“You look good,” Harry said, wolf-whistling and raising his eyebrows.
“Mm. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s very…me. I mean don’t get me wrong, I like it on you, but I dunno, there’s something about it that’s a little bit…” Struggling to put his thoughts into words, Louis frowned at his reflection in the mirror and reached underneath the mess of chains hanging around his neck to touch the rosary beads underneath. “Dark? Can we at least rub off some of the eyeliner?”
He was sat on a stool in front of Harry’s bedroom mirror, biting his lip as he stared at his reflection. They were going out tonight, to a club somewhere so that Louis could have his first proper taste of alcohol without parental supervision which wasn’t vile church wine or watered-down punch, and Louis had somewhat warily agreed to let Harry loose on him and make him up, after Harry had admitted to a secret longing to see Louis dressed up as a punk. Out of a desire to make him happy, Louis had consented. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Harry had dyed a deep blue streak into his hair – “it washes out, promise, it only lasts for one night!” “It’d better!” – and insisted on making him leave it down, out of its usual quiff, because he said he loved Louis’ fringe. Apparently, he wasn’t lying; he kept absentmindedly running his fingers through it, which Louis actually liked far more than he wanted to let on. He kept feeling an odd urge to make a sort of contented purring noise that he was determined never to let past his lips.
They’d both tried to ease several different rings and studs of various sizes through Louis’ lip, hoping that the hole hadn’t closed up, but the hole was almost closed up now, definitely too small to fit anything through, so that idea had to be abandoned. Harry looked a bit wistful.
Louis was wearing a pair of reasonably innocuous black Chinos; Harry had a liking for jeans so tight that they appeared to be trying to suffocate his legs, and although Louis’ legs were shorter than Harry’s, they weren’t any skinnier, and the slight curve of his stomach meant that he’d struggled vainly to squeeze into Harry’s jeans and failed miserably. This had been extremely humiliating to him, and he’d almost tried to call off the whole thing while he locked himself in the bathroom and stared at his stomach, wondering where on earth his six-pack had wandered off to, before Harry had burst in – “Oi! You could have knocked, I could have been on the loo or something!” “So what? I’ve already seen your dick – hell, I’ve already had it in my mouth” – and dropped to his knees, kissing from his neck down to his happy trail, mouth lingering over the light dusting of hairs emerging from the top of his boxers, and assured him that he loved Louis’ belly. It took quite a while of Harry worshipping his stomach before Louis sighed and agreed to come out with him, because maybe it wasn’t that bad (and maybe he’d pretended to be a bit more upset about the whole thing than he really was, because he really did rather enjoy having Harry kissing him quite so devotedly.) He was also, after a whole lot of duress and bribery in the form of promises of sexual favours from Harry, wearing a tight black t-shirt covered in silver skulls, with little silver chains dangling from the sleeves and neckline. Harry’s expert hands had outlined his eyes with a ring of deep black, and smudged it artistically so that he would look less like a racoon and more like someone confident, someone unafraid. Someone who could stand beside Harry, who always seemed so permanently unruffled by anything anyone else ever said, and look like he was supposed to be there.
Still, Louis couldn’t help but feel like maybe it was all a bit too much.
“Don’t you dare touch it! You look perfect. What’s your shoe size, by the way? Where on earth did I put my Doc Martens?” Frowning, Harry dived back into his wardrobe and started rummaging, and Louis watched in amusement as three pairs of black converse, four shirts and a single solitary flip-flop came flying out over his head.
“Hardly perfect, I think. And are you really sure I have to change my shoes? What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” He pointed in mock indignation at his dirty white converse.
Bobbing out of the wardrobe, Harry raised an eyebrow, feigning disgust. “Please, darling – those shoes, with that shirt? Never mix black and white, you’ll look like a zebra. Unless it’s your shirt that’s white. That always works. Come on, we’re both flaming homosexuals, remember? You should already know this.”
Sighing, Louis got up and sprawled dramatically on Harry’s bed. “I know, I know. I’m a disgrace to the name of gay. I’m so ashamed! I should just crawl away and hide my shame forever and never show my face again!”
