

Harry pauses. Normally, before holidays, Harry picks some type of fight, they have a huge blowout, break up, and get back together around Harry’s birthday. This has been the first year they’ve been together this time of year for Louis to even be able to ask Harry to come home with him. 

Louis fills the silence, “Sophomore year, you broke up with me two days before my birthday. Said I was being clingy. Junior year, you ghosted me for all of December. I texted you Merry Christmas, and you didn’t even reply until January fifth. Have you been doing this …. on purpose?”

“Yeah,” Harry whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“I thought…” Louis swallowed. “I thought maybe I was pushing you too hard. Or that you weren’t as serious about me as I was about you.”

Harry sat up a little, propped on an elbow. “Louis, no. I was serious. I am serious.”

Louis kept staring at the ceiling. “Then why’d you always leave?”

Harry was quiet for a long time. The silence grew thick between them, and Louis filled it with a shaky laugh.

“I used to joke to Zayn that you just didn’t want to buy me a birthday present. That maybe you were allergic to holidays.”

Harry gave a half-laugh, then said, “That first year… freshman year… I didn’t go home because I couldn’t .”

Louis turned to look at him, brows furrowed.

“I didn’t want to admit it to anyone, especially not you. I managed to stay hidden on campus for Thanksgiving. Ate from the vending machines. Showered at weird hours. But for Christmas, they caught me.”

“What do you mean ‘they caught you’?”

“I mean, campus security found me sleeping in one of the art building lounges and made me leave,” Harry said softly. “I told them I had nowhere to go. They said that wasn’t their problem. I ended up in a shelter near downtown. Spent Christmas there.”

Louis sat up straighter, stricken. “What? Harry— what the fuck —why didn’t you tell me?”

Harry looked down, fingers twisting at the edge of the blanket. “You texted me that Christmas. I said I was fine. I didn’t want you to know. I thought you’d feel sorry for me, or worse—like I was some kind of burden.”

Louis reached for his hand and held it tight. “I thought you went back to Kansas. I just assumed… it was bad, and you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I haven’t been back since the day I got in my car and left for college.”

Louis’s voice was small. “That was over three years ago.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

Harry dodges the question. He just isn’t …. ready. “I don’t know how to do holidays with families, Louis,” Harry whispered. “Especially happy ones. Yours is warm and loud and safe . And mine…”

He shook his head. “Mine taught me that love was a loaded gun. A promise with a fist behind it. So when I step into a house like yours, it’s like I forget how to breathe. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know how not to ruin it.”

Louis wrapped his arms around him and held on. “You wouldn’t ruin it, Harry. You couldn’t. ”

Harry tucked his face into Louis’ neck. “But what if I do?”

“You won’t. And even if you do… it’s still your place too.”

Harry was quiet for a long moment.

Then, softly, “And your sisters… they’ll remind me of her.”

Louis’s throat tightened. “I know.”

Harry pulled back just enough to see his face. “You’re not a placeholder, you know. You’re not something I’m passing through until I heal.”

Louis laughed once, but it wasn’t happy. “Sometimes it feels that way. Like I’m the pit stop on your way to a better life.”

“You’re the reason I even have a life.”

They held each other like that until the timer for the pie beeped from the kitchen. Neither of them moved right away.

Eventually, Louis smiled into Harry’s hair. “Come on. We should check on it.”

Harry held on tighter. “Can we wait one more minute?”

Louis nodded. “Always.”

—

The suitcase sat open on Harry’s bed like a question he wasn’t sure he had the right to answer.

He stood frozen with a pair of jeans limp in his hands, while Louis flitted around the room, opening drawers, kicking Harry’s shoes toward the bag, fussing about socks.

“Socks, H. Like, actual socks. Not those ankle ones you pretend are fine in the snow. Christ.”

Harry let out a soft laugh but didn’t move.

Louis barely looked up. “Did you pack the brown sweater? The one I love? The one that makes you look like… I don’t know. Like a poet who broke my heart in Paris or something.”

Harry blinked. “No. But I can.”

“You should. It’s very… you.” Louis said it too softly, almost like he wasn’t sure Harry would want to bring something that reminded him of Louis.

He moved to the dresser, pulling things out, talking too quickly. “And gloves. I have extras, obviously. I’m not letting you turn into a human popsicle because you’re too proud to admit you forgot to pack.”

Harry didn’t respond. He set the jeans down and stared into the half-packed suitcase like it might swallow him whole. The old fear was crawling up his spine—hot and cold all at once.

You don’t belong there.
You’ll ruin it.
You’re not meant for families. Not even his.

“Harry?” Louis had crossed the room, voice careful now. Gentle.

Harry swallowed.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

Louis blinked. “What?”

“I don’t think I can go.”

Louis was quiet for a beat too long.

Then, lightly—trying too hard to keep it breezy—he said, “It’s okay. I mean, you don’t have to. I get it.”

Harry turned toward him. “Louis—”

“No, seriously,” Louis shrugged, but the movement was stiff, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “You’ve got a lot going on. Probably better ways to spend your break. No worries.”

His voice cracked just slightly on that last word. But he pushed on. “Honestly, you’ll probably be doing something cool next year anyway. Traveling. Grad school. Something big. It’s fine.”

Harry frowned. “Wait, what does that have to do with anything?”

Louis looked down at his hands. “Nothing. Just… you’ve got this big life ahead of you. That’s all. I don’t expect—” He cut himself off.

Harry stared at him, something inside twisting.

“I want to go,” he said. “I do . I just… I’m scared.”

Louis finally looked up. “Of what?”

Harry hesitated. “Of ruining it.”

Louis didn’t laugh. He didn’t reassure him right away. He just blinked, like Harry had said something he’d always expected.

“Yeah,” Louis said softly. “Me too.”

Harry sat on the edge of the bed. “Louis…”

“I mean—” Louis ran a hand through his hair, avoiding Harry’s eyes. “You’re this person who… survived so much. Who’s building something beautiful out of so much pain. And I’m just this guy with a noisy family and bad taste in socks. Sometimes I wonder when you’ll wake up and realize I’m just… the placeholder.”

The words hit Harry like a slap. This is the second time Louis has said something like this.

“What?”

Louis tried to smile again, but it cracked this time. “Nothing. Just ignore me. I’m being dumb.”

“No. Louis.” Harry grabbed his hand. “That’s not dumb. That’s… that’s heartbreaking.”

Louis looked away. “You always talk like you’re the one who’s too broken to be loved. But you have no idea how hard it is to watch someone you love carry so much and still light up every room. I feel like I’m just trying to keep up. Like someday, you’ll be whole, and you won’t need me anymore.”

Harry exhaled shakily.

“I’m scared,” he whispered. “Because I don’t know how to be loved like your family loves. And because when I look at you, I see everything I don’t know how to hold.”

Louis laughed, but it was thin and tired. “Great. We’re both scared we’re not enough for each other.”

Harry looked down. “That first Christmas… I stayed on campus until they kicked me out. Ended up in a shelter. I didn’t tell anyone. I told you I was fine.”

Louis was pale now. “Harry…”

“My sister called me once. My parents threw everything out. Changed my room. Told everyone I joined the army and was never coming back. She was terrified – if they found out she called me, she’d be in trouble. So I cut contact. To protect her. I miss her all the time. But it’s better this way. It was too dangerous for her.”

Louis pulled him close, arms around Harry’s waist, head tucked beneath his chin. They stayed like that for a long time.

Then Louis mumbled, “Well. You are coming with me this time. So don’t try to back out again.”

Harry smiled into his hair. “Okay.”

“And you’re wearing the brown sweater. And bringing the gloves. And you’re going to eat too much pie and fall asleep in front of the fire while my sisters make fun of you.”

Harry nodded. “Okay.”

“Even if it’s scary. Even if you feel out of place.”

“Okay.”

“And if you wake up one day and realize I’m not enough—”

Harry pulled back. “I won’t.”

“You might.”

“I won’t, Louis.”

Louis didn’t argue again. But he didn’t agree either.

He just held Harry tighter, and together they finished packing, folding sweaters and socks and fear into layers. When they climbed into bed, Harry held him through the night, feeling the tremble in Louis’ fingers even as he tried to be the steady one.

Chapter Text

As Harry stares down at his reflection in the spotless glass jewelry case, he reflects on the last four months. 

He and Louis had been having the time of their lives in a way they had never had before. It had been four months of absolute bliss. They had just been happy together.

Harry hadn’t told Louis he had been going to therapy twice a week since August, but Louis had to have noticed a difference in him, Harry thought. They had hardly fought at all and had been communicating better. They definitely felt more solid and stable as a couple than they ever had. Harry wasn’t ashamed he was going to therapy, not really, but he was still scared to tell anyone, even Louis. 

But for the first time in his life, he was proud of himself, and he wanted to tell Louis about therapy because he wanted Louis to be proud of him, too. He needed Louis's approval like he needed air to breathe, but he was working on being proud of himself and for that to be enough.

Harry and Oliver, his lovely queer therapist in his last semester of grad school at UW-Madision, were working up to Harry telling Louis he was in therapy. It isn’t that Harry didn’t want to tell Louis, or that he didn’t trust Louis, he was just scared. Not of Louis, never of Louis, but of the voices of his parents in his head telling him he should be ashamed for needing help and that he didn’t need therapy, he just needed to accept who he was supposed to be, come home, marry a woman, and take over the family farm. 

Harry was coming to terms with the weight of the expectations placed on him, and coming to terms with the fact that maybe he did deserve love. Oliver constantly reminded Harry that just because his parents were incapable of truly seeing and loving him correctly, it didn’t mean he was unlovable or fundamentally flawed. 

Harry didn’t really accept this, but he was trying. He was trying to believe it. For him, for Louis, for their future. He was trying to drown out the voices in his head telling him he was broken. It is hard to believe you are worthy of love, or that anyone could love you, when the very people who made you and were designed to love you, hated you, but Harry was trying. 

Harry taps his fingers on the glass as he looks around at the shiny wedding bands before him. He remembers the moment he decided he wanted to propose to Louis. It was New Year's Eve, and it had just started snowing again, which was pretty par for the course in Louis's hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Harry and Louis had snuck out of the family party, laughing like little kids with a stolen bottle of champagne. They were laughing, kissing, and passing  a bottle of champagne back and forth until they were just drunk enough to forget how cold it was outside. Louis had eventually crawled into Harry’s lap, lamenting that his ass was damp and cold. 

Harry had giggled and said, “Oh, so it is okay for my ass to be damp and cold and my lap to be damp and cold as long as you have somewhere warm to put your ass?” between kisses and ass squeezes. 

Louis grabbed his face with his slightly scratchy homemade mittens and nodded like a madman. “Exactly, perfect, I am so glad you understand,” and kissed Harry like his life depended on it. 

And to Harry, it sort of did. As he pulled back to catch a breath and look at his boy, he could see his whole life ahead of him - frozen winters in Wisconsin and dark starry nights just like this where they laughed and kissed without a care in the world.  Harry envisioned hot springs and hotter summers and taking their hoard of kids to the lake. God, Harry wanted it so badly that it hurt. He ached with the desire to love this boy forever and to build a life and a family with him. 

Harry had always dreamed of a family who would always show him love, but he never thought he’d really get it. He always thought it was something reserved for good people, for whole people who had more than a mess of trauma responses and self-hatred where a personality was supposed to be. But, while the frigid air and snow swirled around them and Louis curled up in his lap, co-opting every ounce of warmth Harry had to offer, Harry could see that family taking shape. 

Harry wrapped his arms around Louis's waist and pulled the shivering boy closer to him. Louis wrapped his legs around Harry’s waist, but before he could get settled, Harry quickly flipped them over so Louis was sprawled out on the ground. 

“Harry! You are a - “

“Menace, I know.” Harry grinned his big bunny teeth smile and leaned down to kiss the man beneath him.

“You are the -” Louis giggled into Harry’s mouth as Harry kissed him to try to stop him from continuing to taunt him.

“The greatest? The strongest? The best fuck you’ve ever had? The love of your life?” Harry said between kisses with a glint of joy in his eyes.

Harry watched as Louis softened a bit. Despite the cold, Harry could tell Louis was genuinely happy. He could see the stars reflecting back in his eyes, and Harry knew his whole future with this stunningly beautiful boy in his arms.

“Yes, all of that,” Louis said softly, with a peaceful smile on his face.

“That’s what I thought.” Harry leaned down to kiss Louis one more time before he grinned and rolled them over so Louis was out of the snow. 

As much as Harry loved having Louis under him, he knew how much the northern Wisconsinite hated the snow.

They settled together as Harry gently brushed his fingers through Louis's hair and periodically kissed his forehead. Harry wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but they could hear the party carrying on inside. 

After a while, Louis picked up his head and gently rested his chin on Harry’s chest as they heard the countdown start.

“Ten, nine, eight…”

“I love you, H.”

“ Six, five, four…”

“I love you more than anything, Lou. You are my everything, baby.”

“ Two, one…Happy New Year!”

Harry and Louis had kissed for what felt like hours in the cold, dark night of that New Year. If anyone was looking on, they would see a freshly minted twenty-two-year-old and a soon-to-be twenty-two-year-old ready to take on the world together. 

As they laid in the snow in the Tomlinson’s backyard, Harry knew that all he ever needed to be happy was the boy in his arms. As they kissed and kissed and kissed, Harry never stopped running his thumb over Louis's freezing cold cheekbones. Getting to feel Louis's soft skin was a privilege, and nothing was going to stop Harry from basking in that privilege. 

As the world welcomed 2024, Harry knew 2024 was going to be special - it was going to be the year he proposed to Louis. 

“Can I help you, sir?” 

Harry snapped his head up, no longer reflecting on the moment he knew he was going to propose, but fully settled into this moment: the moment he buys the ring he will see on his spouse for the rest of his life. God, he loved the word spouse. Doesn’t get used nearly enough. 

Louis always laughed at the word spouse and said it was like a mixture of spider and mouse. But Harry didn’t care. He loved Louis's laughter, and he loved the word spouse. So he was going to spend the rest of his life introducing Louis as his spouse, and he was so damn excited.

“Yes, I need to buy an engagement ring,” Harry said proudly.

The jewelry salesman grinned and turned on the charm, clearly excited about the potential of making a big sale. He was an older man, maybe mid to late 40s, with bright, cheery eyes and a bit of ruddy complexion. He wore a standard crisp gray suit with a white shirt and a nondescript blue tie. 

“Wonderful, sir. I’m John, I will be happy to help you with this today! Please step this way; we have a beautiful array of diamonds that I am sure would make any girl feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”

Harry’s words got caught in his throat. How could he forget this part? He gnawed on his lip a bit; he knew what he had to do, but still a little scared. Madison may be a great city, a progressive college town and all that, but how could he forget that people would always look at him and just assume he was straight? 

“Er, uh, no, um, I need -” Harry stutters before pausing and taking a deep breath to center himself. “I need something that will make him feel like the luckiest guy in the world.” Harry holds his breath, waiting to see what the salesman will do. Progressive or not, you just never knew how someone was going to react.

The salesman slowly looked Harry up and down. He was wearing something pretty standard for him - dirty white vans, black almost-too-skinny skinny jeans with a hole in the left knee, a vintage Queen t-shirt, and a big black puffy jacket with faux fur on the hood. He looked every bit the part everyone always wanted him to play - a handsome frat boy. Except for one thing - he had started to grow his hair out a bit past what was considered “normal” for a man. 

While he used to keep his curly locks rather cropped to look every bit the part people wanted him to play, in recent months, he had been letting his hair grow. The curls just brushed the top of his shoulder now, and he loved having his hair longer. He had always been banned from that as a kid. 

He remembers one particularly traumatic moment of his mother repeatedly slapping him in the face with a hairbrush until he stopped crying and then shaving his head completely. His mother was angry at him because he said he looked pretty. He was only five at the time.

Since then, he had always been too scared to grow his hair out. Even now, when he knows rationally that his parents couldn’t get to him even if they tried, he is always scared they will just turn up one day. 

But Oliver was helping him overcome that fear. Oliver was helping him name it and frame it and accept it as a memory, not a reality. So Harry started growing his hair out back in August, and he loves it. He loves his curls. He loves how they blow around him in the wind. He just loves having longer hair. He loves how pretty he feels all the time. And it makes outfits like this - your typical frat boy outfits that had always felt like costumes - feel more his. Like he wasn’t Harry Styles, frat boy. He was Harry, just Harry.

