hello children! yes this is indeed a new chapter, and it is also indeed the penultimate part of this story! it's getting quite emotional to know that all of this will be over soon, but all stories have to come to an end, and this one will too. as usual thank you so much for everything, pls comment vote and fan!!!!! lots of love x
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During the last few hours of dawn, the sky outside the small square window of the hospital ward had blazed into a fierce orange, tinged with blue, cubed over with thin clouds and shiftless winds. By this time Zayn’s mind was already pleasantly numbed with beer and the simple, buzzing haze of love. Beside him, Niall had relaxed into a softly breathing form; his fingers knotted through Zayn’s, his thumbs tirelessly kneading into skin.
Zayn had had to squeeze himself into one half of the sturdy hospital bed to make way for Niall, but this once-uncomfortable and cramped position now felt cosy and familiar as the other boy lay folded neatly under the blanket beside him, their bodies fitting at every edge and space.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” Niall said, after a moment of silence.
Zayn’s free hand glided lightly along the slope of Niall’s jaw, knuckles drifting over skin. “Mhm?”
“Remember our first kiss, Zayn?” Niall said, and Zayn could hear the smile in his voice. “That stupid dare that Louis made us do?”
“It wasn’t stupid,” Zayn tilted his head to the side, feeling his mouth turn upwards a little.
“No,” Niall murmured, after a short pause, “it wasn’t.”
“Everything’s changed since then,” Zayn said, his voice softening, falling wistful. “You and me and Louis and Harry and Liam, even. We’ve all changed and nothing’s the same as it was last year.”
“It’s weird to think about,” Niall’s fingertips were resting gently on the exposed sliver of skin on Zayn’s hip, right between the hem of his shirt and pants. They drummed lightly over the bone, one finger at a time. “I can’t even remember what it was like back before this.”
“Next year all of it will be change even more,” Zayn said. “I’ll step out of rehab and – and who knows what anything will be like then?”
Change was slightly terrifying to think about. One year ago, Zayn’s body had been unmarked, clean, innocent. He’d never slashed open his own skin or taped false smiles onto his face, biting through the lies and living with a pain that was so crippling that it overwhelmed him whenever he was alone. But then again, he’d never kissed a boy either, and he hadn’t known what it was like to be in love, the way that he did now. All of that had changed frighteningly fast within a year. Where did any of it come from? In his mind, the memories seemed to just blur together and run into one another like water in a stream – all that was left to salvage was the fact that somehow, through the whole strangeness of life with all its wonders and all its wounds, the events of the past year had led him precisely here.
Were there things he wished he could change? Of course there were. There were days that Zayn would have gratefully gone back to and redone, changing the script completely and setting things straight. But there were also days he wouldn’t have traded for the world, or for anything. And wasn’t that what life was, eventually? Wasn’t it just walking through the thin, fragile line between a continuous series of mishaps and blessings, falling into one or another from time to time and then finding his way back out again onto the balance?
“Hey, what are you thinking about?” Niall nudged his face into the intersection of Zayn’s collarbone, breathing lightly.
“Nothing, I love you,” Zayn said, leaning down a little to leave a small kiss over Niall’s hairline. “What are you thinking about?”
“I love you more,” Niall smiled, his fingers still tapping on Zayn’s hip. “I’m thinking that I want you to stay here with me forever.”
Zayn smiled too, but it ached a little with unexpected sadness. It was almost painful, how much he would give to actually stay with Niall, to not leave in two days, to spend every day of the next year here, with him, instead of at the rehab centre.
“I’m going to miss you so much, Zayn,” Niall mumbled quietly into Zayn’s chest, lips pressing sporadic kisses between words. “I’m going to miss you so much every single day that it hurts thinking about it.”
Zayn used a hand to tilt Niall’s chin up, grazing his mouth with a soft kiss. “We’ll see each other. I promise. Ways, remember.”
“Yeah, but it won’t be like this,” Niall said. “I hate myself for not appreciating every single moment I’ve ever had with you, because in two days you’re not going to be here at all, and I won’t even –“
“Shh,” Zayn shut him off with another kiss, stopping the trail of frenzied panic in Niall’s mouth. “Don’t be stupid, you have literally appreciated me more than enough this whole year. You appreciated me before anyone else did, and even when no one else would. You know that. I don’t even know where I’d be without you.”
