Breaking Louis Tomlinson {Larry Stylinson AU}

Chapter Seventeen

a/n: well holy shit u guys have managed to blow me away yet again 125 votes on the last chapter and we're about to hit 50k reads and 2k votes and we just hit 300 followers and i just hit a wall

i gotta be serious when i thank you tho so ilysm you all rock and i want to hug all of you for a really reeally long time

dedications are getting really fuckin hard hm its gonna go to @xxscarlett because she left me such a long and nice comment that i didnt see bc im a drip well anyway thank you ily youre the best

updates are slow bc im busy and i apologise for that

and oh yeeees please check out my other story "Our Lovely Misfortune" in between updates with this story idk i suck at advertising myself lol

Louis could easily say that he was the happiest he’s been in six years.

He couldn’t stop smiling all the time. He felt bright and wonderful and so light he felt like he might drift off at any moment if Harry didn’t keep him grounded. Louis had heard people who’d come out of rehab call their new start a rebirth, but he didn’t really ever believe that kind of thing until now. Life with Harry was a new life, a happier one and much less lonely.

Louis looked back at the three months or so that he’d known Harry and compared them to the three months prior to those. He remembered feeling dead inside all the time—like there really was no hope for him or a way to get out of his own mind. He remembered the constant urge to curl up and never wake up again, and the constant pain he induced on himself.

He remembered existing, but never living.

It would be a lie to say Louis didn’t have his bad days, because of course he did. He would wake up and feel cold and empty for no real apparent reason. Again, he would turn inside of himself and spend the day curled up in bed, dark thoughts swimming through the sea of regret that made up his mind. It was a horrible feeling—being so happy for so long, only to plunge right back into the valley he’d lived in for so long.

Harry—however—wouldn’t let that happen, not now, not ever.

He could tell right away when Louis was having an off day, and he would insist they go out and do something together—a walk, a dinner, maybe even a film. He would have to literally beg a pissy Louis to even roll out of bed, but once he did things improved greatly. Yes, Louis was bitter and quiet and more snappish on days like those, but Harry took it into stride and didn’t read into it.

That’s why their relationship worked so well. Harry adjusted himself to accommodate Louis’ irregular moods.

Louis briefly thought of how much this might take out of Harry. It only made sense that Harry would one day get sick of nursing him—and Louis really wouldn’t blame him. He would get tired of having to watch Louis do everything just to make sure he didn’t hurt himself in any other kind of way. Yes, he knew that if he didn’t at least manage some of his problems, he would drain Harry and he would be left alone.

The thought of Harry leaving him was one of the hardest for Louis to think about—so he destroyed it and tucked the remnants far away from his mind.

*

Louis sighed deeply and ran a hand through his messy hair.

He’d always been shit at packing, and now he was trying to remember what he forgot—because surely there was something he missed. Times like these were the kind he needed his mum around to help him out—Louis was so terribly unorganized.