After what feels like a lifetime for Harry but in reality, was probably only about 45 seconds, Harry makes eye contact with John again. He sees that the salesman’s eyes have softened, but he doesn’t trust it. As John reached below the gleaming jewelry case, Harry started moving backward slowly, ready to make a break for it. Seemingly sensing his fear, John smiled reassuringly, pulled out a small frame picture, and put it down to show Harry. Harry glanced down at the picture, not really sure what was happening.

“This is me, my husband Shane, and our daughters, Lisa and Jackie. They just turned 8.” The salesman points out each person individually while Harry takes this all in. After a minute, Harry looks back at John, who smiles and goes, “It’s okay, son. You are safe here. Let’s pick out the right ring for your man.” 

The rest of the shopping experience was lovely. John spared no detail while regaling him with the story of Shane proposing while Harry perused the bands John supplied. None of them were exactly right, but Harry couldn’t articulate what they were missing. 

“You know, Harry,” John softly said, “we can make a custom band too. It is a bit more expensive, and I promise I’m not trying to upsell you, but I just want you to have what you want. The perfect ring for the perfect proposal.”

They had been there for at least two hours, Harry shooting down ring after ring after ring with nothing more than a, “I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right.” Harry picked at his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger, not sure what to say.

He drops his hand and looks up at John, almost helpless. “I’m just not sure what to do,” Hary said. “I was hoping the right ring would just… present itself to me,” he finished rather lamely. 

However, John quickly nodded in understanding. “Can you tell me a bit about him?”

Harry couldn’t help but smile. Harry took every opportunity to talk about Louis in the way all the little old ladies  in his hometown took every opportunity to spread the Gospel of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In a way, it made sense; Louis was his savior after all.  

“John, he’s, well, Louis is everything. He is loud, and bright, and boisterous but also calming, and soothing, and grounding at the same time. Every time I look at him, I have to catch my breath because he’s just so beautiful that I can’t believe he’s really mine. That he really picked me. Every time I look into his eyes, I see my whole future. I see our whole life, our future kids' lives. I see us growing old but never growing up, and building a life together piece by piece. Louis is frustrating and messy, and I swear he could burn water.” Harry chuckles breathlessly before making eye contact with John. “But when he steps into a room, and his eyes meet mine, I feel like life is worth living. Like life has meaning because he loves me.”

Harry watches as a smile slowly reaches John’s eyes. John slides his hand across the table and covers Harry’s hand in his own. “Oh, son, he sounds like your compass.” 

Harry couldn’t help the bright bubble of laughter that snuck out of his mouth. 

“It’s funny you say that because he has a compass tattoo to match my ship tattoo. And a rope tattoo to match my anchor tattoo.” 

Harry was still wearing his jacket, so John couldn’t see his tattoos, but Harry touched those places as he explained because he could feel the love radiating from them, reminding him of the commitments Harry and Louis had already made to each other. 

John and Harry spent the next hour designing the perfect ring that paid homage to Harry and Louis's past and future. They designed a platinum gold band with intricate rope detailing running parallel to each other around the whole ring. In the center of the ring, Harry wanted a continuous band of delicate gemstones set into the gold, alternating between sapphire to symbolize Louis, diamonds to hold space for their future kids, and emeralds to symbolize Harry. On the inside, Harry paid extra for it to be engraved with “Home.” Harry was so excited to get this ring to Louis. He knew Louis would love it because it represented everything they were, and everything they were going to be.

Harry filled out the line of credit application happily, knowing that while he was going to be paying this ring off for a while, it was worth it because the ring was perfect. Harry knew that every single monthly payment was going to be worth it to see this ring sit on his boy’s finger. Louis was going to be mad at him for spending so much money, but Harry didn’t care. It was the perfect ring for the perfect man. 

John finished looking over the credit card application and nodded before saying, “Okay, son, that’s everything! Just sign here, and you’ll be all set to pick this up in the last week of January.” John held out a pen and pointed to where Harry had to sign. 

“Thank you, sir. Thank you so much,” Harry said as he used the pen to ink his name on his document. How many more times would he sign something as Harry Styles? The passing thought sent a spark of excitement right up his spine. Harry was going to get married. He was going to marry the love of his life with this ring. 

John reached out and put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry had seen many fathers do this in movies he watched as a kid, but it was never something he had experienced himself. He didn’t know what to do with this fatherly kindness John was showing him.

With warmth in his brown eyes and a firm grip on Harry’s shoulder, John said earnestly, “The pleasure was all mine, son, I promise. I’ll see you in a few weeks.” He squeezed Harry’s shoulder one more time before letting him go.

Harry smiled brightly and all but threw himself over the jewelry case to hug John. “Thank you,” he said quietly before bounding off into the cold January air, ready to face the world with a new lease on life. 

Chapter Text

The waiting room smelled like lavender and printer paper today.

Harry sat in the corner chair—the one by the fake ficus, slightly wobbly, with a scuffed leg—curled in on himself like he could fold his body small enough to disappear. His foot bounced restlessly. His palms were damp. The cheap clock on the wall ticked louder than it had any right to.

3:00 p.m. came and went.

He checked his phone. Then the clock. Then his phone again.

Still nothing.

Oliver was never late. Not once. Not in even in the early months when he barely spoke. Oliver always opened the door exactly on time, offered him the same small smile, and stood aside like it was Harry’s choice to enter or not. No pressure. Just presence.

But now it was 3:04.

Harry could feel his chest tightening.

What if Oliver forgot?
What if he quit?
What if he died?

He let out a quiet, bitter laugh at himself. Jesus, calm down.

He wiped his hands on his jeans and stared at the floor. The tile had this one little crack shaped like a lightning bolt. He stared at it so hard his vision blurred.

The door finally creaked open.

“Harry,” Oliver said gently, stepping into the waiting room. “I’m so sorry—I ran late with a client. You didn’t wait too long, I hope?”

Harry shook his head automatically. “No, it’s fine.”

“Still,” Oliver said, brow furrowed. “Thank you for your patience.”

Harry stood, his legs a little unsteady, like his body had frozen in that chair and didn’t quite know how to function again. Oliver held the door for him, as always, and Harry stepped past him into the soft, familiar room with the blue walls and the big armchair he never sat in.

He went for the couch instead. Same spot. Right corner. Always.

Oliver closed the door behind them.

“Take a moment,” he said. “No rush.”

But Harry was already staring down at his hands, knuckles white.

He had something to say today. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to feel it. But it was sitting in his chest like a lead weight. And he had a feeling it wasn’t going to let him breathe until it was out.

As soon as Harry walks into Oliver’s office, he spits it out like it was burning him from the inside out: “When I was sixteen my mother’s friend from church came into my room and we had sex.”

Oliver pauses. He waits. Harry stands there shaking. “Harry, please sit.”

Harry doesn’t really sit but more falls into the chair.

“Harry,” Oliver starts gently. “Did you have sex with her or did she assult you?”

“But…I didn’t fight her, Oliver. I - I didn’t fight her.” 

“Harry, you were a child,” Oliver says gently.

“I was sixteen, I could have fought her.”

“Harry, you were a child. You never should have had to fight her off in the first place.”

“But I - what if - what if a part of me wanted it to work.” Harry whispered.

Harry waited. He waited for Oliver to say something. He kept waiting for Oliver to fill the silence so Harry didn’t have to.

“What if - a part of me wanted her to get me to fuck her. What if I wanted that Oliver? What does that tell you about me? How fucked up am I?”

“Harry, you were a child -”

“I was sixteen! I wasn’t a child!” Harry shouts.

“A sixteen year old always has been and always will be a child, Harry,” Oliver says gently, like Harry will break if his voice goes even an octave higher. 

“Fine. Fucking fine,” Harry spits out. “So I was child. That doesn’t make it better, Oliver. I wanted my mother’s best friend to touch me and get me hard so I could fuck her. I wanted that. There is something fucking wrong with me.”

“Harry did you actually want to have sex her, or did a part of you hope that if you did, the abuse would stop? That your parents would stop hurting you? That your town would stop shunning you? That someone would finally show you the love you needed?”

Harry is getting more and more agitated and picking at his nails, some of which are already bleeding. “Does it matter? I wanted it any way!”

“Harry, it DOES matter. You did not want to have sex your mother’s friend. You didn’t. You were not a willing participant. You did not consent to that. Not physically fighting an adult you’d be taught to respect is not the same as consenting. You were a scared child hoping that this would make your life easier. You were a scared child hoping this would save your life. You were trying to survive, Harry. Whether you see that or not, you were trying to survive.”

Harry didn’t have words. He was just shaking his head.

“Harry, listen to me. No, Harry, listen to me. You were a child,” Oliver says urgently. “A sixteen year old is, and always has been, a child. And Harry, you were a child who was routinely beaten for being gay; a child who was routinely told you were unlovable and broken because you were gay; a child who was harrassed by every adult in your life who should have known better but were blinded by some stupid fucking book telling them to hate you. You aren’t fucked up, Harry. You were abused. Your parents abused you. That woman abused you. That entire fucking town abused you. You had horrible, horrible things happen to you. Everyone in your life who was supposed to protect you failed you, Harry. Of course you were hopeful for something to make the pain stop, Harry. Of course you were.”

Harry starts sobbing. Through wet sobs, he gets out, “I just wanted it all to stop. I wanted to die but I was too scared to kill myself. But I just wanted it all to stop. I needed it to stop.”

“You didn’t want to have sex with her, Harry. You wanted to live. You wanted to survive. And that is admirable after everything you’d been through. To not have known love, to not have known peace, to not have known safety, but to believe it was out there and to want to live long enough to find it. Harry, that is amazing. That is incredible. You wanted to survive.”

“I didn’t want it,” Harry whispers to the floor.

“No, Harry, you didn’t want it.”

“I was just a kid.”

“Yes, Harry, you were just a kid.”

“I HAD AN ORGASM! DON’T YOU GET THAT! I CAME WHILE SHE WAS ON TOP OF ME! CLEARLY I FUCKING WANTED IT!”

Oliver stares at Harry softly for a moment. “Harry,” he begins gently, “having an orgasm is a physical response, especially for a sixteen year old boy. Just because your body had a normal, biological physical response does not mean you wanted it or enjoy it. Harry, you were assaulted. This woman raped you. It is not your fault. It was never your fault. And you aren’t dirty for having a biological response in the midst of it. Harry, you are just human and you never deserved any of this. You didn’t bring it upon yourself. None of this – none of this – was your fault.”

Harry’s throat closed. His chest caved in. And the tears came fast—hot, ugly, violent. Not the quiet kind he could blink away. Not the single tear sliding down a cheek in a sad movie.

No. This was sobbing .

This was breaking .

He curled in on himself, elbows on knees, hands over his face, like maybe if he got small enough, the shame would pass over him instead of through.

Oliver didn’t move closer. Didn’t offer tissues or platitudes. Just said, gently:

“You’re safe now, Harry. Let it out.”

And so Harry did.

For the first time ever, he let it all out. The grief, the confusion, the fear. The longing for a childhood he never had. The hatred he couldn’t shake. The ache of wanting to be loved and not knowing how to let it in when it finally showed up.

He cried like something ancient was leaving his body.

And Oliver stayed with him the whole time.

Quiet. Present. Steady.

Just there.

And maybe that was the beginning of something.

Not healing. Not yet. But maybe just a little lighter, a little cleaner.

Eventually, Harry’s breathing slowed. He wiped his eyes and looks up at Oliver. “Thank you, Oliver. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

“Harry,” Oliver starts trepidatiously. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’ve been doing this for almost six months now and I’ve talked about all the things. I don’t have anything else to talk about. That was the last bit.”

Oliver stares at Harry, clearly gobsmacked by Harry’s revelation. “That isn’t how this works, Harry. You can’t heal from a lifetime of trauma in six moths.”

“Well, yeah, I know that, I am not stupid. But you’ve given me skills and I’ve talked about it and I want to move on. I want to move on with my life and move on with Louis.”

Harry sat stiffly on the couch, arms crossed so tight across his chest they almost hurt. His jaw was clenched, eyes darting to the clock, the door, anywhere but Oliver’s face. He wasn’t expecting Oliver to want him to stay. To want to keep dealing with him. He felt like a caged animal needing to get out. He can’t possibly trust this. Oliver has to have some other motive. 

“I’m done,” he said flatly. “Six months. That’s enough. I got the ring. I’m proposing. I’m going to be happy. I’m with Louis. It’s good now. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Oliver nodded once. Calm. “It’s okay to feel ready for a break. Can I ask—what does ‘done’ mean to you?”

Harry scoffed. “Jesus, can’t you just let me say anything without analyzing it?”

Oliver paused. “You’re allowed to leave whenever you want. You know that. But it’s worth exploring—what are you hoping will happen if you stop coming?”

Harry’s lips curled, bitter. “I want to live. I want to stop being the fucking trauma project. I want to be someone who’s not always breaking down in your office every week. I want to move on.”

“I hear that,” Oliver said gently. “And it’s valid. But healing isn’t about being finished. It’s about making room for the parts of you that still hurt, so they don’t run your life from the background.”

Harry stood up suddenly. “No. No. See, that’s the shit I can’t do anymore.”

“Harry—”

“No,” Harry snapped. “What, you want to keep studying me? The fucked-up little boy who cries a lot? Is that it? I’m your favorite case study now, yeah?”

Oliver didn’t flinch. “Harry, I don’t see you that way.”

“Bullshit,” Harry hissed. “You sit there, week after week, watching me unravel. You take your little notes and give me your gentle tone like I’m some fucking zoo animal. I’m not doing it anymore.”

“Harry, I’m here to support you, not dissect you.”

“Well you’re doing a shit job then,” Harry barked. His breathing was sharp now, his eyes glassy with anger and something underneath it—panic, maybe. Or shame. “I told you I’m done. So I’m done.”

Oliver stayed seated. Still. Steady. “You’re not wrong for wanting peace. But I don’t think you’re done. I think you’re scared.”

Harry stared at him like the words had slapped him.

“I think you’re afraid that if you stay, I’ll see something in you even you don’t want to face.”

Harry’s mouth opened, then closed.

“I think you’re afraid that if you stay, you’ll have to admit that you deserve to be loved all the way through—and not just the parts you’ve polished for Louis.”

Harry’s face twisted, wounded and furious. “Fuck you, Oliver.”

He grabbed his coat off the chair, yanked it on with shaking hands. “You don’t know me.”

“I’d like to,” Oliver said quietly. “All of you. But only if you let me.”

Harry didn’t respond. He stormed out, the door slamming so hard the clock on the wall tilted.

Outside, the sky was gray and heavy. Harry didn’t stop moving. Didn’t slow down until he hit the street and shoved his fists deep into his coat pockets.

He didn’t cry.

Not yet.

But it was building in his throat, sour and hot and unrelenting.

And he hated— hated —how much of what Oliver said had already burrowed inside him.

Chapter Text

“You’re an actual menace,” Louis declared as he took in the scene before him. “Like, truly unwell.”

Harry grinned, bouncing a little on his heels. “That’s not the reaction I was hoping for.”

“You dragged me,” Louis said, pointing a dramatic finger, “out of my warm bed, in sub-zero temperatures, across town, for this.”

“This,” Harry replied, arms spread proudly, “is ice skating , Louis. Holiday cheer. Romance. You, flailing around and clutching my sleeve while children skate literal circles around you. What’s not to love?”

Louis glared, but there was no heat in it. “This is homophobic.”

Harry threw his head back with a laugh. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m delicate, Harold. My tailbone is not insured.”

“You don’t have insurance at all.”

“Exactly!”

But five minutes later, Louis had skates on his feet, a red beanie on his head, and was gripping Harry’s hand like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

“I hate this. I hate you. I hate everyone here,” Louis muttered as they stepped onto the ice.

“Say it louder,” Harry said, trying not to laugh. “I don’t think the pigeons heard you.”

“Fuck the pigeons.”

They made it around the rink once—very slowly—before Louis slipped. He didn’t fall though. Not really. He just sort of folded downward into Harry’s chest like a melodramatic house of cards.

“Down I go,” he muttered into Harry’s puffer jacket.