Grinning, Harry walked over to him and dropped a pair of enormous, clumpy black boots on the floor beside the bed. “That’d be an awful shame. I’m sort of partial to that face of yours, you know. Budge up a bit.” Digging Louis in the ribs, he waited for him to squirm up enough for him to squeeze onto the bed beside him, then rested his head on Louis’ chest, playing idly with the assortment of bracelets he’d slipped onto Louis’ wrist. One of them was the vibrant rubber rainbow bracelet that Louis had noticed the first time he’d ever seen Harry.
Slipping his fingers into Harry’s hair, Louis kneaded his scalp for a while, allowing thick brown curls to slip through his fingers like waves of silk, running his hands through the dark mess of hair while Harry sighed contentedly, pushing his head against Louis’ hands. Pleased by the reaction he was getting, Louis carried on massaging Harry’s head until he noticed that Harry was licking his lips and gripping rather hard on the bracelets around Louis’ wrist, gaze glued to his outlined blue eyes, and that was when he figured something out.
“Are you getting off on this?” he asked, amused.
“What, the hair thing? Sure. I’ve kind of got a thing about my hair. You can keep going if you want.” Harry paused. “Actually, I don’t care if you don’t want to; please don’t stop.”
Chuckling, Louis continued tugging gently at his hair, trying to smooth the unruly curls into some kind of neatness, although he knew all too well that he was fighting a losing battle. “Actually, I was talking about the eyeliner. And the punk clothes. And me wearing them.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s nice, that’s really nice…mm…” Wriggling in pleasure at the pressure of Louis’ hands, Harry admitted, “yeah, I guess I am. I told you how I felt about the idea, didn’t I? I like it even more than I expected to.”
“I don’t think I’m gonna make a habit of it, to be honest. It’s not really me. Maybe I’ll do it on your birthday. Or at Christmas, or anniversaries, or when you’re mad at me. But I’m serious, this really does it for you?”
Blushing, Harry nodded. “What, did you think I wanted you to dress up just for the fun of it?”
“I don’t know, I guess I kind of thought…maybe you were going to make fun of me.”
Shocked, Harry sat bolt upright; Louis hastily had to disentangle his fingers to avoid ripping half his hair out. “What?”
Uncomfortable, Louis squirmed and looked away.
Catching his chin, Harry turned his head to look him in the eye. “You thought I was going to laugh at you?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Why would I do that? Why would I ever laugh at you, especially for dressing the same way I do every day?”
“Because I look stupid!” Louis cried out in frustration, tugging at the rosary beads around his neck. “Look!” Hauling Harry to his feet, he pulled him over to the wardrobe, where there was a full-length mirror on the inside of the door, and pointed at their reflections, standing hand in hand, Louis’ face upset, Harry’s confused. With them standing next to each other, the difference between them was even more apparent. In a plain black shirt and jeans, wearing a single thick chain around his neck and plenty more on his wrists, tattoos bright and visible against his pale arms, underneath of his hair vibrant purple and feet bare, Harry looked completely the part of a punk. It wasn’t just in the clothes, but the confidence with which he stood staring back at himself, the way he exuded calm self-assurance and was so clearly at ease with himself. Beside him, Louis was squirming with embarrassment, feeling like he was just playing at it – the bright royal blue streak in his hair looked too obvious, like he was screaming ‘LOOK AT ME!’ at the top of his lungs. There were too many necklaces around his neck, looking ridiculous in contrast with the crucifix necklace, and the bracelets on his wrists kept sliding oddly over each other; he had to constantly hitch them up to stop them from falling off, since his significantly smaller hands weren’t large enough to keep them in place like Harry’s were. Harry’s Chinos were baggy around the ankles where he’d had to roll them up because he was too short. His borrowed shirt strained slightly over the curve of his stomach. Red-faced and flustered, he looked ridiculous. “Look at me! I look pathetic.” He turned miserably away from his reflection.
Harry’s arm slipped around his waist and he cuddled him, lips brushing against his collarbones. “Okay,” he said softly. “You want me to tell you something? I think you look sexy. No word of a lie, this really – seeing you like this, it’s so hot, it turns me on like you wouldn’t believe. Like – damnit, Louis, what I wouldn’t give to have you bend me over right now and –” Cutting himself off, he took several deep breaths. “Well, you get the gist of it. But I’m sorry. I’m as bad as your mother, trying to make you like me, when you’re clearly not comfortable like this, and that’s not right. I’m not going to force you into doing something that makes you unhappy. I’ll go and get the make-up remover. Don’t get me wrong, I think you look gorgeous, but if you don’t like it, then that’s okay.”
