Larry Stylinson - Turning From Praise (AU)

14.

“I missed you,” Louis said softly, and his fingers slid down Harry’s arm until his hand was folded over Harry’s hand.

“It’s been more than three weeks, you know. And I kept waiting. All the texts I sent, all the messages I left, they were all ignored, and your family shoot daggers at me when they see me in the street. I didn’t hear a word from you, and I thought you’d given up for good this time, and now you didn’t care about me. But I couldn’t give up on you. You’d think that after all this time I’d be sick of it, but I can’t make myself give up. By this time, you’d think your family would have worked out that they don’t have you wrapped around their little fingers any more, but I don’t think they’ve given up on that yet, either. Have they?”

Louis stayed silent, staring down at Harry’s long fingers were they rested on the wall, his own not even large enough to cover them. In the past he would have protested at that last statement and how manipulative it made his family sound, but he was only beginning to realize that really, manipulative was exactly the right word.

Harry blinked, and Louis was startled to see that all of a sudden his green eyes were wet and shining with barely restrained tears. “I missed you too,” he said thickly, and then he hurled himself forwards and collapsed into Louis’ arms, and Louis suddenly had the warm weight of Harry’s body pressed against him, and Harry’s face buried in his shoulder with his hands gripping the fabric of his shirt.

Murmuring nonsense into Harry’s ear, Louis eased him off, pulled him back a little, and then when Harry was sitting back far enough for them to make eye contact, he carefully wiped one of Harry’s eyes, trying not to smudge his carefully applied eyeliner. A little smudge of black came off on his finger, but he honestly didn’t give a damn. Then, when Harry nervously leaned forward and tilted his head as if to kiss him, Louis didn’t throw anxious glances around or haul him into a bush so that they wouldn’t be seen – he closed the distance between them as quickly as he could, melting into the kiss, and then Harry’s hands on the base of his back were the only thing left keeping him from falling.

After all this time, the metallic taste of Harry’s kisses was still achingly familiar, and although he’d once found it a little bitter and hard to cope with, it was amazing how much he’d missed the warmth of Harry’s mouth interspersed with the occasional icy clink of metal against his teeth. His stomach was fluttering with butterflies, because he’d decided that he just didn’t care anymore about what his parents said, of all the stories they fed him. Because when they had refused to talk to him, locked him away in disgrace and walked him to school, for god’s sake, making sure to tell the headmistress to keep any weird-looking teenage boys well away from the gates, Louis had been alone, and Harry had waited. He almost wantedto get caught. His stomach was churning, and Harry’s large hands rubbed up and down his back, and Louis’ sifted through his newly purple hair, and the world was just a jumble of silky curls and warm lips and the feeling of tumbling into a warm bed on a cold night, but Harry’s embrace was far more welcoming than his bed had ever been.

It made him feel a little giddy, the thought that any member of his family or a friend of his family’s could come around the corner right now, like he had only a minute or so ago, and catch him desperately kissing the most mutually disliked boy in the neighbourhood, with his hands running frantically through his hair. He could only imagine the kind of apoplectic fit his mother would have over that. The thought made him want to laugh, and Harry felt his lips twitch through the kiss and broke it, pulling a little away from him. He examined Louis critically, his own smile widening.

“What’s funny?” he asked, and then he nuzzled Louis’ neck, lightly kissing the spot where his neck and shoulders joined.

Since Louis didn’t think he could really explain what he was finding so amusing, he snorted with laughter over another thought that had stuck in his mind from the moment their eyes had met that morning. “You! You look like a bull,” he spluttered.