Harry caught him easily, hands secure at his waist. “Wow. Graceful.”

Louis tilted his head up, smirking. “You’re so lucky I’m cute.”

“I know.” Harry kissed his nose, and Louis scowled, but he didn’t pull away.

They kept skating. Well, Harry skated. Louis mostly clung to Harry and yelled at strangers who got too close.

“Watch it, future Olympian!”

“Jesus, whose kid is that? Someone get them a leash.”

“I am not paying hospital bills if I break something, Harold.”

Eventually, they gave up and shuffled off the ice, laughing and exhausted, their hands red and raw from the cold but still clasped tightly together.

Harry ran off to grab hot chocolate while Louis flopped dramatically onto a bench like he’d just finished a triathlon.

When Harry returned, he handed Louis a cocoa so covered in whipped cream and sprinkles that it looked more dessert than beverage.

Louis peered into the cup and squinted. “This… is an abomination.”

“It’s perfect,” Harry said, grinning. “I made yours with extra marshmallows. Just the way you like it.”

Louis sniffed. “You’re trying to bribe me with sugar and attention.”

“Is it working?”

“…yes.”

They sat on the bench for a while, sipping cocoa and watching the rink fill with more families and couples. The air smelled like cinnamon and snow and sweet things, and Harry let himself lean into Louis’ side, warm and full and buzzing with anticipation.

Louis turned to him, brow raised. “You’re fidgety. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Harry said quickly. “Just excited.”

“You’re a shit liar.”

“And you are about to be very blind,” Harry announced, setting both their cups on the bench and pulling something from his coat pocket.

Louis saw the familiar fabric and let out a full-body groan. “No.”

“Oh yes.”

“Harry—”

Harry gently looped the tie over Louis’ eyes and began tying it at the back of his head.

“You stole my only tie.”

“I prefer ‘borrowed with intent.’”

Louis huffed. “I swear to God, if this is a pop-up a capella group singing 'All I Want for Christmas Is You,’ I will walk into traffic.”

“Shhh, shh, I’m being romantic. Stop ruining it.”

“Harry, baby, you know I HATE surprises,” Louis whines as Harry blindfolds him.

“Mmm, yes, well, I love giving surprises and you’re going to love this, so, deal with it” Harry said with a flourish and a sparkle in his eye as he finished typing Louis’ only tie around his eyes.

“But Harry, I don’t want to get used to it! I hate winter! I hate cold! I hate surprises! Do you hate me?!” Louis’ voice becomes more and more shrill as he goes on. “No, genuinely, do you hate me!? Is this a prank?! I fucking hate all of these things, fucking !! hate !! them !!”

Harry laughed. “You’re so dramatic.”

“You love it,” Louis huffed.

“I really, really do.”

With Louis successfully blindfolded and thoroughly annoyed, Harry stood, picked up both cups, and tugged gently on Louis’ hand. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

— 

Harry chuckles because Louis looks pretty ridiculous, all flushed in anger, with a tie over his eyes, yelling at the corner of the room where Harry is not actually standing. He chuckles quietly trying not to give away his location and feels the ring box move a bit in his interior jacket pocket. His heart fills with so much love it almost burts - this boy, this infuriating, angry, funny, loving, dramatic boy, is the love of his entire life and he gets to propose to him today. 

Harry, still riding a high from the exhilaration of knowing he is proposing today, walks over and smacks Louis on the bum and grabs his shoulders to make Louis turn around, and plants a huge kiss on him. While beaming at Louis, Harry says “Let’s go. We are going to be late!” and marches a blindfolded, annoyed Louis out the door of his own apartment. 

Fifteen minutes of walking later, Harry is holding onto Louis’ shoulders in excitement as he tries to contain his energy. He just knows even with all of Louis’ complaining, he was going to love this. Harry takes a deep breath and takes Louis’ blind fold off and goes “tadaaaa!” 

Harry moves to the side and watches as Louis realizes where they are. 

“Harry,” Louis whispers like he can’t believe it. “I-I thought the Dog Den was closed during winter.”

Harry smiles smugly down at Louis with sparkles in his eyes, “It is.”

“Then how - “ Louis breathes out and Harry can see his breath freezing in the air as it becomes puffy little clouds.

Harry puts his arms around Louis’ waist and snuggles closer. He tucks his head down and kisses right behind Louis’ ear where he loves. As Louis groans in anticipation of what is coming later, Harry whispers into his ear “I know a guy.”

Harry feels Louis shiver in his arms as Louis adjusts himself. Harry presses himself against Louis harder, pressing his hard length right against Louis’ ass. 

“Not helping, H” Louis huffs.

Harry kisses Louis’ neck again, “Good, I’m not trying to.”

Harry plants gentle kisses down Louis’ neck as Louis moans and grants Harry more access to kiss down to his shoulder. As Harry hooks his finger in Louis’ jacket, he plants warm, wet kisses all the way down to Louis’ shoulder before stopping and saying “let’s go inside before you freeze to death, princess.”

Louis barks out a laugh, “Fuck you, Harry it is COLD.” 

 Just a few more minutes, and Louis would see it: the glowing windows, the string lights, the dogs.

“Yes, dear,” Harry says with a smug smile while he backs away from Louis and puts his hand on the door. “Ready, Lou?”

Not even waiting for a response, Harry pulls the door open and ushers them inside.

The way Harry was able to get this going was because a pledge worked here during the spring and summer months and he was desperate to do anything to please the ranking members of club royalty. 

Harry reaches out to shake Patrick’s hand, “Hey man, thanks for setting this up.”

Patrick shakes Harry’s hand vigorously, “Absolutely Ha -” Patrick pauses by clearing his throat and swallowing hard to steady himself. “Harry, my pleasure, obviously. Anything for the brothers. Anything for you!”

Harry smiles bashfully as his cheeks pinken a bit. Harry really is a huge softie and seeing how eager and cute the pledges are to gain acceptance always. Harry doesn’t consider his opinion worth anything, but these freshmen think he walks on water. He doesn’t understand, but he tries his best to go out of his way to be nice to them and feel welcomed. Harry joined a fraternity to feel welcome somewhere and have a family for the first time in his life, and it saved his life. He does whatever he can to support the new pledges. You can never know what someone is going through so it is always best to treat people with kindness. 

The Dog Den’s windows glowed like firelight behind them, casting cozy gold onto the untouched snow outside. Clifford had bounded out the door with wild excitement, sniffing every mound of slush like it held secrets of the universe. Harry stepped into the quiet street behind him, hand laced with Louis’, his heart thudding like a kick drum in his chest.

Louis tilted his face to the sky. “Okay. I’ll admit it,” he said slowly, dragging the words out with mock reluctance. “This? This is good.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “ This being surprise dogs and hot cocoa or the thirty-minute walk in subzero temps while blindfolded?”

Louis gave him a sharp look. “Don’t push your luck.”

—

Clifford, their brand new big fluffy black dog, was barking at a pile of snow, then launched himself into it like it had personally offended him.

Harry chuckled and dropped to his knees beside him. “You ever made a snow angel?”

Louis narrowed his eyes. “Have I ever —do I look like someone who makes snow angels?”

Harry shrugged, already collapsing backward into the snow with a soft whump . “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”

“You’re insane.”

“True,” Harry said, grinning up at the sky. “But I make good hot chocolate and I brought you to a secret dog adoption café and I love you. So you have to do what I say.”

Louis stood for a beat longer, arms crossed in the cold. Then, with a long, drawn-out sigh, he plopped down beside Harry. “If my ass freezes off, you’re buying me a new one.”

“Fair,” Harry said through a laugh.

They moved their arms and legs in sync, carving imperfect angels into the snow. Louis' form was a little shallow because he refused to commit to full-body contact with the ground, but it still counted. Clifford, not wanting to be left out, leapt between them and threw himself down in his own flailing, ecstatic version of a snow angel—more like a snow gremlin —sending white powder flying into their faces.

Louis shrieked. “Clifford! You absolute terror! ” He turned to Harry, blinking snow out of his eyelashes. “This is your son.”

Harry was laughing so hard he had to clutch his stomach. “Look at him! He’s perfect!”

“He’s a disaster, and so are you.”

Harry rolled onto his side, propping his head up on one arm. “Yeah, but I’m your disaster.”

Louis turned to face him, the corners of his mouth twitching. His cheeks were red from the cold, his hair stuck out from beneath his beanie, and snowflakes melted softly in his lashes.

Harry stared at him.

Louis looked away first.

“God,” Louis muttered. “You’re staring at me like that again.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m... everything.”

Harry blinked. “You are everything.”

Louis snorted, half-embarrassed, and dropped onto his back again. “You say shit like that and it makes me want to—fuck, I don’t even know. Punch you? Kiss you? Cry?”

“Hopefully not all at once.”

Louis didn’t respond, just lay there watching the sky darken above them. Clifford crawled over and settled into the curve of Louis’ side like he belonged there—which, Harry thought, he did. They both did.

Harry sat up slowly. His breath puffed in clouds. His fingers trembled just a little as he grabbed Louis’ hand to drag them both up.

He reached into his pocket and felt the small box.

His heart stuttered.

“Lou?”

Louis turned his head lazily toward him, the faintest smile playing at his lips. “Yeah?”

As Harry takes a knee in the cold snow and grabs Louis’ left hand, Louis stutters out, “Ha-Harry, what are you doing…”

A smile broke out over Harry’s face because he was so happy, so free, and so, so in love with this boy who was about to become his fiancé. Harry didn’t let go of Louis’ hand as he opened the ring box by flicking his wrist a certain way (he’d been practicing all week). 

Harry let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding - “Will you marry me, Louis Tomlinson?” 

Harry was kneeling on the frozen ground, and while he could feel the fresh snow seeping through his jeans, he didn’t care. He hardly feels the cold because, in the split second after Harry asks Louis to marry him, to be his better half forever and ever, Harry feels an overwhelming sense of peace wash over him and take root in his soul. 

Here he was, on one knee, ring box in hand, staring up at the boy he loves. Harry knew he had a home in Louis's heart, just like Louis had a home in his. They were never going to be alone again. It was going to be Louis and Harry against the world forever and ever.

Suddenly, in that moment, everything changed for Harry. He felt like everything he had ever gone through, every trauma, every moment of pain and suffering, every moment he wanted to end it all, was worth it to get him here. To get him down on one knee in front of the love of his life, about to get engaged. He would do it all over again, every single traumatic bit of it, if it meant ending up here with Louis. 

Back in Kansas, with nothing but cornfields and churches for neighbors, Harry never let himself imagine this moment. He never even let himself dream of getting to stare up into the eyes of the love of his life, asking him to marry him.  Harry never thought he’d get to be free - to love a man openly, proudly, and without reservations. It almost doesn’t seem real, but Harry knows Louis has always been his peace, and he knows Louis feels the same. 

Harry chuckled wettly as a tear ran down his face and he looked up at Louis waiting for that one word he needs to hear more than he needs air to breathe. 

“No.”

Harry’s whole world crashes. 

“W - what?”

“No! Do you hear me Harry?” Louis’ voice is getting higher and louder and he seems so angry. “Absolutely fucking not, Harry. Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

Harry feels like he is underwater. Harry isn’t sure if Louis is whispering or shouting. The tear marks from before when he was crying with joy freeze on his face. 

He can’t - he can’t have said - it isn’t possible, right? Louis - Louis LOVES him.

“What?”

This can’t be happening. It can’t be happening. 

It - this - no - this can’t be it, can it? 

This can’t - this can’t just be happening – Harry was so sure - he was so, so sure -

“What?”  Louis mocks shrilly. “ WHAT?! He says like he doesn’t know why I’m angry.” Louis scoffs and throws his hands up as he turns away from Harry before letting them fall and slap his thighs. 

Harry flinches at the sound. It’s the slapping sound of Louis's hands meeting his thighs that finally breaks him out of his stupor. 

Still on one knee holding the ring box up for Louis, “W-what? Louis, baby, I - I don’t understand. W- why -” he sputters, green eyes wide and wild - darting all around waiting to see if he is being punked, not understanding how Louis had so quickly turned his moment of peace into a nightmare he couldn’t even imagine. 

Louis couldn’t really be saying no, could he? 

Louis loved him, didn’t he? 

Harry’s knuckles were turning white with how hard he was gripping the little velvet ring box that he thought, up until a few moments ago, held the key to his future.

“Harry, are you fucking kidding me?!” Louis shouts at Harry with the most vitrol Harry has ever heard in someone’s voice. Harry flinches automatically and sits back on this heels.

“No, Louis, I’m not - “ Harry sputters out. 

He is so confused. Why is Louis so angry? What is going on?  How did they get here? What is even happening right now?

“We just got back together again a like six months ago! We’ve never even been consistently together this long! And you only wanted me back this time because you were worried I was going to fuck someone else!” Louis shouts again, his voice getting bigger and bigger, and Harry feels himself getting smaller and smaller.

Clearly unaware that Harry’s world is collapsing around him, Louis continues like each word wasn’t another nail in Harry’s coffin. 

“That isn’t love, Harry, that is possession, ” Louis spits out. “I’m not saying yes to this…this sham of a fucking proposal, just because you were blinded by some jealous, possessive rage you’ve convinced yourself is real love. You don’t love me -” 

Harry isn’t sure if Louis kept talking. 

Maybe he does, but Harry can’t hear anymore. He was too busy staring into Louis's blue eyes, frantically searching for some love in there, but all he could find was a cold, unyielding blue he’d never seen before. Or had that coldness been there the whole time, and Harry just never noticed? Harry was used to people looking at him in disgust after all. He was used to his parents looking right through him, used to not seeing love in people’s eyes when they looked at him. 

Had he … had he imagined all this? Was he just so used to seeing scorn and disdain in people’s eyes when they looked at him that he confused this for love? Was he wrong all this time? 

No, he couldn't be. 

He couldn’t be.

Louis loves him. He knows this. 

At least, he thought he did.

No, this, this is just a miscommunication, Harry thinks desperately as he shakes his head and tries to come to his senses. This is just a miscommunication like so many of their flights over the last three and a half years. They were going to figure it out, and they were going to be fine. They’d been doing so much better communicating over the last six months. This wasn’t going to be a big deal. They were going to be fine. Louis was going to accept his proposal, and ten years from now, they’d be married and laughing about this misunderstanding. It was going to be fine.

It has to be fine.

Right?

Still on one knee, still holding the ring box up to Louis, still not entirely sure if this was really happening or if he was trapped in a night terror, Harry searches for that love he always thought he saw in Louis's eyes. With every bit of hope Harry has left, he asks, “Are you saying this to hurt me? Or are you saying this because you believe it is true?” Harry whispers, terrified to know the answer. 

As the frigid wind blows around him, Louis pauses, seeming to understand the gravity of what Harry is asking. 

Harry watches as Louis looks down to avoid eye contact. Louis shuffles one of his feet and lightly kicks the snow around with his boots. 

Louis had always hated the cold. Harry knew this. For a man who grew up in Wisconsin, Louis had never gotten used to the cold, and it always made him so grumpy. But Louis was so damn cute when he was grumpy and cold. Harry knew it was a bit of a risk proposing in the winter and in the snow no less, but he was hopeful that it would give the Wisconsin native more positive associations with the cold and give the future Styles? Tomlinsons? Yeah, future Tomlinsons, something to joke about. 

Harry knew that Louis loved to poke fun at him and pretend he was angry, when in reality the smaller boy just loved to be dramatic. Harry was so looking forward to getting to listen to Louis dramatically complain about how Harry proposed in the middle of winter in the snow. Since he had decided to propose this way, Harry would often get lost in daydreams of Louis dramatically retelling the story to anyone who would listen. Harry would imagine the sparkle in his husband’s eyes and the grand gestures of his arms as he told anyone and everyone how much he hates the cold. 

But suddenly, not with a bang, but with a whimper, Louis ends Harry’s life as he knows.

Without even making eye contact, Louis whispers, “I really believe that.”

Time stood still. 

Harry wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t sure he was still even alive. 

Eventually, after seconds or hours or days or years, Louis met Harry’s eyes.

But this time, when blue eyes met green, there was no peace, no feeling of the two puzzle pieces sliding together gracefully. There is just emptiness, a harrowing shallowness where there used to be love as deep and life-giving as fresh water. 