Louis stared at him. “You’re not angry?”
Harry stared back. “Good grief,” he said softly, “you never listen to a word I say, do you? Of course I’m not angry with you! This was just a kind of experiment, to see how you felt about it. I wasn’t sure how much you wanted to be like me. Now I know. You’re you.” He kissed Louis’ cheek with what seemed surprisingly akin to relief. “I was just kind of worried. I wasn’t sure if you were just…I don’t know, sort of imitating me, because you thought that was going to make you happy, and confident, and all that. I don’t want you to have to copy anyone. I want you to be you.”
“Yeah, but when you think about it, all everyone does is copy. Look around you. Everything everyone does is something they’ve picked up off someone else – hairstyles, musical taste, favourite food, TV shows, everything you like is something that somebody else liked first. We’re all a world of copies. Individuality is just a different combination of imitations of other people.”
Grinning, Harry said, “Wow. Now look who’s coming out with all the deep philosophical speeches. I think you just blew my whiteboard theory from here to the end of next week.” He rested his head on Louis’ shoulder. “I think you’re the most individual copy I’ve ever met,” he whispered, “if it’s any consolation.”
Louis answered him by turning around, catching his face and kissing him. Surprised, Harry grabbed him by the waist and pulled him closer, responding excitedly to the enthusiasm behind the kiss, and before all too long fingers were in hair and breaths were becoming hasty and laboured, and Louis was backing towards the bed, running his hands through Harry’s hair and down his back while Harry kissed him almost desperately, his hands hard enough on Louis’ hips to leave bruises.
“Maybe I won’t take off the eyeliner just yet,” Louis whispered, and he pulled Harry’s shirt over his head.
~*~
“You twats are late!” Niall yelled, waving at them from across the street.
Grinning, Harry pulled Louis across the road by the hand, and they jogged over to where the blond and Zayn stood side by side. Zayn was looking pointedly at his wrist, where his watch would have been if he’d been wearing one; Niall, whilst waving enthusiastically with one hand, was also feigning sleep with his cheek propped up against his other hand, pretending to snore. His eyes had drooped closed, and Harry really wanted to come up really close to him so that when he opened his eyes they would be nose to nose and he’d scare the blond out of his wits, but he thought maybe Louis might get a bit jealous. He’d admitted to being the jealous type.
“Yeah, whatever. Sorry,” he said unapologetically, “we had some last-minute, uh, things to sort out.” Namely washing most of the blue dye out of Louis’ hair and changing their clothes, since they’d crumpled up all the ones they’d been wearing. Louis had found a pair of beige trousers and a thick knitted sweater with an assortment of colours running through the threads, and with his hair still not quite dry, falling all floppy and shining over his forehead, dirty converse on his feet, he looked so happy that it made Harry’s heart leap. Seeing Louis finally free, able to be himself after so long of pretending to the world and to himself that he was someone else – he was so happy that he was glowing.
Then again, it could have been the colossal orgasm he’d had less than half an hour ago. Harry expected that he looked similarly blissful.
Niall walked up to them, raised an eyebrow, then buried his nose in Harry’s hair and inhaled deeply. He snorted, then sniffed Louis’ shoulder, making the two of them exchange bemused looks at being smelt, then Niall announced, “Yeah, just as I thought. It’s not hard to tell why you two are late. You reek of sex.”
Louis blushed, and Harry grinned.
“That’s as may be, but you smell like Zayn. Something you want to tell me, huh?”
Feigning nonchalance, Niall said, “What’s a bit of cuddling between mates? Especially mates who’ve dated before.”
“And might be about to start again?” Harry teased.
“Dunno. Maybe. We’ll see how it goes. Now, lovely as it is standing here talking about everyone’s love lives like a bunch of girls, we’ve got things to do, places to be. It’s time to par-tay, am I right or am I right?
“Par-tay?” Louis asked with a smirk.
“Par-tay. Especial emphasis on the tay, or it doesn’t work.” Ruffling Louis’ freshly washed hair, Niall hollered “let’s paint the town red, my homosexual chums! If the par-tay don’t start til we get in, then the whole town’s sorely lacking in action, so let’s go and perform a public service and start it!” Then he skipped off, singing Ke$ha under his breath, surprisingly tunefully.
“Is he drunk already?” Louis asked with amusement.