“You’re going to make me cry,” Niall huffed, but he was smiling again as he flattened his palm on Zayn’s hip, squeezing down and closing the gap between their mouths. The kiss was soft and reassuring, and Zayn tasted the I love you on his lips, felt himself mumble it back. When Niall pulled away, he sighed. “Please don’t go. Just stay here with me and don’t ever leave. I don’t want you to.”
“Mm,” Zayn’s mouth moved against Niall’s jaw distractedly, leaving pale marks in its place.
“Zaaaaaaaaayn,” Niall whined, suddenly tugging him close with both hands, gathering him in a tight hug that made Zayn’s heart skip a beat. “I’m going to miss you so much, Zayn. So fucking much.”
“I’m still here, Niall,” Zayn laughed a little, burying his face in Niall’s hair and taking a deep inhale. “Still got two days with me.”
“One and a half,” Niall’s fingers were lifting the back of Zayn’s shirt to ease small circles into the skin below, arms locked securely around his back. “That’s thirty-six hours. And then you’ll be gone for, like, ever.”
“I’ll miss you too, you know,” Zayn said, biting down a soft noise as Niall’s fingers dipped nonchalantly into the base of his spine.
“Promise you won’t fall in love with any pretty girls or pretty boys at the centre,” Niall said, nipping at Zayn’s ear.
“I promise,” Zayn squirmed away, letting out a surprised giggle as Niall’s tongue tickled his earlobe. “You promise me that you won’t let Louis give you any friendly pity blowjobs while I’m gone.”
“I’ll try my hardest,” Niall said solemnly, then laughed as Zayn smacked him on the top of his head. “Promise, Zayn, really. My body is only attuned to receive blowjobs from you.”
“No pity handjobs, either,” Zayn released a quiet hmmm as Niall’s lips travelled down his throat, landing fluidly on the arch of his collarbone. “Or pity grinding. Or pity anal sex, or, like, pity anything at all that Louis suggests, which may or may not involve some very risky kinks and various food items –“
“Shut up,” Niall laughed again, looking up for a moment to give Zayn a smile so fond and sweet that his heart nearly smashed. “I’m not going to fuck anyone else, Zayn.”
Zayn raised his eyebrows. “Your dangerous testosterone levels may beg to differ.”
“I’ll just jerk myself off,” Niall shrugged, then, as Zayn’s eyebrows remained raised he added, “vigorously.”
Zayn felt a helpless smile break out on his lips, which was almost immediately caught in another kiss by Niall, whose mouth was busying itself with leaving hickeys on every inch of spare skin on Zayn’s neck.
“I miss you,” Niall complained loudly to the slope of Zayn’s collar, “you’re not even gone and I miss you.”
“Realistically speaking,” Zayn wondered out loud, as Niall’s fingertips pressed against the small of his back, “how many times do you think two people can have sex within thirty-six hours?”
Niall pulled back to stare at him. “You’re joking.”
“Assuming that we sleep for twelve hours and spend five hours eating or doing other miscellaneous things, and that we take thirty minutes to have proper sex each time, I’d say that we can do it at least thirty-eight times before –“
“Don’t play with my fragile heart, Zayn,” Niall’s eyes were wide, but his lips were pulling into a slow smile, soft and pretty and glimmering. “I thought you said you didn’t want to have sex until after rehab.”
“Yeah,” Zayn shrugged. “But fuck it.”
“Fuck it?” Niall repeated, cheeks growing flushed like newly ripe apples.
“Exactly,” Zayn said, rolling over onto his back taking hold of Niall’s face, hands pressing into the skin as their mouths met in a light kiss. He swallowed it down with bright white light, hungrily going back for another, and another, and another, until Niall was climbing up on top of him, lips clashing carelessly, hands knotting into Zayn’s hair, kneeling on either side of his waist.
“Oh, my God,” he said, leaning down over Zayn and intertwining one of their palms gratefully, his mouth hitching over Zayn’s lips, leaving kisses that poured like rain onto him. “You are literally the best boyfriend in the entire world.”
“Mhm,” Zayn let out a small laugh, despite the fact that Niall’s kisses were growing steadily more heated, more frantic. His mind was starting to fall out of focus under Niall’s hypnotic mouth, which, while seconds ago had been light and casual, was suddenly wild and brilliant and inescapably sensual. “You only say that when I let you have sex with me.”