“You don’t really love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how.”

Chapter Text

Harry stares at the ceiling of his single room in the frat house he’s called home for the last three years. He traces the cracks and water damage that crawls across his ceiling out of habit. He used to lie in the corn fields back home, staring at the clouds and making shapes and pictures. As he imagines his life somewhere far away with a boy he loves without reservation, Harry stares at his ceiling, thinking about nothing but Lou. He feels the bed dip as whoever it is sits back down. Harry almost forgot he was there; he certainly doesn’t remember his name. Harry had never been one to fuck around when he and Louis were on a break, but this was different. They weren’t on a break; they were broken. 

It had been one month since that day. That isn’t the most prolonged time Harry has ever gone without Louis, but it didn’t feel real. Time didn’t seem to pass the same way in this new reality Harry constructed of nothing but classes, job applications, and faceless and nameless men he fucked when he was so numb he just needed to feel something. 

Without meaning to, Harry thinks back to that day Louis upended his whole world. Harry will always remember what transpired that day. Harry was so deeply in love and sure that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Louis. Louis was his first love, his first true fuck, his first everything. That blue-eyed boy had helped Harry discover himself and feel worthy. That he was deserving of the space he took up in this world. That he had value. He was good for something other than a place for other people to pin their hopes, dreams, and disappointments on. Harry doesn’t remember the cold as it nipped at him. He doesn’t remember his tears freezing as they fell down his face. He does remember the weight of the ring box in his hand as he carried it home. He does remember Louis banging the final nail in the coffin of their relationship when he said, “You don’t really love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how to.” That he’ll never forget. That is burned into his mind for the rest of his life. 

Whatever that life looked like, whatever Harry’s future was going to hold, he knew Louis would be a part of it. He knew it in his bones. He had expected a life married to Louis. Being the Tomlinsons and adopting many kids, dogs, cows, and horses. A life filled with joy and laughter and great sex and getting to proudly wrap his arm around his husband’s waist and say, “This is my husband, Louis,” with a blinding smile. Lou had always blushed and looked as happy as a cat who caught the canary when Harry introduced him as his boyfriend. Louis, his loud, brash, confident, larger-than-life boy, reduced to a blushing mess whenever Harry proudly introduced him as his boyfriend. Harry’s heart ached with that lost future. It felt like a phantom limb. He knew that the future was gone, but he felt the pain of its loss every moment of the day. It ached, it weighed him down, it haunted him. Harry always knew his future included Louis; he just never imagined it would be a future of constantly replaying Louis’ last words to him, the words that broke his heart over and over again: “You don’t really love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how to.” That’s not the future Harry expected, but it’s the one he always knew he deserved. 

“Can I have this?” 

Harry shook himself out of his memory to look at the guy sitting on his bed. Jim? James? Jeremey? Whatever. It didn’t matter. He was dressed again, clearly not interested in pretending this was anything more than it was. Harry is still lying in bed with his hands behind his head, naked except for a sheet covering his lower half. Most of his tattoos are on full display. They no longer tell the story of Louis and Harry’s love and growth together; instead, they tell the story of Harry’s demise and his failure as a man for the whole world to see.

Harry tilted his head towards the voice. “Hmm?” 

The boy holds up the ring box and shakes it to show Harry what he’s talking about. “Can I have this?” he states again, so calmly and casually. 

Harry locks their eyes on the black velvet ring box; he remembers everything it means. How light he felt when he bought it that he almost skipped out of the store. How heavy it felt in his hand, grounding him, as he pulled it out to ask the love of his life to be his husband. All he feels now is empty. That box that housed his hopes and dreams means nothing to him now. 

“- And I just saw it in the medicine cabinet when I was poking around looking for something to moisturize with after I showered; you have some awe-inspiring skin care products, by the way, which shocked me. You didn’t seem like skin care gay, but whatever. But I saw this, and it was dusty, and I opened it, and it clearly is too small for you -” 

Harry would chuckle to himself if that was a thing he still did. He doesn’t even remember the last time he laughed, but he does remember the last time he opened the medicine cabinet. Since that day, he came home and shoved the ring box in there; he never opened it. Louis was the “skin care gay,” as he had said, and Harry couldn’t bring himself to throw any of it away or open the cabinet and be faced with his absence. Initially, Harry had hoped - or dared to - that his boy would return and get it. That stuff was expensive, after all. He always lovingly mocked Lou about how much he spent on skin care nonsense, but he could never deny that it gave Louis skin like an angel. Harry could never get enough of stroking the more petite boys’ skin. It was soft like silk. 

“- and like I said, it’s clearly too small for you. Did someone forget it here or something? It’s wonderful, and if you don’t have any attachments to it, I’ll take it. It fits me perfectly, and the blue and green gemstones will match the outfit I have for my brother’s wedding in July -” 

A summer wedding. Harry had wanted a summer wedding with Louis. He tried to take his boy back to Kansas and marry him outside in the brilliant sun on a hot, clear day. Nothing compares to a clear blue sky in the summer sun in Lebanon, Kansas. Harry had never been able to bring Louis back to where he grew up. Kansas had shaped and molded him, not permanently, but in important ways. Still, Louis had become his home, his peace - wherever Louis was was where he imagined his future. So Harry wanted to return one last time to the place that made him marry his better half under a summer sky, the color of his lover's eyes, and never return. But that doesn’t matter anymore - he has many skincare products, a dusty ring box, and a memory - “You don’t really love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how to.” 

“...and I mean the inscription seems kinda sappy ‘Already Home’ like what the fuck does that mean? It seems oddly sentimental, so it seems weird that someone left it behind, but I guess one man’s loss is another man’s treasure. So? Can I have it? Harry?” 

“Huh? What? Oh, yeah, whatever. It doesn’t matter to me.” 

It did matter. It mattered so much, his heart screaming at him. 

But it doesn’t matter. His heart - or what was left of it - was locked away. Harry wouldn’t make the mistake of being guided by it again. The stupid, silly, broken thing just like him. It was rattling its cage right now, screaming and begging Harry not to give away this ring box like it was nothing. Harry didn’t listen. He wanted to carelessly discard the ring like Lou had discarded him. 

“Thanks, Harry!” What’s-his-name said cheerily. He reached down and kissed Harry, who quickly turned, so the guy kissed his cheek. Harry didn’t like to kiss people unless he was drunk. Sex he could pretend was just a bodily need. Just an urge, an itch to scratch. It didn’t have to mean anything. It didn’t have to have stupid feelings in it. But kissing, kissing felt too intimate. So he never kissed anyone unless he was too drunk to remember it the next day. 

As the boy swiftly kissed Harry on the cheek and got up to bound away back to his life, Harry caught a whiff of Louis, and his stomach immediately cramped. A whiff of his ex-lover's old lotion was enough to turn his insides into snakes, slithering inside his otherwise empty vessel. As the random fuck grabbed his jacket and phone off of the desk, Harry didn’t move. His whole world was reduced to staring at the crack above his head and the tear running silently down his cheek. 

“See you around, Harry!” The boy called as he walked out of Harry’s rohem knowing they would not see each other around. They both knew what this was. 

The door slammed behind him, and Harry was now alone with his thoughts again. He opens the floodgates a bit, as he does sometimes. He just lets the hurt flow through him and tries to remember what it’s like to feel something other than pain or nothing.

“You don’t really love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how to.” 

It had been Harry’s 22nd birthday. 

Chapter Text

“It isn’t that big of a deal,” Zayn said casually to Niall.

Liam nearly broke his neck whipping around. “Z, I KNOW you did NOT just say getting offered a job as a photographer at VOGUE in NEW YORK CITY isn’t that big of a deal.”

Louis almost laughed. Liam looked scandalized, as if Zayn had personally insulted the concept of ambition. Niall edged away, grinning, already bracing for what always came next: Zayn’s humility, Liam’s outrage, and the inevitable physical affection that followed. Louis had seen it a hundred times. Zayn would downplay, Liam would tackle, and everyone else would watch chaos unfold.

Zayn sighed. “Liam, I’m just going to be a photographer’s assistant. It’s not—”

THUD.

Liam tackled him before he could finish, hand clamped over Zayn’s mouth. “I KNOW you’re not about to call yourself a diversity hire. You’re TALENTED. SMART. CAPABLE. INCREDIBLE. Vogue hired you because you have VISION.”

Liam’s voice boomed across the quad, but he didn’t care. He adored Zayn. He always had. From the moment they met at freshman orientation—while Harry and Louis had wandered off to argue and inevitably hook up—those two had been inseparable. They’d survived distance, family pressure, everything. Nothing had shaken them.

The warm spring air swirled around them as Zayn mumbled into Liam’s hand, half protesting, half laughing. It should’ve been one of those bright, golden moments Louis loved—sunlight, laughter, friendship—but he couldn’t feel any of it. His smile was mechanical, his chest hollow. This was supposed to be joy, but it just rang empty.

He told himself to play his part—the loud, charming, funny one. The Louis everyone loved. The one who didn’t make things heavy. He dropped his hand to the grass, ready to grab a tuft and join Niall in heckling Liam and Zayn, but his body wouldn’t move. His fingers curled uselessly into the dirt.

Be fun, he ordered himself. Be someone worth keeping.

But the feeling didn’t come. It hadn’t in thirty-nine days.

Thirty-nine days since the world had color.
Thirty-nine days since he’d felt alive.
Thirty-nine days since Harry.

They had always been chaos together—fire and flood, unstoppable and destructive. Louis had convinced himself it was mercy to end it. Harry didn’t love him, not really. Harry loved what Louis represented, not who he was. The idea of Louis. The spark that had made him brave enough to say the word love out loud, but not to mean it. That’s what Louis told himself.
Until that night in the snow.

Until Harry knelt before him, ring trembling in his hand, eyes open and raw.

And Louis had destroyed him.

“You don’t love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how.”

He’d watched the light die in Harry’s eyes as the walls slammed back up—walls Louis had spent years breaking down. From their first kiss in the orientation bathroom to the night Harry finally said I love you, Louis had chipped away at them. And with one sentence, he’d rebuilt them stronger than ever.
Harry had always been light—steady, anchoring, good. Louis had been terrified of ruining that goodness. He’d told himself he was protecting Harry by keeping his distance. But all he’d done was extinguish the very light he’d fallen in love with.

A voice snapped through his thoughts.

“Hey everyone!”

He blinked up. Ella was there, waving cheerfully, a stranger trailing behind her. Louis barely noticed the man’s face. What caught his eye was the glint of gold on his hand.
It was just a flash at first. Harmless. Rings weren’t unusual. But something in Louis’ chest constricted, sharp and wrong. The man laughed, his hand shifting again—and the sunlight hit it just right.

Louis froze.

The shape. The colors. The faint scratch along the band.

No.

No, it couldn’t be.

His pulse hammered in his ears as the air thinned. He knew that ring. Knew the weight of it in his hand, the way it gleamed in the snow. Harry’s hands shaking. The velvet box. The words he’d never let him finish.

It was the ring.

Harry’s ring.

The one meant for him.

His chest went tight enough to ache, breath shallow and uneven. He didn’t even feel himself speak before the words ripped out of him.

“Where the fuck did you get that ring?”

The man blinked. “Wh—what?”

“That. Ring.” Each word landed like a blow. “Where the fuck did you get it?”

The stranger looked down, smiling faintly. “Oh, this? I was hooking up with this guy this morning—Harry Styles, I think? Found it in his bathroom. Matches my outfit for my sister’s wedding, so I asked if I could have it. He said sure. Didn’t look like it had been touched in a while.”

By the time he said Harry’s name, Louis was already standing. Then walking. Then running.

He left his backpack in the grass. The sound of his friends calling after him—if they did—never reached him. The world had narrowed to a tunnel, his body moving on instinct. His shoes pounded against the path, lungs burning as he tore through the campus. His heart hammered so violently he could barely breathe.

Harry’s name echoed in his skull with every step.

Harry. Harry. Harry.

He didn’t stop, didn’t slow, didn’t care who stared. The ache in his chest was sharp, urgent, alive. By the time the frat house came into view, sweat clung to his back, his pulse roaring in his ears.
Because the ring wasn’t where it should be.

And neither was Harry.

--

BANG BANG BANG

Harry slaps his leather-bound journal shut and jumps a mile high when he hears someone banging on his door. Shit. He hangs his head - he knows that banging. The only person who ever banged on his door like that was -

BANG BANG BANG

“HARRY FUCKING STYLES YOU LET ME IN RIGHT NOW YOU BASTARD”

BANG BANG BANG

…Lou. He was the only one who ever announced himself like that. Always a flare for the dramatic, that one.

Harry scrambled to shove his journal into his desk drawer. He doesn’t need his ex to know he started journaling. Harry didn’t need to give him any more ammo to get through the shield Harry had built in the last two months to try and protect what was left of him.

Harry gets up to go open the door, ready to face a surely red faced and furious - but persistently beautiful - Louis Tomlinson. Hand on the cold metal door knob, Harry squints his eyes to hold back the tears he can already feel brewing and takes a deep breath. He hadn’t even seen Louis in two months. In fact, he had gone out of his way to avoid him at all costs. Harry wasn’t sure he was going to survive this.

BANG BANG BANG HARRY -

At that, Harry twists the doorknob and opens the door.

“Fuck you, Harry,” Louis spits at him, full of venom and malice.

Harry smirks and leans against the door frame. He casually reaches up and steadies himself with one arm on the top of the frame and leans forward slightly. He knows how this particular pose has always made Lou weak in the knees. Based on the cool breeze Harry felt on his stomach, he knew he had revealed just enough of his fern tattoos to - ope, yup there it was, there was the tell-tale blush creeping across Lou’s cheekbones. Harry watched Lou’s eyes flick down and notice the ferns; the ferns that Lou probably has memorized for all the times he had licked, sucked, and came on them. Mission accomplished.

“Hi Lou, nice to see you, you look well. I’m doing great, thanks for asking. Can I help you with something?” Harry says casually, a small smile on his face not reaching his eyes. He knows the calm, cool, collected affect riles Louis up like nothing else when he was already angry. If Louis was angry, everyone around him has to be angry. So when Harry didn’t let him get under his skin, it would infuriate the boy.

“UGH, why are you fucking like this! You know exactly why I’m fucking here!” Lou shouts in frustration and pushes through Harry into his room. Harry stumbled back a bit but recovers quickly.

Oh this is going to be fun, Harry thinks sarcastically.

“My heart’s already broken, baby, go on, twist the knife,” Harry mutters under his breath as Lou sweeps by him in a fury into his room. A room that houses so many memories of love and sex and passion and joy. It does hold its fair share of bad moments as well. No one ever said Harry and Louis couldn’t be toxic as fuck to each other sometimes. But underneath all that always ran a strong current of love and understanding, or so Harry thought. As they grew and changed and fought and fucked, Harry always saw them growing better together. Harry thought he was growing and maturing; thought he was learning how to love his boy better every single day.

Harry swings the door shut carelessly behind him. Bracing himself to turn around and be yelled at. He hasn’t even laid eyes on Lou in two months. He has carefully planned his life to avoid this boy. Avoid his piercing blue eyes and soft fringe. Every day that passed without seeing Lou had allowed the vast emptiness to swallow him whole and suffocate the parts of him that love Louis.

“See, I was right, you fucking bastard! You don’t really love me, Harry. You never knew how. You don’t know how to love anyone but yourself you fucking prick.” Louis shouted this at Harry like it was nothing. Like Harry wasn’t instantly thrown back to that cold February night in the snow. Like Harry’s breath didn’t get caught in his throat as he tried to ground himself to remind himself that he was here in his dorm room. That it was April, not February. That he was standing on two feet, not kneeling in the snow handing Lou exactly what he needed to ruin him.

For all the times Harry had played those same words over and over again in his head for the last two months, he didn’t think it would hurt so fucking much to hear Louis say it again. He’d been using Louis' words to beat himself into a state of being cold and numb. He had thought if he made those words his internal mantra, he could slowly kill off all of the parts of him that still felt something. That still loved. If he could kill those parts of himself, he thought, he could move forward. He could be safe. He could turn the words that killed him into his shield to protect himself.