Zayn snorted. “Sadly not. At least that way we could excuse him. No, he’s just a prick. Niall, come back, you knob!” he yelled, “Louis’ mate isn’t here yet!”
Stopping in his tracks, Niall gave a great sigh of disappointment and shuffled back to them, hands stuffed in his pockets, pouting.
“Everyone’s late today,” he said sadly.
As if in response, a voice called from across the street, “Sorry I’m late!”
“Liam!” Louis whooped, tearing himself away from Harry’s side to run at his friend.
Liam’s shaved hair was growing back into a cute little fuzz on top of his head. He was wearing a white shirt, faded jeans, ASDA trainers and a droopy grey thing that looked suspiciously like some kind of cardigan, but somehow he was making it work. He had a crucifix necklace hanging around his neck not dissimilar to the one that Louis used to wear, which made a slight pang of longing punch Louis squarely in the middle of the chest before he disregarded it and threw his arms around Liam. Breathing in the familiar smell of Liam’s laundry detergent, the brand of Lynx he’d been wearing since he was about twelve, and a smell that Louis couldn’t quite place but had always sort of reminded him of old teddy bears, Louis thumped Liam on the back and revelled in having a little piece of his old life back that was constant and could be relied upon – and clearly didn’t hate him. It was more relieving than he’d ever realized it would be when he’d called Liam and begged him to come out with them tonight. Louis was still sort of finding his niche within Harry’s group, although they were making him about as welcome as they possibly could, and it was nice not to be the only one who was still a little unsure of himself.
“Whoa, get a room, lads,” Niall commented with a wolf-whistle.
“Getting kind of jealous over here, Lou,” Harry said; he was joking, but there was a slight edge to his voice which suggested that perhaps he was maybe a little bit serious as well, so Louis manoeuvred out of the hug and slipped his hand back into Harry’s, interlocking their fingers and realizing only as he did it that he’d missed the contact. He felt a strange tightness in his chest unravelling as Harry’s thumb skittered over the back of his hand, brushing his knuckles, and he realized that he’d actually been a bit worried that Liam was only coming here to yell at him, though he’d seemed pretty amicable on the phone. The only person he’d been angry with that Louis could tell was Jay – and it was weird enough seeing Liam angry in the first place, when he was usually so calm and unruffled.
Taking advantage of Liam’s position, standing a little apart from the rest of the group, Niall darted around the back of him, eyeing his arse, and didn’t seem entirely disappointed. He cast a couple of glances between Louis’ backside and Liam’s, like he was comparing, and nodded contemplatively. Then he stood on his toes to look into Liam’s eyes, walked all around him to examine him from every angle, and stepped back, looking pretty pleased with what he saw.
“He’s pretty cute too,” he said, nodding his head at Liam. “Honestly, Harry, where do you find them? I am supposed to be straight, you know, but there’s too much fine ass around here for me to think straight. In more ways than one,” he chuckled.
Unfazed by the fact that he and Niall had only just set eyes upon each other and already the blond was coming on to him, Liam grinned at him and made a show of eyeing him up and down as if he were having similar thoughts, although he did it goofily enough to show that he really was only joking, and then he waved at Harry, stuck his tongue out at Zayn, and thumped Louis on the back with great enthusiasm.
“What’s your name, stranger?” Niall drawled in a pseudo American accent, dragging out every word with an over-exaggerated Texan twang. Louis felt incredibly tempted to smell his breath and see if Zayn was wrong and he was, in fact, drunk, although he suspected that he could have been flirting. If so, he had a very odd definition of flirting.
“Uh…Liam?” Liam said bemusedly, like he wasn’t quite sure it was the right answer. Louis could sympathise. Niall kind of had that effect on people.
“Excellent,” Niall said briskly, dropping the accent immediately as if he’d suddenly gotten bored of it – which, in all fairness, he probably had. “Well, now we’ve all been introduced, shall we get this par-tay on the road?”
Whistling cheerfully to himself, Niall skipped away from them, apparently either completely unaware of the oddity of the sight of a blond punk boy galloping down the street at top speed, or perhaps he just didn’t care, which was far more likely. Nonplussed, Liam stared after him, running a hand over the bristles of his hair, and asked, “Is he, um. Is he already drunk?”
“No, he’s just a prick,” Zayn and Louis said in unison, and grinned at each other.