Niall’s lips glided down to the other boy’s neck again, his crotch stiffening over Zayn’s own. Every single kiss seemed to evoke a different bodily response, every single kiss leaving Zayn’s mind reeling under a hazy blur of amber and blue, blazing emotions that surfaced so quickly it left him speechless. He let out a ridiculously high-pitched noise as Niall’s free hand peeked under his shirt, fingertips grazing over the skin below his abdomen.
“Fuck,” he growled, kissing Niall back with the sudden desperation of an animal being let out of its cage, teeth sinking into the blonde boy’s lower lip and tugging hungrily. His body felt like it was being thrust into the heart of a bright, burning blue flame – blue like Niall’s eyes, blue like the most beautiful sky he had ever seen, blue like –
Niall’s kisses were searing like molten lava down Zayn’s throat, flaring up inside his chest, pulling up resonating waves of emotion that swept him over relentlessly, a consistent litany stuttering out Niall’s name like some kind of heated prayer. The kisses lashed like a whip on Zayn’s mouth, fast and hard and almost painful. Niall’s hands were nudging against the growing bulge beneath his pants, and Zayn let out a low whine, pushing back against him with a frenzied sort of longing, so hot and heavy that it closed up his throat and made it hard to breathe.
Somewhere behind the dizzying, continual mist of kisses, Zayn’s fingers were working at pulling Niall’s shirt buttons apart, sliding back to reveal his torso and chest – not quite a landscape of muscle or sinew – but lean, and soft. How long would it be before he could make love to this beautiful boy again? How long before he would come across anyone even half as lovely as Niall?
Once they were both sufficiently liberated of their shirts, Niall pushed Zayn to sit back up, his dick poking up in anticipation. “Let me first,” he said, when Zayn tried to stop him, biting his hand out of the way. Taking a steady hold at the base of Zayn's boner, Niall leaned down and swathed the throbbing, swollen head with his mouth. Zayn’s spine yanked itself straight almost instantly, crashing hard against the headboard as sudden spears of sharp orange arousal shot up his back. Niall’s head bobbed below him, up and down, in a motion that blurred the colours of Zayn’s vision, everything falling together until it was just the two of them.
He was moaning before he could stop himself; low, closed-throat noises that seemed to encourage Niall to choke down a little faster. The desire was thrumming through his veins, boiling into every capillary, white-hot and blazing endlessly. Zayn had to bite down on his lip to stop a whine when Niall’s tongue swirled casually around the tip, slurping noisily.
“Oh my God, are you teasing me,” the words came out in an incredulous huff as Zayn’s hand caught onto the scruff of Niall’s neck and tried to push him back down.
The sudden laugh that rumbled out of Niall’s throat was mixed with an untimely gag before he pulled his head up to look accusingly at Zayn, cheeks flushed and eyes glazed over. “Your dick is a literal choking hazard, Zayn. Stop making me laugh while I’m trying to suck on it.”
Zayn couldn’t help his own breathless laugh that followed, but the heavy heat of pleasure was leaving his brain scattered. “Shut up and just finish it, for God’s sake.”
“Don’t get bossy,” Niall rolled his eyes, but he leaned down again, letting out an involuntary mewl as both of Zayn’s hands tangled in his hair, guiding him along the length as gently as he could without exploding into pieces.
Zayn’s mouth was making noises without his permission now, a series of low and high groans that seemed to fluctuate with every stroke of Niall’s tongue. His hips were starting to buck, the muscles tightening as hot flashes of physical arousal struck through his bones like lightning, a continuous catalogue that happened to centre solely around Niall’s eyes and his hair and his skin and his mouth and him, entirely, just NiallNiallNiallNiall over and over, the throbbing starting to accelerate between his legs.
It was only two seconds later when Zayn’s body let out a violent tremor and he came ungracefully, with a damp groan caught in his throat. Niall sat back up to kiss him again before Zayn could breathe, the air in his lungs vacuumed right out. His whole body was shaking, every single molecule vibrating inside him, recovering from the shockwave of Niall’s mouth.
By the time they finally pulled apart, Zayn’s face was feverish. “Okay," he said, smiling. "Now your turn.”