But Harry was wrong. He was oh, so very fucking wrong. Hearing Louis say those words to him again hurt so, so much more the second time. Because there was apparently still a part of Harry, a stupid, hopeless, love-sick part, that was telling him Lou didn’t mean it. That he just said it in the heat of the moment. But the second time - the second time - he must mean it. Those words infiltrate his entire being slowly and quickly all at once. It both pierces his heart and rolls over him and engulfs him like the wind plains winds in Kansas in the spring. Because once can be an accident, twice is intentional. Once can be something stupid you say to someone because you’re hurting and you know it will hurt back. Twice, well, twice means it’s true.

Harry stands there, not needing to work hard to maintain his composure, because well, it isn’t that hard to hide how you feel when your heart is breaking all over again when you were so sure you were safe from this feeling. When you were so sure you had killed the part of yourself that felt. He is so fucking angry at himself. He can’t even stop loving a boy who clearly hates him.

Harry forces himself to scoff and respond with levity. “Louis, what could I have possibly done to earn this honor of your presence? We haven’t seen or spoken to each other in three months, so I’m not sure what horrible thing I could have done to be blessed with such a visit -” SMACK

Harry freezes and grabs his jaw as the stinging feeling spreads across his cheek. As the ringing in his ear starts, he realizes what just happened – Louis had just slapped him. In all of their time together, all of their fights, they had never gotten physical. They had never put their hands on each other in any way but loving.

Harry was almost grateful in this moment that Louis slapped him. He was used to this stinging feeling. He was used to making people so angry they lashed out and hurt him. Harry had always wondered why Louis had never hit him. Harry had pushed him and pushed him to try and get Louis to hurt him when he was angry. It might be fucked up, but it was what he knew. He only knew love with pain.

One time, back in freshman year, Harry had lost it and was just screaming at Louis, “God damn it just HIT me! I know you want to. It will make you feel better and then this will be over and we can just move on. Just fucking HIT me, Louis, God damn it!” Harry would never forget that look of pain in Louis’ eyes when he realized just how fucked up Harry was. Back then, Louis had gently approached him with nothing but love and a twinge of sadness in his blue eyes. Louis slowly had walked towards Harry like he was a scared animal who was going to bolt at any second. Honestly, he probably wasn’t wrong.

That time, Louis had sat with Harry for hours and listened to Harry spill his guts about the physical abuse he’d experienced at the hands of his mother and father. Harry had cried and cried and cried until everything hurt and Louis had sat there, rubbing his back to ground him until Harry just fell asleep in Louis’ lap.

Louis may not know this, but at one point, Harry had woken up to the sound of Louis sniffling. Lou was still running his hands through Harry’s curls gently so as not to wake him, but with a sense of fanaticism that made it clear that Louis was worried if he stopped touching Harry, he’d lose him somehow. Harry could hear Jay on the other end of the line, probably whispering something sweet and motherly to calm Louis down.

Before the deep but restless sleep of dissociation got its claws into him and dragged him back down, Harry remembers Louis whispering, “Mom, he’s just so broken and I didn’t know. I didn’t know and I don’t know what to do. Mom, I love him so much, but I don’t know what to do.” That had been the first time Louis had ever said he loved him. Harry will never forget it, but he also won’t forget that feeling of guilt that settled deep into his soul for dragging Louis into his tangled web of bullshit. Harry was broken beyond repair and Louis was, well, everything. Louis was a beautiful and pure soul with a wonderful family, and Harry had dragged him down into the depths of hell right along with him. That was all he was ever good for - ruining the lives of the good people around him that he tricked into thinking he was worth loving.

Harry shook his head to clear the memory and drops his hand from his face. Cheek still smarting and ear still ringing, Harry makes eye contact with Louis. Harry isn’t sure what he expects to see, but guilt isn’t one of them. Why would Louis feel bad? Harry had always told him they’d end up here. Harry had always known. And he tried to tell Louis that so many times. Louis didn’t need to feel bad, hurting Harry was inevitable, he knew that.

“Harry, I am so -” Louis rushes to get the words out.

Harry takes a step back, terrified that Louis’ll still come closer to him, not because he’s worried Louis will hit him again, but because he’s worried Louis will try and hug him and that would just be too much right now. He’s good at acting strong, but that would ruin him right now. “Stop, Louis, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

I don’t matter. Louis doesn’t need to apologize because I. Don’t. Matter. How many times do I need to tell him?

“No, Harry, I am so, so sorry. I don’t even know what came over me, I -”

Harry harshly cuts across him - “It’s fine, Louis, I told you we’d end up here someday. This is what I do - I push people too far and they lash out. Happened with my parents, and I told you it is what would happen with you. It isn’t your fault, but you lasted longer than I thought you would, kudos to you.”

“H -”

“Don’t call me that,” Harry spits out and turns around to gather himself together. “Don’t fucking call me that, you don’t have the right anymore,” he mumbles not even sure if Louis hears him.

“Oh I don’t have the right to call you H but you have the right to give away my engagement ring. Right, that fucking tracks, how dare I.” Louis throws his hands up in the air, barks out a hysterical laugh to punctuate that sentence, and Harry whips around.

“I’m sorry, you lost the right to call it your engagement ring or give a shit what I do with it when you said fucking no when I asked you to be my husband on my fucking birthday. You didn’t want the fucking ring so you don’t get to decide what I fucking do with it,” Harry shouts.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Harry?” Louis says back, almost as a whimper.

Harry stills for just a moment and his eyes dart all around trying to make sense of what’s going on. Why does Louis look so small? Why does he look so defeated? Why does he look so sad? He was the one who said no. “What the fuck are you on about?”

“Do you think I wanted to say no? Seriously? Fucking hell, I thought you were smarter than that for fucks sake.” And with that, Louis surges forward and kisses him full on the mouth.

—

Louis and Harry fell into bed together quickly and efficiently after that. They knew each other’s bodies better than their own and they were quickly naked, prepped, and fucking.

Louis had always looked so beautiful splayed out on his back, split open on Harry’s cock. For all of his posturing and pretending Lou was a strong independent man, he had always been dick whipped for Harry. Since the very first moment they had met and freshman-Louis had fallen to his knees in front of Harry’s cock and begged to be skull-fucked on those dirty bathroom tiles under the buzzing fluorescent lights, Lou would do anything for Harry’s cock.

Harry looked down, watching his cock slide in and out of Lou’s wet puckered hole. He wasn’t used to seeing a condom separating them. They had never used them in their time together, because for all of their anger, and all of their on-and-off time, they had always remained loyal to each other. They had never fooled around with anyone else. Harry had always been able to cum in Lou and feel his wet heat around him without anything separating them.

As Harry tilts his hips up to hit Louis’ prostate head on just like he always begged for, Harry remembers when Lou’s hole was the only one he’d ever known. For almost four years, Harry had never even wanted to fuck anyone else. To be honest, he still doesn’t. Everyone he has fucked since that night has meant nothing to him. He thought it would feel good. He thought it would prove to him that he didn’t need Lou. That he just thought he loved Lou so much because the delicate boy wonder had taken all of his firsts. It hadn’t worked. None of those faceless, nameless boys had meant anything to him. Sometimes Harry almost feels bad for how little he cared about any of them, but they knew what they were getting. A thick cock to fuck them to orgasm. Nothing else. Harry rarely even finished himself. Not that they noticed, and not that he cared. To a casual observer, it looked like Harry was trying to fuck his way through all of the bottoms at UW.

No one thought twice about this - Harry was a frat guy, everyone had always been shocked that he’d been so deeply in love and loyal to the loud theater major. Harry fucking every bottom he could find was more acceptable behavior for his “brand.” For once, those expectations foisted on him by others were playing to his advantage. Boys would come back to his room and beg for him to fuck them without caring that Harry wouldn’t kiss them and didn’t know their names. In the end, they always left satisfied while Harry stayed behind, trying to not let the silence and smell of bad sex suffocate him.

In this moment, intimately connected to the only person he had ever loved, Harry knew for sure in this moment that he loved Louis for who he was, not because he was all of Harry’s firsts. That was a lie he was telling himself to hold it together. It didn’t matter if he was with just Louis or with 100 men, Louis would always, always be it for him. Louis was the unequivocal love of his life. Fucking him felt like coming home.

Lou’s breathing was speeding up and the flush of his face had started to spread up across his chest and neck, a sure sign that he was nearing his release. Harry could read Lou like a book. He had spent the last three and a half years learning every inch of this body and what makes it tick. Harry knew exactly how to tilt his hips and run his fingers over certain places to elicit the most beautiful noises from the smaller man.

Louis hadn’t been vocal when they first started fucking, too concerned with seeming manly to overcompensate for his slight and delicate build. Harry had spent years making his lover feel confident in how he looks and what he wants. Harry and Louis spent all those years together learning the roadmap of each other’s bodies. Harry felt pretty confident he could predict Lou’s orgasm better than his own, and with three more thrusts and one tug on his hard prick, Lou would convulse around Harry and cry out in pleasure.

One, two, three, twist and Louis was coming hard, crying out “Daddy!” for the first, and only, time tonight. His rock-solid cock twitching as he cums all over his stomach; his cumshot reaching all the way up to his “It Is What It Is” chest tattoo that Harry has countless memories of tracing smoothly with his fingers and tongue. Based on that amount of cum, how fucking desperate Lou had been for his cock immediately, and how much prep Louis had needed before Harry could fuck him without actually hurting him, Lou hadn’t let anyone else fuck him. Well, that makes two of them. Harry would never let anyone else fuck him. There was no one he would trust ever again to have him in that way. Harry hated to admit it, but he needed something to just be his and Louis’ forever.

Harry slowly fucked the sweaty, spent boy through his orgasm. As Lou’s breathing slowed, and he came down from his high, Harry leaned down to kiss him as his thrust started a steady rhythm again. Now that Louis had reached his peak and come down enough to not feel overstimulated by Harry continuing to fuck him, Harry was ready to chase his release.

“I love you so much, baby,” Harry whispered into his lover’s mouth. “I’ll get you another ring, I promise.” Harry was trying to pour his love and his heart into this kiss so that Louis knew exactly how much he loved him and how happy he was that he was home, but Louis stilled.

Harry quickly pulled back, “Baby, what’s wrong, does it hurt. Do you want me to stop?” Harry leaned back more and searched his face for any type of evidence of his discomfort, frantic in his attempts to make sure he didn’t hurt his baby.

“Harry,” Louis whispered and looked away. “I still can’t marry you.”

“What…”

Harry was still hard as a rock, buried inside his boy, but suddenly had no desire to cum. Sex with Louis, even when they were fighting, even when they are hate-fucking, had always been intimate. Their fucking, love-making, and hate-fucking were all connected by a strong undercurrent of love and intimacy and he had thought this time was the same. He had thought this was just part of them, part of their cycle. Fight, break up, fuck, get back together. Louis had said he didn’t want to say no to Harry’s proposal. He’d kissed him, didn’t that mean he wanted to get back together? That he wanted to say yes?

“Harry, I can’t marry you. I told you that. I told you why. You didn’t think that this would change that right?”

You don’t really love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how to.

For the first time, after sex with the only boy he had ever loved, who ever loved him, Harry felt unloved and used. Which he knows is stupid because every single boy he has fucked in the last two months was using him and he was using them right back. But now, with his almost-fiance-now-ex-boyfriend lying in a sweaty, cum-covered mess in his bed, Harry feels used. Harry slowly pulls out of the boy under him and turns away to clean up. He feels sick to his stomach - nausea rolling over him in waves.

“Where are you going? I know you didn’t cum. Just because we aren’t going to get back together doesn’t mean we can’t fuck, Harry. We were always great at that after all.” Louis shrugs and chuckles a bit.

Harry ignores him and turns around the rest of the way to peel the condom off his dick. As he drops it in the trash he reaches for paper towels on his desk to clean the lube off his fingers and his cock before he crumples them up and throws them in the trash can with the condom.

Lou had initiated sex for one thing and one thing only - to get his rocks off. That had happened, and they were done now. Harry was done now. He needed Lou to get up and leave like every other guy he’d fucked in the last two months.

Harry could hear rustling behind him on the bed and hear Lou’s breath pick back up.

“Daddy, come back and cum all over me. I want you to cum on my face and remind me that I’m yours. Mark me, daddy. Mark me with your cum. Please, I need it, Daddy.” Lou’s voice was getting higher and whinier. Harry turned and saw Lou’s cock hardening against his stomach as he lightly ran his own fingers through his cum and around his nipples.

Louis was always such a cum slut. Always wanted his “daddy” to give him his cum. Well, Harry wasn’t Louis’ daddy anymore. And he wasn’t affected by the scene in front of him. He just wanted Lou to get up and leave so he could be alone and cry in peace. Harry didn’t have much pride, Lou made sure of that, but he had enough pride to not want to cry in front of the man who taught him how to love, who he loved so deeply and so fiercely that it left an ache in his soul, and who then told him he he had never learned how to love at all.

Harry’s eyes flicked up to Lou’s, so blown out with arousal that they were barely blue anymore. Harry held his gaze. He wanted to see that this hurt his soulmate. “I’m not your daddy anymore,” Harry grits out. “You are nothing to me. You got what you came here for. Now get out.”

Harry watched the pain of those statements wash over Lou in stages before Harry could see those words settle in Lou’s soul and take hold. Harry could almost see the moment those words wrapped themselves around Lou’s heart and gripped so tightly he wasn’t sure Lou was breathing. Yes, Harry recognizes that particular pain in Lou’s eyes because Harry hasn’t been able to stop seeing it in his own since Lou broke him. Harry felt a twinge of pain and guilt, before reminding himself that Lou broke him first.

“You don’t really love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how to.”

Harry knew how much it would hurt Lou for him to hear that Harry wasn’t his daddy anymore. That was the last kink of Lou’s that Harry discovered. While he wasn’t surprised, it was a closely guarded secret Louis held on to until the last possible moment when it slipped out the first time he and Harry had ever truly made love. Louis was so concerned about what Harry would think that he burst into tears. Harry had soothed the emotional boy with slow thrusts of his hips and forehead kisses and light caresses. Harry kissed him and whispered sweet nothings to his lover below him. Harry promised to take care of Louis, promised to be a good daddy to him forever. Promised he would always be Harry’s good boy, his baby. Harry told him that he loved him for the first time in that moment.

As he had whispered to Lou, he had let slip his own closely guarded secret - “I love you so much, Louis. Daddy loves you so much, baby, you are the love of my life. My one and only. I love you. I will always love you, you will always be my baby boy” Harry had said in hushed tones, his own eyes wet with tears.

And he stands by that. But that is for him to know. That is a secret Harry will always take with him. Louis doesn’t get to know that about him anymore. He doesn’t get to have it, especially since he wouldn’t believe it anyway.

“You don’t really love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how to.”

If that is how Lou felt, well, he knew Harry best so it must be true. And if that’s what he thought of Harry, that’s what he’ll get from Harry. If Harry hadn’t spent so much of his life trying to prove people that their low expectations of him were wrong, he’d be a whole hell of a lot freer.

“Harry, wait…” Louis rushed out. It sounded painful. Sounded like the words were being ripped right out of Louis’ chest against his will.

“Damn it, Louis. I forgot what a fucking cumslut you are.” Harry rolls his eyes as he storms back over to the bed. He spits on Louis’ chest and then reaches two fingers forward to mix his spit together with Louis’ cum on his chest.

Harry lifts his two fingers off Louis’ chest, sure that his better half wasn’t even breathing even though his mouth had popped open in shock. Harry took advantage of that and shoved his two fingers covered in cum and spit into his ex’s open mouth. Louis’ mouth closed around Harry’s fingers in an instant, almost like muscle memory and started to swirl his tongue around Harry’s digits. This was a move that would normally be enough to make Harry’s cock twitch and harden even if he had just cum. But not this time, as he looked down at the boy he still loved so much whose eyes were closed in bliss as he licked and sucked his own cum and Harry’s spit off his fingers.

Harry ripped his fingers out of Lou’s mouth with a wet pop. Louis’ eyes flew open, and when blue eyes met green, Harry did everything he could to keep the love he still felt in every fiber of his being locked away for just a few seconds so that Louis couldn’t see the love and hurt and pain written all over his face. He would lock Louis out of his feelings if it killed him.