They all started walking, following after Niall in companionable silence. Louis was tucked comfortably underneath one of Harry’s long, ink-inscribed arms, his tanned, slender fingers linked with Harry’s elegant bony white ones and dangling down over his shoulder, resting against his chest. Zayn was quiet, maybe a little shy due to the new addition to their group, lagging slightly behind with his brown-eyed gaze glued to the ground like he’d lost something and was looking for it, hands stuck in his pockets. Up ahead of them, Niall was his usual rambunctious self, all blond hair and loud voice, carelessly stumbling forwards and alternately laughing and swearing every time he tripped in his slightly too-big boots. Liam, not quite at ease, ambling halfway between where Niall had ventured forwards and where Harry and Louis leisurely followed. They didn’t quite fit together properly yet, the five of them. The dynamics of the group were too unevenly split; Harry and his friends had a lazy, easy kind of friendship, brought about by binds forged in years of being stauch schoolfriends, reinforced by the way they had stuck resolutely by him when the rest of his associates had turned on him. Louis, as Harry’s friend - then boyfriend - had been welcomed into their little group, since it had been decided that Harry was an excellent judge of character and if he believed that Louis was all right, then he must be okay. Having made his acquaintance several times before, and in various stages of drunkenness, Zayn and Niall were fairly at ease with him now.
The problem was trying to find Liam a niche in the group. Liam and Louis had been friends since nursery school and perhaps even before; several of Louis’ fuzziest memories from childhood had Liam in tow, and the kind of simple coexistence they had, a relationship that had been so long in the making that he couldn’t even imagine ever struggling to just be with Liam. They’d been effortless for so long that their friendship was easier than ABC. He’d known Liam longer than he’d known his alphabet.
His relationship with Harry, shortlived as it may have been, was just as…effortless was the wrong word; there had been too many bumps in the road to describe it as such. But Harry knew him as well, if not better than Liam did. He certainly knew him more intimately. However, this was perhaps more a hindrance than a help. While he and Harry we snuggled cosily up together, every bit the happy couple, they were distracted from the rest of the group and couldn’t help to break the ice.
Still, Zayn, though shy at first and wary of new people, was not inherently unfriendly, and Niall was like an excitable, lollopy Labrador, eager to both love and be loved. As for Harry, he was eager to prove that he could be a part of Louis’ life, that he belonged there (for a boy who so stubbornly refused to blend in, it was surprising how desperate he was just to belong) and as far as he was concerned, befriending as many of Louis’ friends as would consent to meeting him was all part of that. So far, he and Liam had been getting on like a house on fire. For Liam and Louis, that fire had been burning for so long that it had burned itself out to comfortable ashes; for Liam and Harry, it was just kindling into a flame.
“So where are we going?” Louis asked softly.
“Well, you know Niall’s a bit of a par-tay animal, as he so eloquently expressed,” said Harry with a grin, “so I thought we’d go clubbing. Nothing wild,” he promised when Louis looked at him in alarm, “I’ve been going since I was fourteen, it’s all very tame. There’re bouncers in every corner keeping an eye on things - and they even beep the swear words out of the songs.” Then he gave Louis a cocky grin that he’d have wanted to slap off anyone else’s face, but that was stupidly cute and goofy on Harry’s face. His lip piercing and his angel bites glinted in the sunset-orange glow of the street lamps.
“Will there be dancing? I’m a bit of a crap dancer.”
“Don’t worry, so am I. I just sort of leap around and flip my hair everywhere and look like a prat, and nobody dares laugh, because I’m dead intimidating, and all that.”
He’d been speaking relatively quietly, but Niall still heard him and snorted loudly.
“We don’t have to dance if you don’t want. We can just have a few drinks and watch Niall make a dick of himself.”
“Oi!”
“He will make a dick of himself,” Harry assured him. “It’s a given.”
“I can hear every word you’re saying!”
“Which is exactly why I’m saying it. Anyway. I think you’ll have fun, Lou. It’s not like a rave-up, or anything like that. Not that I wouldn’t love to throw you around in a mosh pit and get you all sweaty and hot…” Cutting himself off, Harry grinned sheepishly, licking his flushed pink lips. “You get the idea. But I think perhaps we’ll save that for another time. My birthday’s coming up in a couple of months.” Patting Louis playfully on the arse, he slipped his arm from around his shoulders and jogged off to join Niall.