“You’ve only got half the job to do now, seeing as how your moans were so hot they actually turned me on to the point of death,” Niall grinned, letting Zayn scramble over him. “Are we not going to have actual sex?”
“We haven’t got any lube,” Zayn pointed out matter-of-factly.
“You have a fully functioning mouth that can generate extortionate amounts of saliva,” Niall suggested.
“No, Niall.”
“You’re so fucking picky sometimes,” Niall rolled his eyes, laughing a little and kicking gently at Zayn’s feet. “Are you going to suck me off or not?”
“Patience, little one,” Zayn chided, leaning in over Niall’s shoulder, licking the skin lightly enough to make Niall wiggle and squirm. “Kiss me first.”
“Okay,” Niall giggled, a hundred different shades of beautiful, and he pulled Zayn’s head back up to kiss him again.
--
Harry watched earnestly as Louis approached the table with raised eyebrows.
“Harry,” he said quietly, and then paused. “Harry, for God’s sake. You didn’t have to.”
Despite the odds, a small smile picked at Harry’s mouth. “I wanted to take you out for a recovery brunch, but you weren’t exactly in the best shape to leave the house. So I just made you brunch here instead.”
The table between them was covered in plates, every type of brunch-worthy food that Harry could think of – poached eggs, curried chickpeas, sausages rolled into cinnamon-sprinkled buns, tall glasses of orange juice, small servings of fettuccine, chorizo and cheese. He’d painstakingly searched up recipes and made quick runs to the nearby grocery to cook up the gargantuan meal, all while Louis was dozing off on the couch where Harry had left him.
“You didn’t have to,” Louis said again, but his eyes were heavy-lidded as he looked back up at Harry.
Even from here, Harry could see the red rims around his eyes, sore from all the crying. “Sit down, Lou,” he said gently. “You need this.”
“Yeah,” Louis exhaled, obediently taking a seat across Harry and picking up a fork. “I do.”
“Wait,” Harry said quickly as Louis reached for the pasta. “Try the chickpeas first. They taste the nicest, and I want you to try them while they’re still warm.”
Louis let out a small, hiccupping laugh, abandoning the fettuccine and scooping the chickpeas onto his plate instead. “Am I meant to just eat them plain?”
“Shit,” Harry said suddenly, slapping a hand onto the table. “I forgot the toast. You were meant to eat those with toast – we didn’t have any rye bread, and I was going to buy some at the grocery, but I –“
“Hey, stop that,” Louis looked at Harry again with slightly narrowed eyes. “You’ve done more than enough. The chickpeas are great. They don’t need toast.”
Harry’s heart felt like a wild animal in his chest, savage with all the love he was trying to hold down. “I didn’t know if you’d like them curried, and –“
“I love them, Harry,” Louis interrupted, and then in the same breath, “I love you.”
Harry had to make a concerted effort to bite down hard on the bun to avoid saying something stupid. The glows were already pulsing behind his ribs, though, fires of colour and sound warming up the bones. It was becoming too much of a chore to not think about kissing Louis all the time.
“I appreciate this, you know, and everything,” Louis’ voice was soft as moonlight. “I appreciate everything you do and everything you are.”
The lump in Harry’s throat was growing sore, but he swallowed it down with a mouthful of sausage. “It’s all for you, Lou. Everything I do. It’s for you.”
The smile that appeared on Louis’ face then was distant and faded, like Harry was looking at him through a shard of broken glass, but still beautiful. He forked some chorizo into his mouth and chewed, talking between swallows. “You do too much for me. You always have. Why?”
“Why?” Harry repeated, almost laughing at what a ridiculous question that was. “If you’ve ever been this in love with someone, I think you’d know.”
Louis put his fork down, allowing for a few moments of silence. Then he said, “Harry. I know I do a shit job of showing it sometimes – you just need to know that it hasn’t been easy, okay? I’ve been trying to make it work all this time with the wrong person, and now I don’t even know where that leaves the two of us, but. But you know how I feel about you. You know the things I’d do for you, if I could.”
“That’s not enough, Louis,” Harry said, unexpectedly exasperated all of a sudden. How many times would he have to do this, how many times would he let Louis run him down and then just leave again? “I know now isn’t the right time to tell you this, but it’s never going to be enough that you just –“
“I love you, and you alone,” Louis interrupted him, and Harry felt all the air inside his lungs suddenly freeze and shatter like crushed ice at those words. “I’m sorry it got so complicated. You don’t deserve any of this mess, you don’t deserve anything but the truth, and that’s what it is. Plain and simple - I love you.”