“I mean it, Lou. Get the fuck out. Get up, get dressed, and take your fucking daddy issues with you when you go. Boohoo, your daddy never loved you. Wahhh.” Harry mocked mercilessly. “Well, you said I never did either. Remember that, Lou? When I bared my soul to you and asked you to marry me? To be my husband? To be my family? Do you remember what you said, Lou? Do you?!” Harry shouts hysterically. He wasn’t sure when he started crying, but then again, he isn’t sure of much anymore.

Louis was leaning on his elbows in Harry’s bed now. Tears falling silently down his own face as he looked at Harry in horror. Harry is sure he looked ridiculous. Naked as the day he was born, cock still hard, tears running down his face, eyes wide and wild and red rimmed from crying.

“Har-” Louis started to whisper. Harry’s not sure what he was hoping to accomplish. Harry pressed on, undeterred by the pain he could see in his lover’s eyes.

“You said “You don’t really love me, Harry. I’m not sure you even know how to.” Do you remember that Lou, do you? I remember. I’ll never forget. You know why? Because I hear you on repeat in my head every single moment of the day. Not a single moment fucking passes without hearing that in my god damn head. I’ll never forget that moment.”

Harry takes a breath. He’s revealing too much; letting Lou see how much he broke him. He doesn’t have to worry about Lou finding out Harry still loves him because Lou never believed he did in the first place, right? Thank goodness for small favors as the church ladies always used to say.

Harry sets his jaw and makes a choice. He can’t bring himself to look at Lou for the next part or he’ll never get it out. It goes against his nature to hurt Lou, to really take the thing he knows about this beautiful boy who hides his pain in the dark shadows no one knows about and throw them back in his face to hurt him. All those years of fighting, all those times of breaking-up and getting back together, Harry never truly tried to hurt Lou. Well, there is a first time for everything, he guesses. Lou has all his other firsts, he might as well have this one.

Harry takes a deep, stuttering breath before this next part. “I guess it really is true that you fall for your father. Your father never loved you, and according to you, I didn’t either.” Harry rushes to get the words out, worried if he didn’t rush through it they would get caught in his throat and suffocate him.

Harry flicks his eyes up and makes eye contact with Lou and instantly realizes that choking on those words would have been the better option. The hurt in Lou’s eyes, the true anguish, is something Harry had seen time and time again, but had never been the one to cause it.

Well, there goes Lou taking another first of Harry’s: this is the first time Harry really, truly wishes that he was dead, because now in addition to hearing Lou’s words on repeat in his brain, he will have the look of heart break and anguish in Lou’s crystal clear blue eyes burned into his brain for all of eternity. Harry is sure that ripping out his still beating heart and stomping on it would hurt less than committing that pain to his memory, but he can’t look away. He deserves to suffer. He deserves to die a painful death across every universe in every solar system for what he’s done.

Harry isn’t sure how much time passes while he watches Lou build walls around his heart. Brick by brick, Harry watches the love of his life pack away his vulnerability.

Eventually, Harry sighs and stares at the floor. His cock has gone down and he has his hands on his hips. He’s starting to get cold and goosebumps are rising all over his body. He’s thankful for the cold because otherwise he isn’t sure he would know he was alive. He can hear Louis carefully get out of the bed. Lou so rarely does anything carefully. He is a raucous ball of energy who fills up every room with his vivaciousness and puts his whole being into every move he makes. So knowing that Louis is now carefully rising out of a bed he knows better than his own, slowly and quietly trying to gather his clothes and put them on without drawing attention to himself hurts. It fucking hurts. It hurts Harry in a way he didn’t know he could still hurt. Harry guess that’s just always going to be the case - Lou is always going to be able to make Harry feel.

Harry draws in a shuddering breath and wraps his arms around himself, not because he is ashamed of his nudity, but because he isn’t sure he won’t just break into a million pieces at any moment so he is desperately trying to physically hold himself together. As he grasps at his own now cold and slightly sticky skin from where the sweat of fucking Lou had settled, he tries to control his breathing.

Harry knows he is hurtling towards a panic attack. He normally has them after sex nowadays anyway, but he hasn’t had one with Lou since after the first time he let the other boy fuck him. That was such an overwhelming moment where Harry had to process how deeply he loved Lou along with his own internalized homophobia in a real way that he just wasn’t expecting. Louis had been the perfect partner in that moment, just as Harry had been for Louis when he let slip “Daddy” for the first time during sex, but Harry doubts it would go the same this time. And he doesn’t know what would be worse - Louis being there for him and treating him kindly and helping him with his panic attack, or Louis turning on him as Harry had just done and using it to hurt him.

Harry isn’t sure what’s worse. He knows what he deserves, but he doesn’t think he can take it either way. He just doesn’t think he can. God, he is such a fucking hypocrite. After the way he just hurt the man he says he loves more than anything, he doesn’t deserve kindness. He should just give into his panic attack and let Lou hurt him. Maybe it would make him feel better. Maybe Harry would feel better knowing he made Lou feel better by letting Louis hurt him.

Secure in his choice and unable to contain his panic attack anymore, Harry clutches at his sides so much he is afraid he might draw blood as he frantically looks up for Lou, unable to not search for the boy he loves. The one who has always tied him to reality and loved him and kept him safe.

It takes about 15 seconds for Harry to realize Louis has left, and it takes another 30 seconds for that reality to set in.

Harry should be used to it by now. Louis had always been the one to walk away. Except the last time; except on Harry’s birthday. Harry had been the one to walk away that time. Even though Harry walked away from Louis and told him they were done, that he would not come back, that he would not chase Louis anymore, that this was it forever, this moment felt even more final.

Louis Tomlinson had walked away from Harry Styles more times than either of them could count, but this time, this time felt like the end.

Chapter Text

Louis almost let the call go to voicemail. The phone buzzed across the scarred kitchen table, skittering over a ring of water he’d never wiped up. He stared at it until the screen dimmed, then lit again—Mom. The name vibrated in his ribs, a familiar frequency he could never fully ignore. He swiped.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Louis! Finally. You’re hard to get a hold of, you know that?” Paper rustled on her end; the clink of a teaspoon in a mug. He pictured her at the faded vinyl table with its peeling cherry print, mail stacked under a salt shaker, a draft slipping through the window that never shut right.

“Been busy,” he said, because fine would be a lie and terrible would invite more questions.

“Well, I’ll be quick.” Her voice brightened, the kind of brightness that always made his shoulder blades tense. “We got the sweetest invitation today. Do you remember Aaron? That lovely boy you went to school with?”

His mouth went dry. He could see Aaron’s knuckles white on the steering wheel of a borrowed truck, a summer night pressing heavy on their skin, the smell of cut grass rotting sweet in the heat. He forced a sound out. “Uh-huh.”

“He’s marrying Judy—Judy from choir! Isn’t that just adorable? They sent one for the whole family.” A little laugh. “Imagine, you in a suit. You’ll come home for it, won’t you?”

He stared at the crack running from the window frame down the plastered wall, a hairline fault that got a little longer every winter. “I’ll see if I can get the time off.”

“Oh, try, love. Everyone will be there. You could bring a date!” Her voice trilled, hopeful, like she was giving him something easy to step into.

He blinked hard. On the back of his tongue he tasted summer dust and something bitter. A sentence, sharp as a broken bottle: I don’t know how to love you because you just aren’t lovable. That’s why your real father left, and your first step-father, and your second step-father, and why your mum had six other kids. You are the problem, Louis, and you always will be.

He hadn’t heard Aaron’s voice in years, but the words lived somewhere behind his ribs, fossilized and sharp. They came from the dark cab of that truck, from a boy whose fingers had trembled when he touched Louis but went steady when he hurled cruelty instead. The way secrets curdle when daylight threatens. They had been together - secretly - for years. They did everything together, lost their virginity together, planned their future together. But no one evere knew. Aaron always said he was too scared to come out, but Louis knew it had something to do with him. That Araron didn’t want to come out because of him.

“That’s… nice,” he managed. “Tell them congrats, yeah?”

“I will.” Paper shuffled. “I’ll RSVP for us. Oh, and Louis? It wouldn’t hurt you to show people you’re doing well. People notice, you know.”

People notice. They always had, but never what he wanted them to see.

He mumbled something—he’d try, he’d see, yes Mum—and ended the call while she was still talking.

Silence punched the air out of the flat. The fridge hummed. Upstairs, pipes knocked like an impatient fist. He stared at his reflection in the dark window—blur of hair, pale cut-out of face, two eyes that looked older than twenty-two—and then he couldn’t stand the kitchen another second.

Jacket. Keys. Wallet. Out.

— 

The night slapped cold across his cheeks the second he stepped outside. The air smelled like wet concrete and fried food. A bus exhaled past, heat washing over his legs, then gone. He kept his hands jammed into his jacket pockets, fingers worrying the edge of a train ticket he never used, and crossed to the bar out of habit and out of a need to stop thinking.

Inside, the same as always: sticky floors, low ceiling mottled with nicotine stains from a time when people still pretended smoke could be contained, lights that made everyone better looking and worse off. He liked this place because it never asked anything of him. It allowed him to be a silhouette—laugh too loud, talk too quick, leave without notice. The music thudded low and steady, bass vibrating through the soles of his boots.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asked, already moving.

“Whiskey,” he said. “Neat.” It hit his tongue molasses-sweet and burned clean going down. He chased it with another. Then something with tequila that scorched his throat and made his eyes water, blessedly reducing the world to sensation.

People don’t love me, he thought, tracing a wet circle with his glass. They love the wind I make when I pass through their lives. They love the permission I give them to be brave. They love the after, not the person who helped build it. That’s the trade. Always has been.

As he sat there at the bar, he told himself he wasn’t looking for Harry. He told himself he was only here for the noise, for the blessed drowning of everything his mother had stirred up. But the truth prowled just behind his ribs, ready to leap at the first sight of dark curls.

He didn’t have to look long.

Harry sat across the room at a two-top by the window, backlit by neon. His hair had grown out, loose ringlets dusting the line of his shoulders. His jaw looked stronger, cheekbones knifed a little sharper, but his mouth was soft in a way that made Louis ache—like summer, like sleep after a long drive. He was leaning forward, listening to a woman with cropped hair and a navy sweater. She touched his forearm as she got to the point of whatever story she was telling. Harry’s mouth curved, a quiet smile meant to reassure.

Louis’s blood went cold, then hot.

All at once the music was too loud and the lights too bright and the room too small to hold his body. He was moving before he decided to move, the last half of his drink sloshing over his knuckles as he set the glass down too hard. The bartender said something—Hey—but Louis was already threading through bodies, bumping shoulders, heart stuttering arrhythmically against bone.

“Having fun, then?” He landed the words like punches on the table between them.

Harry’s head came up. The woman looked from Louis to Harry, puzzled but not alarmed. “Hi,” she said cautiously. “I’m—”

“Don’t care,” Louis cut in, locking eyes with Harry. The neon sign painted his face a sick aquarium green. “You moved on fast. Couldn’t even space them out, could you?”

Harry stood slowly, like he’d spent a long time practicing how to move without causing harm. “Louis…” His voice was calm, but Louis heard the leash on it, the way it strained.

“Don’t you Louis me,” he hissed. He was aware of the words a split second after he’d already thrown them. “New girl, new you. Was I a fun experiment? Warm-up act? The faggot who teaches you how to kiss so you can use it on someone you are allowed to be with?”

A muscle ticked in Harry’s cheek. The woman glanced between them again and set her hands palm-down on the table. “I can give you two a minute,” she said quietly.

“You’re not staying,” Louis snapped, fear and whiskey splintering into meanness. “He’s taken.”

Harry flinched—not from the word, from the cruelty—and that, more than anything, made Louis feel suddenly sick.

“Let’s go,” Harry said, not to the woman, not really to Louis. To the air. To the shape of the moment.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Louis planted his feet. His knees wobbled anyway.

Harry didn’t argue. He simply stepped around the table, put his hand—warm, wide—around Louis’s forearm, and said, “We’re leaving.”

Louis yanked, cursed, shoved at his chest. Harry took it. “Let go of me, you fucking bastard.” A couple in a booth glanced over. Someone laughed nervously. The bartender pretended to rinse a glass that was already clean.

“No,” Harry said.

It wasn’t stubborn; it wasn’t a dare. It was the same voice he used the night Louis’s car fishtailed on black ice and he’d said, quiet and sure, I’ve got you.

The door banged open and the cold came in like a living thing. Outside the air smelled like wet iron. Louis stumbled on the step, the sidewalk pitching like a deck under his boots. Harry tightened his grip, redirected him—right, across the street, past a dented trash can—toward the frat house with its bad paint job and peeling Greek letters.

“Let go,” Louis said, but the words were smaller now. His chest hurt.

“I’m not letting you go,” Harry said, steady, and somehow kinder than Louis could bear. “Not like this.”

The phrase slid through Louis like a blade—I’m not putting you down—and some old, furious grief rose up. “You put me down all the time,” he said, choking on it. “All my life, people— They put me down and move on like I was a step they had to clear. You’re just— You’re just neater about it.”

Harry didn’t answer. He kept them moving. The house welcomed them with heat and the sour smell of spilled beer in carpets that would never be clean again. The stairwell was narrow. Louis stumbled; Harry took more of his weight without comment. Framed photos flashed in the corner of Louis’s eye—boys in jerseys, in suits, in Halloween costumes; a collage of grinning, open-mouth joy—and he wanted to smash every one.

Harry didn’t let go until they were inside his room. He shut the door with his heel, flicked on the desk lamp—it pooled warm light over paper drifts, a stack of dog-eared books, a battered Jayhawks cap—and guided Louis to stand near the bed.

“Don’t choreograph me,” Louis said, swaying. “I’m not a scene you get to direct.”

Harry’s mouth pressed into a straight line. He crossed the room, swept an armful of notebooks into a tidy pile, then seemed to think better of it and knocked them onto the floor in a ragged slide.

“Go on,” Louis taunted, something vindictive alive in him now that they were alone. “Throw your tantrum.”

“You want a tantrum?” Harry’s voice snapped, low and bright. He grabbed a handful of loose papers—blue lines slashed with his dark handwriting—and hurled them onto the bed where they fanned and fell. “Here’s one. Here’s six months of therapy homework. Here are letters I wrote and never sent. Here are the things I can barely say out loud because when I do, I start to shake.”

Louis blinked down at the nearest page. The words fractured in the light, his eyes too wet to focus. When someone loves you, don’t study the exits first. Don’t apologize for needing help. Don’t apologize for being alive.

“You think I didn’t care?” Harry said. “You think I just—what—bounced?” He barked a laugh that had no humor in it. “Louis, I learned how to be quiet so I didn’t scare you away. I learned how to sit still while you spun out so I wouldn’t look like I was trying to hold you. I learned not to call what I wanted love because that word made you run.”

“You were on a date,” Louis said, the accusation a lifeline. “With a woman.”

Harry’s jaw softened. “That was Alice. My sponsor.”

“Your… sponsor.” The word didn’t fit in Louis’s mouth. “You’re not an alcoholic.”

Harry took off his cap, raked his fingers through his curls—longer than Louis had ever seen them, ringlets brushing the nape of his neck—and put the cap back on as if to hold himself together. The gesture was so old and tender Louis’s throat went tight.

“Maybe I am,” Harry said. “Maybe I’m not. Thirty-nine days ago I tried to drink myself to death in that bar. Thirty-eight days ago I made a different decision. Tonight I asked Alice to come back there with me so I could reclaim the room. Sit where I almost ended and choose not to. I didn’t order a drink. I ordered a club soda and sat in the same fucking chair.” His voice was steady but his hands shook. He placed them flat on the desk to stop them. “I don’t want to be dictated to anymore by my fear. Or by the places where it lives.”

The room shifted around Louis, perspective tilting. “Thirty-nine days…” He counted backward without meaning to, marking days on a calendar only he could see. “That’s—”

“A month after you said no,” Harry finished for him, soft. “The same night we… you know.”

Louis saw it then in double exposure: Harry on his knees in the snow, ring box shaking in his hands; the way Louis’s words had slammed the old walls back up inside him; the frantic way they’d tried to outrun the ruin afterward with their bodies. Heat and salt and desperation and him saying don’t while meaning don’t let go.