Louis had never actually been clubbing before. Why should he have? He had been very much the stay-at-home type, studying to try and keep his parents happy, playing with his sisters, helping around the house. Now, he didn’t have to do any of those things, and despite the thrills that freedom sent jolting down his spine, he thought maybe he would come to miss them. Maybe he did a tiny bit already.
But. He was Harry’s boyfriend now. Harry wasn’t cool; he had never been cool, and he never would be cool. Harry was a goofy, beautiful dork, and he wasn’t at all ashamed to show it. What Harry was, was confident, outwardly at least. He was a partygoer. He enjoyed quiet nights in with Louis and DVDs and a large packet of popcorn, but he also liked to go out, to dance even though he was openly abysmal at it and the music being played was for hyped up teenyboppers, not his scene at all. Louis didn’t want to tie him down, and he was curious. He’d seen calm Harry, happy Harry, angry Harry, miserable Harry, nervous Harry, sleeping Harry, vulnerable Harry, cocky Harry, groaning mid-orgasm Harry, playful, flirtatious Harry - but he hadn’t yet seen Harry either drunk or on the dance-floor of a club, and he wanted to know every aspect of Harry’s being, every little nuance of him, from the bits everybody saw to the bits that only he and Harry would ever see, and he wanted to know that Harry trusted him implicitly enough to not only let Louis circumvent his walls, but to understand why he’d erected them in the first place. To show Louis his cracks and believe beyond all shadow of a doubt that Louis would never exploit the weaknesses against him. Louis was confident that Harry understood him. Maybe he didn’t completely know him yet. They hadn’t been together long enough for that. But Harry understood the inner workings of Louis’ mind frighteningly well, could probably have predicted his actions in a hundred different scenarios, whereas Harry was still an unpredictable rogue element, like a character in a murder mystery novel that had begun writing itself - and Louis wanted to know him well enough to figure out the spoilers.
He was rather nervous at the thought of whether he’d even be allowed in, though. Now that they were queuing up, there was plenty of time to examine all of the other people trying to get into the club, and to Louis’ dismay, they all seemed to be far cooler than him. Aside from Harry’s little group of excitable punk misfits, there were several groups of girls in tight skirts with elaborate hairstyles, raising their finely plucked eyebrows at everyone they set eyes upon. There was a group of guys with tall hair and scary biceps who kept punching each other and trying to impress the girls, who if anything looked even less impressed by the second as the display went on. It was rather like watching animals fight to win a mate, except every single girl looked like the first guy to approach her after bashing all his mates into submission would end up with a stiletto heel embedded in his eyeball. There were quite a few couples; girls snuggling up to their boyfriends, giggling, chewing gum, flirting like it was a game of table tennis and they were rapidly exchanging banter back and forth like ping pong balls. Louis saw a lesbian couple too, hand in hand with one girl resting her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder in a position he recognized very well, and he found it comforting that he and Harry wouldn’t be the only same-sex couple in the room.
“Harry, they’re never gonna let me in,” he whispered. The rosary beads around his neck felt chunky and heavy, a screaming statement to the world about how devoutly religious he was – something which wouldn’t usually have bothered him; he was proud of his faith, but he hated the thought of those pouty girls with their flicky hair sneering at him over it, and he hated even more the thought that he might get laughed at and turned away because let’s face it; this wasn’t exactly a hubbub of religious activity. He didn’t think any of his peers from school would have been seen dead here.
Harry smiled encouragingly at him. “Sure they will. Just follow my lead.”
The queue surged forwards all of a sudden; Louis automatically shrank back but Harry seized his wrist and tugged him forward, grip firm but reassuring, keeping him close, and then they rushed up to the doorway and stopped dead in front of an enormous bouncer who was so tall that he even towered over lanky Harry, whose nose was just about level with the man’s barrel chest. Unfazed, Harry tilted his head up, cocking it slightly to the left, and he and the bouncer scrutinized each other for a while. Harry was smirking all over his face, and Louis half expected him to get a punch in the face for the sheer insolence of his expression.
Then, Harry gave the man a saucy little wink, and Louis was one hundred percent sure that he was about to get punched. He prepared to yank Harry out of the way, which was far likelier to work that trying to block the blow, seeing as he felt even smaller than usual next to this giant man.