Harry felt his eyelids drift shut involuntarily, and he took a minute to breathe through his nose while Louis’ words replayed relentlessly around his head. When he opened his eyes to speak, his voice was quiet, controlled. “Listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“I know I’m a very emotionally-charged person,” Harry said warily, speaking slow. “I know I’ve let my feelings get in the way of many, many things without thinking about the consequences this year, and maybe that’s ruined everything for you as well, but we can’t do this anymore, okay?”
“Okay, Harry.”
“No, listen,” Harry said, a little more fiercely than he’d initially intended. “Before we get together – if we get together – we need to work through this whole mess so that no one’s getting hurt anymore. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Harry breathed out, looking at Louis. “Doyou want to be with me, Louis? Once and for all, do you want to be in an actual, proper relationship with me?”
“Yes,” Louis was looking intently back at him. “It’s the only thing I’ve wanted for a while.”
“Okay,” Harry said again, then, “What are you going to do about Eleanor?”
“I’m leaving her,” despite his voice breaking, Louis’ reply was almost immediate, like this was something he had been mulling over all evening.
Harry’s heart was beating too hard, too fast in his chest. “You’re leaving her? For sure?”
“Yes, for sure,” Louis’ teeth grazed his trembling lower lip, getting slightly louder. “I don’t love her and I have no reason to stay with her anymore. After what she did –“
“I understand,” Harry said quickly, before Louis could start crying again. The distance between them, spanning across the entire width of the dining table, suddenly felt like a million miles more. He could hear his own heart pounding in his ears, hot with blood that was gurgling Louis’ name over and over. “When are you going to tell her?”
“I don’t know,” Louis’ voice was startling quiet and small. “I don’t know if I can even look at her without thinking about –“
“Louis –“
“It’s my fault, Harry!” Louis shouted suddenly, like the words had been brewing inside of him for too long and were finally gushing out. “It’s my fault that she aborted the baby. If I hadn’t – she never would have –“
Harry felt something prick like a knife digging into an open wound in his chest. The hurt in the room was forcing itself down his throat, and it was getting harder to maintain his composure with every passing second. He wanted to cry and break something and hug Louis so tight that it broke his bones. “It’s not your fault,” he said quietly after a moment.
“It is,” Louis’ voice was barely a whisper. “It’s my fault because she never would have aborted the baby if she wasn’t so upset that she’d walked in on us.”
“Louis,” Harry’s voice was getting painfully mechanical. “She’d been fighting with you for days before she saw us. It wasn’t going to end well either way.”
“That’s not the point,” Louis heaved out, and it physically hurt, having to see him like that, “The point is that she got rid of our child, our future.”
A jealous riposte stabbed through Harry’s chest and an irritable ache, frizzling like static, was building up in his skull. “And what if she did keep the baby, Louis?” he asked, words flinging themselves out of his mouth without thinking. “What were you planning to do about me then?”
“What?” Louis sucked in a sharp breath, staring at him.
“You were going to throw me aside, like some kind of used garbage, the way you always do. Weren’t you, Lou?” Harry accused, and the wave of pain that rose up his throat at saying those things out loud (because, fuck, they were true) was thick, heavy, sickening. “You were going to set things right with her, then come home and tell me that none of this matters, that me sitting here and crying over you means nothing, and that you have your family to think of, and that I’ll just have to find a way to kick all these feelings aside.”
“Harry, I’m –“
“And then what? A week or two later you’ll be kissing me again, or sucking me off in the room while Eleanor’s away, and when I tell you that I want to be with you, you’ll say you’re sorry or that you’re just trying to do the right thing,” Harry was speaking too fast now, all of it gashing out blindly. The words were cutting like razors in his lungs, leaving small puncture wounds that made it hard to breathe. “You’ll push me away and change your mind a thousand times, you’ll sleep with me in the dark and expect me to pretend that this secret, dirty affair could ever be enough when I love you so much that I would die for you. You’ll just fuck me over, Louis, again and again and again, and I’ll let you, because what else can I do? What else, when every single time I think I’ve lost you, you come right back to me and make everything okay, and every single time I think I’ve got you, you just run off again and leave me here alone?”