“I had to stop,” Harry said. “Not because stopping would get you back. Because not stopping would kill me.” He glanced up. “Zayn found me in the alley behind Caffrey’s. I don’t remember all of it. I remember his hands on my face, saying my name like it could anchor me. I remember the ambulance lights. I remember thinking I was so ashamed to die that small. In the hospital, the counselor sat down and told me it doesn’t matter why you want to live yet. It only matters that you make a plan to. So I did. I’ve kept it. I go to meetings. I went back to therapy. I walk in the evenings because my head gets loud at night.”

Louis tried to swallow. His mouth was sand. The desk lamp made a halo on Harry’s shoulder; dust drifted there like snow he could reach out and touch. He wanted, suddenly, stupidly, to smooth a curl back from Harry’s forehead. He clenched his hands instead.

“None of that explains why you were on a date,” Louis said, hearing the childishness in his tone and powerless to stop it. “All your words— Look at these pages, Haz. You poured your heart out. It means nothing if your actions don’t match. Are you going to erase yourself for them now? Trade me in for their approval? Are you finally going to give them the son they can show off?”

Harry went very still. The question landed not like a punch but like a remembered blow. He looked down at the carpet, up again, and when he spoke he chose his words the way you choose a path through broken glass.

“That’s a low blow,” he said. “And you know it.”

Louis’s chest pulled tight, a childish, awful triumph rising. If I can still hurt you, maybe you still care. Maybe it isn’t over.

“I said it,” Louis pushed, because his fear always made him cruel. “If the shoe fits—”

“You’re not my shoe,” Harry said, sudden and fierce. “You’re not something I wear. You’re a person I love, and I don’t know how to do this with you anymore when you keep insisting you’re a possession I’m going to set down.”

Louis opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Somewhere in the house a door slammed. Distant laughter climbed and broke. His heart hammered like he’d been running.

Harry bent and scooped more pages, threw them down again because order didn’t help tonight. “You want details?” he said. “Fine. Therapy since August. Every week unless I’m sick. EMDR started in October. I talk about my parents. I talk about growing up in a house where love was a conditional verb and silence and violence was the cost of staying. I talk about the way shame sits in my chest like a hot stone and how I drink when I can’t hold it anymore. I talk about you. I talk about how good it felt to be seen by you and how terrifying it was to be truly seen, because if you really saw me you could leave. So I tried to stay pretty for you—emotionally pretty, you know? Manageable. Digestible. And then I tried to drink myself to death when I couldn’t keep it pretty anymore.”

Louis stared at him, the words stripping him to bone. “I didn’t know.”

“No,” Harry said. “You didn’t want to know. You wanted the version of me that fit your fear.”

Louis flinched like he’d been slapped. Memories came hot and fast: the way he’d catalogued exits in every room; the way he’d kept jokes like knives in his pockets; the way he’d looked for proof he was unlovable in every conversation and then found it, triumphant and wrecked.

He bent to a paper as if the answer might be there. The handwriting steadied as it went down the page, got messier near the bottom. If love is a room, sit in it. Don’t stand by the door. Don’t narrate all the reasons someone will leave. Don’t practice grief like it’s a talent.

“Harry,” Louis said, voice gone thin. “I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know how to carry you without dropping what I use to carry myself.”

Harry shook his head. The movement was small and tired. “I got into grad school in New York City,” he said, as if he’d moved past apology to inventory. “Counseling psych. I’m going to train to be a therapist. I start in August if I keep doing what I’m doing. I have a research assistant offer for the counseling center, part-time. It’s—” He swallowed. “It feels like a life.”

Louis’s breath hitched. “You’re leaving.”

“I’m staying alive,” Harry said, and somehow managed to make it sound simple. “Which is more than I could say two months ago.”

Something broke open in Louis—jealousy and pride and panic swirling into a jagged, luminous helplessness. “We can— We can figure it out,” he said. “Long distance, or— I could apply there, too. I don’t know. We’ll make a plan. We used to be good at making plans.”

Harry looked at him with love so unflinching Louis almost looked away. “No.”

The word was a mercy and a blade.

“Please.” Louis took a step, hands out, like you would approach a skittish animal. “Please, Harry. I can be different. I can—”

“Don’t.” Harry’s voice broke on the consonant and steadied on the rest. “Don’t ask me to gamble myself again. The last time you walked away, I almost didn’t make it back. I won’t— I can’t afford to stand in front of that door and wait for you to choose me. I need to choose me. I need to walk first, for once.”

“I won’t walk,” Louis said, and knew, miserably, how false it sounded even to himself.

“Please, Lou,” Harry whispered. “Please let me have this. I can’t watch you walk away again.”

He turned and opened the door; the hallway’s cooler air folded into the room. For a beat he just stood there with his hand on the knob, shoulders square, as if maybe he’d come back after all. Then he didn’t.

The door closed softly behind him.

Silence collapsed in its wake. Louis stood, swaying slightly, the sound of his pulse too loud in the small room. The desk lamp made a warm circle on the papers; beyond that, shadows layered on shadows. It smelled like laundry powder, lemon dish soap, ink, Harry.

He sat on the edge of the bed because his knees weren’t interested in holding him. A page slid off the duvet and hovered against his shin, static clinging it there. He read a line at random - When someone says stay, ask if they mean it. When someone says go, believe them the first time. He laughed once, a broken sound, and scrubbed a palm down his face. His fingers came away damp.

For the first time he could remember, Harry had left him. Harry, whose love had always been a stubborn gravity. Harry, who used to plant his feet and catch Louis as he spun. Harry had turned and walked away to save himself.

Louis lay back without meaning to, body heavy and abruptly exhausted. He closed his eyes. He pictured the bar’s dirty light, the woman’s hand on Harry’s arm, the way Harry had answered no like he was placing a gift carefully on a table and backing away. He pictured Aaron’s neat black suit in the church bulletin, Judy’s white dress, his mother smoothing the invitation with the flat of her palm.

He hadn’t planned to sleep. Sleep happened anyway.

—

He woke to light leaking through the blinds. For a moment he didn’t know where he was—his jaw ached, his tongue was suede, and every bone in his body felt hollowed out. Then the smell hit him—Harry’s shampoo, laundry powder, the faint lemon of furniture polish—and memory slammed back into place.

The door clicked. Harry stood there with damp curls and a backpack slung over one shoulder. The sight of him, simple and unadorned, felt like standing in a doorway between storms.

Louis sat up too fast; the room tilted and steadied. “Harry.”

Harry nodded, a polite acknowledgement, not an invitation. “I’m heading to class.”

Louis searched his face like there might be a seam he could pry apart. “Can we talk?”

Harry adjusted the strap on his shoulder. “I came to get my bag. You need to be gone when I get back.”

The sentence landed like a small, precise knife. Louis felt it more than he heard it. “We were supposed to get married,” he said before he could stop himself, voice raw.

Harry’s mouth pulled, almost a flinch. He didn’t answer.

“Just—tell me one thing,” Louis said, because pleading was all he had left and maybe honesty too. “Are you okay?”

Harry looked at the floor, then at Louis, and the look was clean, true, devastating. “No.” He held Louis’s gaze. “But I’m on my way to be.”

Something in Louis’s chest broke and reassembled around that sentence. He nodded. “That’s… all I ever wanted for you.”

Harry’s throat bobbed. He reached for the doorknob, paused like there was more he could say if he let himself. He didn’t. He left.

The door shut with a soft click. The room exhaled.

Louis sat perfectly still and tried to hear his heart under the noise in his head. The radiator hissed. Someone in the hall laughed too loud, then shushed themselves. A car honked outside and the sound bounced off brick. In his head, phrases that sliced him like a knife bounced around.

I don’t know how to love you because you just aren’t lovable. 

You are the problem, Louis, and you always will be. 

Then different, but even more painful while wrapped with love.

Please let me have this. 

No, but I’m on my way to be.

He pressed his palms to his eyes until stars burst. When he dropped his hands, the room looked the same, but the air felt different—thinner, truer. He stood, legs uncertain, and smoothed the bedspread where his weight had wrinkled it, as if tidying a corner might pay some small, impossible debt.

He picked up a page from the floor without meaning to. Harry’s writing marched across it, dark and exact - If I want to keep living, I have to stop making proof out of pain. I have to stop believing love is a test I’m meant to fail. I have to want joy, not just rehearse sorrow.

Louis placed the paper back exactly where he’d found it. His hands shook. His mouth tasted like old pennies and regret.

He let himself look around the room the way you look at a place you’re saying goodbye to—cataloguing objects like they could be talismans. The chipped mug with a cartoon badger. The Polaroid taped to the mirror of the two of them at the lake, hair wet and faces sunburned, Louis mid-laugh with his hand on Harry’s chest. The Jayhawks cap. The sweater hanging over the chair that Louis had stolen a dozen times and always given back.

I’m on my way to be.

He swallowed hard. “Good,” he told the empty room, voice a rasp. “Good.”

He slipped out, pulled the door shut behind him, and stood in the stale brightness of the hallway. The house murmured around him—voices, steps, a shower turning on. He made his way down the stairs one hand on the rail. The foyer smelled like damp wool and takeout.

Outside, the morning was all white sky and hard edges. He tucked his chin into his jacket and breathed until the sting in his eyes receded to something he could carry. He didn’t know where to go yet; he only knew away wasn’t enough anymore. He needed toward. He needed answers, the kind that hurt clean.

He pulled out his phone with clumsy fingers and stared at a contact he never had to search for. Zayn. The oldest friend, the mirror he’d avoided. The one who had always seen through the performance to the shaky scaffolding underneath.

He started walking in the direction of Zayn’s apartment. The pavement kept a steady beat under his boots. His breath fogged and blew away. He decided he wouldn’t rehearse what he’d say. He would let it come out wrong and hope that was, for once, the bravest thing.

At the corner, the wind knifed through his jacket. A bus whooshed by and lifted his hair. He thought of Harry in an alley, of Zayn’s hands holding his face, of Niall’s quiet steadiness and Liam’s stubborn loyalty. He thought of his mother at the kitchen table smoothing down the invitation like it might make something true.

Are you okay?

No. But I’m on my way to be.

“Me too,” Louis said out loud, to the gray morning. His breath ghosted and was gone. He kept walking.

He needed to ask Zayn what really happened that night.

He needed to hear it all.

He needed to tell the truth back.

He turned up his collar against the wind and crossed the street, toward the first honest conversation he’d had with himself in years.

Chapter Text

“Please, Zaynie, let me in. I know you’re mad at me but I don’t know why but I just need someone to talk to. Please.”

“FINE,” Zayn says, flat and final, shouldering the door. “For fuck’s sake, come in.” Louis and Zayn walk together to the couch - Zayn, clearly angry and Louis clearly skittish.

“...I don’t know, Z.” Louis pauses and picks at the threads on the couch Zayn has had forever. He probably got some deal in a thrift shop when he and Harry were on a break and somehow convinced Liam, Niall, and Harry to lug it back to Zayn’s off-campus apartment. It is the perfect balance of comfortable and beautiful—not unlike Zayn himself. The cushion dips under Louis’ weight, the old springs sighing like they remember every fight and every makeup that couch has hosted.

The room smells faintly of cardamom and turpentine—Zayn’s tea and Zayn’s paints—and somewhere a radiator ticks like a slow metronome. Outside, wet tires hiss along the street. Louis’ knee bounces.

Louis takes a deep breath before looking up to stare out the window. Eye contact is out of the question right now. “It just feels like, I don’t know, it feels so dramatic. Like he says he almost died? How the fuck did he almost die? He was drinking at a bar we’ve been to a million times. Be so serious he didn’t almost die—he got drunk, blacked out, and probably fucked some girl. Pretty typical Harry if you ask me. He just wanted sympathy to excuse his bad actions or something.” Louis chuckles darkly and stares at his hands in his lap like they are the most interesting thing in the world.

“God forbid he take accountability for anything.” Louis rolls his eyes and scoffs, and even as the words leave him, his heart constricts at that last part. He knows it isn’t fair and he knows he’s lashing out to make himself feel better about his own shit behavior. Still, the words are easier than the ache.

“Louis, he, Harry—” Zayn pauses, actually stutters trying to form a sentence. Zayn never stutters. He has always been the confident one, sentences carved clean, certain. He takes a long breath and starts again. Louis still can’t look at him.

“Louis, we were all worried about Harry that night. None of us could get ahold of him. He unshared his location with all of us. He wouldn’t take our calls. He left our texts on delivered.” Zayn pauses for longer than would be considered normal. Louis sneaks a glance. Zayn is staring at the floor, knuckles white where his hands knot together. He looks distressed—more distressed than Louis has ever seen him, and he’s known him a long time.

“We…” Louis sees Zayn’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows hard and pushes through whatever firestorm is raging inside. “We were all worried sick—we tried calling the bar but that dick Evan answered. Before hanging up, told me to pound sand and that he had better things to do than look after a dime-a-dozen drunk college kid who liked it up the ass.” Zayn’s voice changes on the last bit, going venomous, each consonant a blade.

Louis freezes. The floor tilts a few degrees. “Zayn…” he whispers. “Harry—” his voice breaks, “Harry called me that night.”

Zayn whips his head up so fast Louis is genuinely a little concerned he hurt himself. “What.”

It isn’t a question. It’s a demand.

Louis takes a deep breath. It doesn’t land anywhere. He tries to fill his lungs with air, but all he feels is ash—burned out from the inside, nothing left to char. A shell. “Harry called me that night.”

Zayn’s face hardens further, which Louis didn’t think was possible. “Louis, do not make me ask you twice.”

Louis sees how hard Zayn is squeezing his own hands together. The knuckles have gone bone-white; if he doesn’t stop he’ll bruise, and then he’ll have Liam on his ass. God fucking damn it, Louis thinks, I really stepped in it this time.

With nothing left to do but start, Louis opens his mouth. “He called me at 11:37 that night.”

“How the fuck do you remember that?” Zayn spits, harsh and tired.

“Why wouldn’t I fucking remember, Zayn?” Louis is actually sort of annoyed by that because—what the fuck—why wouldn’t he remember?

“Louis, in all the years I’ve known you, you are shit with dates let alone times, and you are telling me you remember the exact date and time Harry called you over a fucking month ago?” Zayn doesn’t seem angry so much as exasperated past empty. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, inhaling slow like he’s putting himself back together molecule by molecule. Louis imagines Zayn wants to hit him. Honestly, Louis wants to hit Louis right now.

Zayn drops his hands, eyes a bit red when he looks over. “You really fucking love him, don’t you?”

Without breaking eye contact—because while he avoids baring his soul every single day of his life, right now Louis wants Zayn to see him—he nods once. “Yeah, I do.” His blue eyes lock to Zayn’s brown to make sure he really, truly understands. “I love him every second of every minute of every day. I love every single thing about him—even the things I hate. Like how he squeezes his ice-cold feet in between my calves when we sleep or how he clips his toenails on the toilet while I am in the shower. How he slurps the milk out of his cereal bowl when he is done. I love him so much it fucking hurts. It hurts when we are together. It hurts when we are apart. It just fucking hurts all the damn time, Zayn. I am so tired of love fucking hurting me.”

Zayn stares a second longer—dark chocolate eyes flicking between Louis’ as if searching for a place to set the truth down. Whatever he finds, it’s enough. He looks away, clasps his hands tighter. Silence stretches. Continue.

“I picked up the phone, and he sounded so drunk, Z. Drunker than I’ve ever heard him, and I’ve held his hair more times than I can count as he pukes his guts out after frat parties, but this—this was different, Z. Something sounded—well, wrong.”

Zayn hums low in his throat. Keep going.

“He was drunk, yeah, but he sounded so small? I’ve never known Harry to be small. He’s always larger than life. He fills the room with his essence without even trying, but he just sounded so small. Like a hurt little kid.”

Zayn doesn’t look at him. He’s still clasping his hands so tight it must hurt; he stares at the floor like he could burn a hole straight through it and toss Louis into whatever waits below. Louis isn’t sure either of them are breathing.

“What did he say to you, Louis.”

Louis takes a deep breath. This isn’t a question. It’s a command, and the fact that Zayn won’t meet his eyes makes Louis’s hands shake.

“He… he said he said he was sorry. He—”

“Sorry for what, Louis,” Zayn cuts across, scalpel-clean. “What was he apologizing for.”