Louis’ cheeks were flaming, like someone had just punched him in the face.
The silence that followed while Harry tried to blink away the tears that he hadn’t realized were there was cold and fragile. He felt like he’d been swallowing seawater, his lungs suddenly hollow and frozen and choking with salt, while Louis stared back at him.
“Harry,” he said softly, voice coming out like orchestral violins. “Harry, I’m so, so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix shit-“
“I know it doesn’t,” Louis cut across, eyes flaring up like searchlights in the dark, burning bright and blue. “But I am sorry. I didn’t think that –“
“You never do!” Harry shouted. His heart was hammering, his whole face flushed. Why did he feel so stupid, so selfish? Why was he crying like a baby over something he had no control over, why did it hurt like this? It wasn’t supposed to. Love wasn’t supposed to leave burns on his skin and tear his heart into shreds, was it? “You never think of anything when you’re with me, Lou, and that's becoming a problem!”
“Harry, listen to me,” Louis said, unflinching. “I’m sorry and I love you, and I know it all looks like shit right now, but. But I’m going to fix this, all right? This whole mess. I’m going to fix it and I’m going to make it better. I promise.”
Harry took a deep breath, clamping down all the feelings that were burning like wildfire just below his throat. The food on the table was getting cold, but he didn’t have the appetite to finish it anymore. Fuck. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to make Louis brunch, then eat it with him, then spend the whole day talking and cuddling until Louis felt better. Not shout and stare at each other sullenly across the table.
“Lou,” he sighed after a few seconds. “Let’s not talk about that now, okay? I don’t want to – I hate it when we fight.”
“No, I –“ Louis paused and rubbed his face with his hands, leaving the skin red and raw underneath. “I’m sorry. You’ve done too much for me, and I’m being a dick to you. I just – I don’t know. Everything is all over the place right now, and God, Harry. You deserve so much better. You deserve someone who can love you, clean and simple. I’m so sorry I couldn’t give that to you. But I want to, okay?”
Harry remained quiet, picking at his food, but he was listening to every single word.
“Harry,” Louis said.
He looked up, steeling himself enough to meet those brazen blue eyes, eyes that looked like they were made of deep-sea water.
“Harry if you give me some time, if you give me the chance,” Louis said slowly, every word pelting against Harry like a bullet in the chest, “I swear to you that I’ll clean this whole mess up. And when I do – we can try again. You and me.”
Something seemed to break like porcelain in Harry’s heart. “I don’t want to wait, Louis. I just – I wish everything could be simple between us, the way they used to be.”
“They will be,” Louis said. “It’ll take time, but everything will be okay, Harry. I promise.”
Harry studied him, taking in the unfairly handsome boy sitting across the table. Louis’ hair was slightly tousled from sleep, eyes still hazy and red with dark shadows below them. “Alright,” he exhaled slowly, picking up his fork again. “Alright, Louis. I believe you.”
Louis was still looking at him. “Will you give me the chance to do it right, Haz? Because I would do anything, anything at all, to love you the way that you deserved to be loved.”
The air between them was suddenly made of glass, ready to shatter and rain down with sharp, broken shards at the slightest mistake. Harry inhaled, feeling the fragility waver inside his lungs, and kept his eyes on Louis without saying anything.
“Harry?”
“Of course I want us to try again, Louis,” Harry said, after a few moments of silence. “Of course I want you to love me the way I love you. That’s such a stupid question. You’re such a fucking idiot. Do you even know how much I love you?”
“I’d be lucky if I did,” Louis said quietly, but he was starting to smile; the slightest, almost imperceptible light was starting to awaken behind his beautiful eyes. “Fuck. I love you so much.”
The simplest prospect, the vaguest idea that the two of them could finally be in an actual open relationship, with no Eleanor and no baby, no secrets and no lies, was close to dizzying for him. It made Harry’s head spin, to think that Louis was finally opening up to this and letting it work, allowing every crushed glimmer of hope from the past year to be finally reignited at last.
“Louis,” he said softly, wary of the tensile space between them. “You don’t know how much this means to me. If you – I swear to God, if you build me up like this and then just run away again, I will literally fucking –“
“I won’t,” Louis said almost immediately, looking at him; his blue eyes with pinpricks of constellations in them.
“Because I can’t – I can’t deal with this again, okay? I can’t let you fuck me over again. Enough is enough.”
“I know, Harry,” Louis tilted his head a little to the side.
“No, you don’t,” Harry said, the words choking hazardously, cutting up his throat on the way out. “You don’t know that I’m giving everything I’ve got left to you right now, and if you – if you leave this time, I’ll have nothing left, and I’ll –“
“I won’t leave,” Louis said quietly. “I never would. I know how important this is to you, to both of us, and I’m not going to fuck it up again. I swear on my life.”
Harry’s heart felt like it was crawling out of his throat on all fours, tugging itself out and trying to run toward Louis. He could feel every capillary inside him turning over, laying exposed – and even though this wasn’t the first time that he’d split himself open for Louis, even though this wasn’t the first time that Louis had dug into the rawest, most vulnerable parts of Harry’s soul with his bare hands, he was ready to try again. He was ready for anything, really, if it meant that Louis would stay with him. And, yeah, it was unhealthy and codependent and obsessive, but Harry had never felt so sickeningly in love with anyone the way he did then; with a hurt that burned like a gunshot wound in his chest; with a mad, caustic need for Louis, so strong that he felt it running inside him, fissures that ruptured open with every movement and gushed with blood.
He’d been so occupied by his thoughts that he didn’t notice Louis had gotten up, walked over, and was now standing barely half a meter away from him.
“Louis,” the name left Harry’s mouth in a breathless exhale, leaving lacerations down his larynx. “Louis, fuck –“
The rest of his sentence was stamped out when Louis suddenly bent in and his lips collided down over Harry’s like a crashing plane, his entire body weight pressing against him in the chair, hands and knees scrabbling on top.
Harry could nearly taste his own desperation as he kissed Louis back, his chest tearing open recklessly to make way for the sudden eruption of inferno flaring through his body. All the colours in the room were smashing together, breaking like glass around them, as if they were caught in the centre of a firestorm, ripping the air from Harry’s lungs. He tugged Louis down, consumed by a sudden, hungry hysteria that blew up behind his closed lids and hammered between his ribs.
Louis was on Harry’s lap now, and the way his knees were digging into Harry’s thighs would’ve been painful if Harry hadn’t been so swallowed up in frenzied, ravening love and the need to kiss Louis so hard that it hurt.
He could feel it, everything that he’d been trying to beat down from the past couple of months, every kiss he’d had to pull himself away from, every emotion that he’d stifled for Louis’ sake, every slammed door and every unspoken word – now flooding out, slamming tirelessly back at Louis in continuous, panting kisses.
His heart was too small to contain the surge of everything he’d tried so hard to hold back, pounding in his skull, pouring through his veins, raining out in a bloody waterfall; his hands yanking Louis closer and trying to close every inch of space between them, pulling on his hair and clothes and face savagely. He felt bloated with the magnitude of everything that he wanted to shove at Louis in one go, wanted to give Louis as much as he possibly could, wanted Louis to have everything once and for all, so that he’d know how desperately, how dangerously Harry loved him.
By the time Louis pulled back to stare at him with those lambent, brilliant eyes, Harry’s lungs were struggling to take in all the oxygen he needed to recover from the primal kissing.
“I love you, Harry,” Louis said, sounding breathless and flushed. “I really, really fucking love you and I would give anything to make you understand.”
Harry didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to hold back the tears threatening to torrent out, but his body felt ready to burst from the pressure. “I love you, Louis.”
Louis’ face was still hot and flustered from the kisses, but the crinkles that suddenly appeared beside his eyes nearly melted Harry’s heart to the ground. “Do you know how happy this makes me? Being with you?”
“Believe me, I do,” Harry shifted himself on the chair so that Louis could sit more comfortably on his lap, his arms sliding around Harry’s neck and staying there safely. His heart was still stuttering helplessly from the thrill of kissing Louis. “I want it to be like this between us, always. No one else, no lying, no hiding.”
“I’m going to do everything in my power to give you that, Harry,” Louis turned Harry’s face up to graze him with his eyes.
“I love you,” Harry said again, because it seemed important to let Louis know. “I love you and I want you to be with me all the time.”
“I will,” Louis was smiling now a little, while Harry’s heart heaved in his chest. “I’ll do anything I can to stay with you, forever."
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