Louis folds in on himself a bit. He thinks back to what Harry said that night, how he sounded. He closes his eyes and the room falls away. It isn’t 39 days ago; it’s now. The phone warm in his palm. The kitchen cold. A familiar contact picture filling the screen. Harry’s voice raw and drenched.

Louis swallows, hoping it will steady his voice. It doesn’t. “He—” he gulps as the memory floods every cell.

“Lou, Louis, I am so sorry,” Harry slurred.

“What the fuck are you on about, Harry? You don’t need to be sorry. I don’t fucking care anymore. We aren’t together. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, baby, I am sorry for loving you. Sorry for tricking you into loving me. I just can’t let you go and I should but I am sorry. I know I shouldn’t be calling right now, but I am drunk and you are all I can think about. Your cornflower blue eyes, your soft hair, how grumpy you are when you are woken up, how smart you are, all of your freckles, all of our tattoos…”

Louis shakes his head hard, as if he can rattle the words out of it. “He apologized for falling in love with me. Back in freshman year. He apologized for continuing to love me. He apologized for drunk calling. He tried to just keep apologizing, but I was so mad, Z.” He looks at Zayn, begging belief. The memory of what he said is a blade in his mouth.

“Fuck you, Harry. I don’t fucking care about you anymore.” Louis feels the heat rise in his neck, hears the old rage like static. “I am fucking DONE. Don’t you hear me? I am fucking done. I am sick of you pretending to love me and getting drunk and professing love for me. You don’t know shit about love. You don’t love me. You never did. You just don’t want to lose me, you possessive fucking bastard. I am a conquest—a trophy—for you. Fuck you, Harry, just fuck off out of my life. I don’t give a shit about you anymore so fucking leave me alone.”

Louis turns his body toward Zayn on the couch, desperate to be seen, to be stopped, something. “Zayn, he had just given away my fucking engagement ring to some random twink he fucked. He didn’t love me! He was just too fucking drunk to know any better.”

Zayn is still wringing his hands and looking at the floor, motionless as a closed door. Continue.

Harry wettly sobs out the next bit. Louis will never forget how defeated Harry sounded. “Don’t blame me for falling, I was just a little boy. Don’t blame me for drunk calling, I wasn’t ready for it.”

“He—he told me I couldn’t blame him for falling in love with me. That it was all he knew how to do but he didn’t know how to do it right because he wasn’t ready for it all. He—” Louis’s voice cracks. “Fuck,” he whispers to the ceiling, trying to blink back tears.

“He kept calling me baby, kept telling me he was sorry, kept telling me he missed me, how much he wanted to kiss me.” Louis’s words trip over each other, frantic now. He needs Zayn to understand why he said what he said, why he did what he did. “I couldn’t take it, Z. He just kept fucking telling me he loved me and missed me and kept calling me fucking baby. What was I supposed to do, Zayn? What the fuck was I supposed to do with that? Harry ripped my fucking heart out when he gave that ring away like it was nothing and now here he is on the phone a month later calling me baby and telling me he loves me and doesn’t know how to not love me and clearly—”

“Clearly, what Louis? Clearly WHAT?” Zayn spits. He turns fully, knee up on the couch, body squared to Louis like a verdict. “Because if I remember correctly, you are the one who turned Harry down. YOU are the one who said no to that boy who was down on one knee with a ring he couldn’t fucking afford asking you to be his HUSBAND, knowing that he was turning his back on the possibility of ever going back home. It was his fucking birthday and he proposed to you and was asking you to be his family—something he has NEVER had and was terrified to trust the very idea of—and yet you said no like it was nothing.” Zayn’s brown eyes bore into Louis’ blue with so much rage it startles a whimper out of Louis’s throat. He doesn’t dare speak.

“How DARE you have the audacity to fucking blame him for this. How fucking dare you.” Zayn spits the words like poison he refuses to swallow.

“Z, I am—” Louis starts.

“Don’t you fucking dare apologize to me right now. I don’t want to hear it. Keep going.” It lands like a threat.

“Wh-what do you mean keep going?” Louis stutters.

“Oh, I know there is fucking more. I’ve known you your entire fucking life, Louis Tomlinson. I may have moved away and we may have been long-distance friends longer than we lived next door to each other, but I fucking know you. Tell. Me.”

If looks could kill, Louis would be a chalk outline.

“He—he kept calling me baby and apologizing and then said ‘do you think it is easy being the jealous kind’ as if he didn’t just give away my engagement ring—”

Zayn cuts him off again. “It wasn’t your fucking engagement ring, Louis. You fucking said NO.”

Louis throws his hands up, small and helpless. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. The engagement ring.”

Zayn turns away, mutters something Louis can’t catch (and maybe shouldn’t), then jerks his chin: go on.

So Louis takes a breath that doesn’t help and pushes forward. “I—well, I told him to stop calling me baby and that it didn’t matter to me that he thought he meant all these things and that I didn’t want to hear it and that—” He falters. He knows this part is bad. He thinks about it every day. If he could take it back, he would—he knows he would—but he also knows no one would believe him.

“Then what, Louis.”

He blurts it fast, like ripping out a nail. “I told him he was an arrogant son of a bitch who didn’t know how to admit he was sorry and that I didn’t care how lonely he was, that he wasn’t allowed to call me baby.”

The words hang in the air like a raised blade.

Quietly—so quietly Louis almost misses it—Zayn whispers, “What else did you say.”

Louis looks up, startled. Zayn meets his eyes with cold determination. “Don’t play fucking dumb with me, Tomlinson. What the fuck else did you say.”

Zayn knows him too well.

“I told him I’d never be his baby again and to stop calling me…”

“And.”

Louis sighs, trying to drag oxygen into a body that feels distant. He stares at the carpet as if it can hide him. “I told him he never really loved me and that I didn’t think he even knew how to love and that I didn’t care anymore and to stop calling and to do whatever he wanted with his life because… because it didn’t matter to me anymore and it never would again.”

Louis barely has time to register the wet on his cheeks before his back hits the ground. His jaw aches before his mind catches up, then Zayn’s fist connects again and pain bursts white behind his eyes.

Louis doesn’t fight back. He has known Zayn his entire life—all 22 years—and he has never seen him violent. So if Zayn is hitting him, maybe Louis does deserve it. Maybe pain will finally replace the apathy, guilt, and shame. Maybe it will ground him, remind him he is alive no matter how much it feels otherwise.

“You motherfucker, Louis Tomlinson, you absolute motherfucker.” Zayn is punching and screaming and also sobbing. His tears splash hot on Louis’s cheek.

Zayn grabs Louis’ shirt, straddling his stomach, and shakes him hard enough to rattle teeth. “Do you know what it was like to find Harry in that fucking alleyway behind Caffrey’s at 2:30 in the fucking morning, so drunk and hysterical he could barely talk, clothes ripped and bruised and bloody from head to toe? Do you know what that was fucking like?! He could have fucking died, Louis. He almost fucking did!”

Louis’s focus narrows to one sentence. Harry almost died. “Wh-what do you mean Harry almost died? No one told me. No one fucking told me. Why didn’t anyone fucking tell me?” It comes out high and thin, desperation shredding the words.

Zayn’s fist drops once more, square on Louis’ nose. There’s a sickening crunch. Heat and blood bloom over his mouth.

“Zayn, ZAYN, BABY STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!”

Louis’s head thuds against the rug as Zayn is wrenched back—Liam’s arms iron around his chest; Niall’s voice, breathless and blurred, at his shoulder.

“Zayn, what the fuck are you doing? What is fucking going on?” Liam’s voice is a low quake. Beside him, Niall is silent, which is worse.

From Liam’s grip, Zayn snarls past the tears. “Fuck you, Louis. Fuck you. You fucking self-centered PRICK! I am not saying Harry is perfect. And I am not saying he didn’t play a role in this either, but he is one of my best friends and I had to hold him in my arms praying he didn’t fucking DIE that night because of you. You destroyed him. You fucking destroyed him.”

Liam and Niall keep Zayn pinned, but the words lash anyway. Spit flies. Louis stares up, stunned, blood running warm over his lip and into his mouth. He tastes metal and salt and shame.

“I had to lie in that fucking alleyway, holding onto Harry, begging him to stay with me, begging him not to let go, begging him not to leave me. AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE FUCKING SAID, LOUIS, DO YOU FUCKING KNOW WHAT HE SAID?!” Zayn’s voice cracks up into something wild. Liam stares at the wall; Niall’s eyes gloss.

Louis drags himself up on his elbows, dizzy. “What do you mean, Z?” he whispers.

“Let me fucking go, guys!” Zayn thrashes.

“Are you going to hit him again?” Liam asks, heartbreakingly calm. Niall glances at him, waiting.

Zayn, eyes locked on Louis bleeding on the floor: “Maybe.”

Liam sighs, voice soft and so full of love Louis flinches. “Then no, baby. I can’t let you go right now. Please tell us what happened.”

“Zayn, what are you talking about,” Louis whispers, throat raw.

“Harry was at Caffrey’s that night. He was drunk. That’s what he had been doing—going out, getting drunk, finding someone to fuck just to feel something, and then drinking himself unconscious afterwards. Every night. He’s been doing that every single fucking night since his birthday. You know, the night he fucking proposed to you. That night though, that fucking night, he was so drunk he could barely stand, and he goaded some homophobic group of dude-bros into a fight. They beat the ever living shit out of him in that alleyway, and he didn’t care, Louis. He wanted them to kill him. And apparently, the last thing he did before he goaded those homophobic pieces of shit into beating him to death was call you, Louis.”

Louis stops breathing. The room goes underwater. “You don’t know that. You can’t know that. You know Harry can be reckless when he drinks; you can’t know he really wanted to die. You can’t know that was his purpose. You can’t know it was because of what I said. You can’t—”

“I CAN’T, CAN I?” Zayn explodes. “HE FUCKING TOLD ME, YOU ASSHOLE.”

Now everyone is crying. Even Niall, who hasn’t shed a tear in almost four years. Liam and Niall loosen their hold at the same time; Zayn’s arms drop, useless at his sides.

“As I was holding onto Harry for dear life in that alleyway, trying to figure out where he was bleeding from and if I could stop it and pleading with him to stay with me, do you know what he said?”

Louis says nothing. He can’t.

Zayn continues, voice low and lethal. “Louis, do you know what he said to me as he was losing consciousness and choking on his own blood?”

Louis stares at the floor. He cannot bear it. He cannot hear it.

“LOOK AT ME, TOMLINSON. FUCKING LOOK AT ME AND LISTEN TO WHAT YOU DID.”

Louis’ eyes snap up. Zayn bends to his level, breath shaking. Through gritted teeth, he forces the words out. “Harry told me that he was allowed to do whatever he wanted to do with his life and that what he wanted was to die. That his parents wanted him dead anyway, that they’d rather have a dead son than a faggot son. That you hated him and didn’t care what he did with his life. That it was his life and he could do whatever he wanted with it, and what he wanted was to end it.”

The bottom falls out. Louis’s stomach drops and keeps dropping. “I—I didn’t want him to die.” He looks wildly between Liam and Niall and back to Zayn. “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t want him to die. He has to have known that.”

Zayn shakes his head and barks out a humorless laugh. When he meets Louis’s eyes again, it’s like opening a furnace. “He didn’t fucking know that because you never fucking told him, and I had to watch one of my best friends almost die in my arms. All he ever knew his whole life was hate and violence and he said he wanted to go out of this life the same way he came in. That his parents didn’t want him and you didn’t want him, so he was better off dead in his mind.”

Zayn straightens and walks to the door. Liam moves to follow; Zayn shrugs him off. “Don’t fucking follow me, Liam. I need a goddamn minute.” The door slams. The echo rings.

Liam stands there a second with his head bowed, palms pressed to his eyes. When he turns back, Louis feels something twist under his ribs.

Niall still hasn’t said anything. Still hasn’t looked at Louis.

Liam starts, voice rough. “Seeing Harry like that fucked us all up, man. We met Zayn at the hospital, and it was bad. Harry was barely recognizable he was beaten so bad.” He swallows and pushes through. “But you need to understand—Louis, that broke a piece of Zayn that can’t be unbroken. If it wasn’t for Zayn, Harry would be dead. Those guys left him for dead in the alleyway. They broke all of his ribs on his left side, punctured his lung, broke his right eye socket, and gave him such a bad concussion the doctors weren’t sure he was going to make a full recovery. There was talk of a TBI. And Harry didn’t care. He was in the ER begging the nurses and doctors to let him die. He needed surgery to fix his lung and his spleen had to be removed, and while in there, they found they’d bruised his liver.”

Louis realizes he is still sitting on the floor, covered in blood from when Zayn broke his nose, staring up at Liam and Niall like a child begging a verdict to change.

“Why didn’t you guys call me?” Louis begs, voice shredded.

Hands on his hips, eyes still on the floor, Niall whispers, “He asked us not to.”

“Wh—what?” Louis looks up at Niall in disbelief.

“Yeah. We didn’t get it either, honestly. But in between screaming at the doctors to let him just die, Harry was begging us not to call you. So we didn’t.” Niall shrugs, simple as gravity. He still doesn’t look at Louis.

“But, it is Harry. This is me and Harry. It has always been me and Harry. You should have called me. I should have been there. He almost died—” Louis chokes on his tears, looking frantically between them. “He almost left me. I should have been there.”

Liam scrubs his face with both hands. “I can’t do this anymore. I need to go find Z.” He leaves, the door slamming again—a second period at the end of a sentence that will not unwrite itself.

Louis looks to Niall—Niall who is always the peacemaker, who understands both sides, who has always been one of his best friends. Niall, who finally lifts his gaze.

“Louis, not once have you asked how Harry is. Not once have you asked how Zayn is. Not once have you asked about anything other than why we didn’t call you, when you are the one who told Harry you didn’t want him.”

Louis starts to protest, but Niall raises a hand and Louis falls quiet.

“I know that Harry trying to kill himself is not totally your fault,” Niall says, each word careful, deliberate. “I know he has his own issues he needs to work out, which he has been in therapy since August for. But you need to accept you played a role in this too. And unless you can accept that you played a role and you didn’t deserve to be there for this, I can’t help you. And honestly, Louis, it wasn’t about you. This was about Harry and what Harry needed, and he sure as shit didn’t need you in that moment.” Niall inhales, steadier now. “Harry needed us—people who see him and love unconditionally.”

Louis stares at him in shock. “But I—”

Niall’s hand lifts again, small and final. He turns toward the door. With his hand on the knob, he pauses and looks back over his shoulder.

“Louis, we all love you, but maybe it is time to get your head on straight and figure out what you need to do to be okay.”

The door clicks shut.

Silence pours in. The radiator ticks. A siren wails somewhere far away and then fades. Water rushes through old pipes in another apartment. Life, indifferent, continuing.

Louis sits there on Zayn’s threadbare rug, blood drying tacky on his upper lip, jaw throbbing in time with his heart. The couch looms above him, the loose thread he pulled earlier now a hard knot against the cushion. He presses his palm flat to the floorboards. They are steady. He is not.

He hears himself again on the phone—It doesn’t matter to me anymore and it never will again—and understands the shape of the weapon he handed to a boy who already thought the world wanted him dead. He thinks of Harry calling him baby through whiskey and blood; of Zayn in an alley; of Liam’s voice going thin; of Niall, finally looking him in the eye and telling him the thing no one else would: Start acting like you love him.

The ache in Louis’s chest changes temperature—still pain, but different now. Hot, clean, scouring.

He drags in a breath. Then another. He lets his forehead rest against the rug and, for the first time in thiry-nine days, the truth arrives simple and uncluttered: I don’t want you to die. I want you to stay.

He doesn’t know if he will ever get to say it to Harry. He doesn’t know if he deserves to. But wanting to say it splits something open inside him—the first crack in the hollow.

He will have to own what he said. He will have to be brave in ways that aren’t loud. He will have to start with I’m sorry. And then—if Harry ever lets him close enough to try—Please let me do right by you, even if the answer is no.

Louis rolls to his side, presses his shaking fingers to his broken nose, and finally, finally lets himself cry—not dramatic, not for effect, but because grief is heavier than bone and he’s tired of pretending he can lift it alone.

Outside, a door opens and shuts. Somewhere, a kettle whistles. The radiator sighs. The city breathes.

He will have to as well. And after that—if there’s any mercy left in the world—he will have to learn how to make it right.