To Louis’ utter shock, the man cracked a smile which grew into a full-blown grin, like he’d only been intending to twitch his lips but Harry’s giddy mood was infectious somehow. Shaking his head, the man rolled his eyes at Harry as if they were friends and he was used to his stupidity, and then he waved them both through, still grinning broadly.
Louis didn’t have time to be shocked; Harry hauled him inside and all of a sudden he was in his first real club.
It was sort of like the movies, but less daunting than he’d imagined. The music was pretty loud, so that it was difficult to overhear people’s conversations or even hear very well what people were saying who were stood quite close to you, but it wasn’t loud enough to hurt his ears. Nobody was drunk or crying yet. He didn’t think anyone was high, either. And now that he was actually inside and not so terrified that he was going to disgrace both Harry and himself by being denied access to a club that Harry had been getting into with no trouble since he was fourteen, Louis felt a lot less out of place. It didn’t take him long to realize that he had nothing to worry about on the front of being cooler than those morons who had been jostling each other outside, at least.
Over by the bar, Niall was waving enthusiastically at them, almost knocking the drink out of the hand of a girl standing beside him who had a cute hairstyle and glasses too big for her face. She gave him a dirty look, did a double take, and then started gawping at him, either because she fancied him or because he was definitely an interesting sight, dressed head to toe in black and wearing a loose tank top that kept falling down to show his pentagram tattoo, and leaping up and down like an overexcited six year old. They headed over to him, and then Niall started talking, words bursting out of his mouth so quickly that Louis would have struggled to hear them even without the music.
“Right, what’s your poison, lads? I’m buying the first round.”
“Vodka and orange,” Zayn said boredly, pulling his phone out of his pocket, “and don’t skimp on the orange.”
“You say that like I’m behind the bar. Liam?”
“Uh, I’ll have a WKD?” Liam said tentatively.
“Sure thing. Harry? Lou?”
Louis blinked. He’d always thought the whole drinking discussion had been purely hypothetical. “But…you’re all underage.”
Niall gave him an over-exaggerated wink. “Sure, but you aren’t.”
“Don’t worry,” Harry told him, “we’ve been coming here since we were fourteen, and we’ve been drinking here since the same age. When we first started coming, they were too scared to challenge us. Now they know us too well and there’s no point in them stopping us when we’ve bought so many drinks from here. It’s not as if you’re underage.” To Niall, he said, “I’ll have the usual, just get me a large one. Lou can share mine. You’ll like it,” he promised, “it’s blue. It tastes like raspberries.”
“Uh, okay,” Louis said cautiously.
Niall started hollering at the barman and he turned around, spotted them, and grinned so hard that Louis was afraid he might rip the muscles of his face. He walked over to them, beaming, and then leaned over the bar and looked right into Harry’s eyes, forearms resting on the polished wood. He was narrow all over, from his waist to his shoulders, except for his enormous smile, looking weirdly intense on his thin face. He looked Harry up and down, his lips closed over his teeth in a smirk, and then he licked those thin lips and that was when Louis decided that there were few people in the world he’d rather punch in the face than this guy.
“Harry!” yelled the guy.
“Tom!” Harry yelled back, enthusiastic and friendly as he always was when people weren’t hurling abuse at him. It was annoying. Louis wanted him to be surly and sullen; he’d seen that side to Harry before and it would’ve been nice to see it make a reappearance.
“Haven’t seen you in a while. I thought maybe you were too badass for this joint now – I was quite glad, actually, to think that I wouldn’t have your freaky face full of safety-pins scaring off all the punters.” Tom reached out and teasingly tapped Harry’s lip ring, and who the hell gave him permission to touch Harry’s mouth? Louis drew in a little closer to Harry’s side.
“Nah, I considered not coming back, thought maybe I’d had enough retina damage from staring at your ugly mug, but here I am.” Harry smacked him on the arm in a way which was so blatantly platonic Louis almost laughed out loud; he wanted to laugh even more when he saw the barman’s face fall.
“Who’re your mates?” Tom asked as he started pouring out their drinks, his smile having dimmed slightly, and he looked at where Louis was squashed up against Harry’s arm even though there was plenty of space around the bar, and his eyes narrowed sharply to match the rest of him.
He slammed Zayn, Liam and Niall’s glasses down in front of them a little too hard, alcohol sloshing wildly around and some of it slopping onto the bar. Liam flinched, but Zayn and Niall accepted their drinks in silence and started guzzling.
“Oh, that’s Liam,” answered Harry, pointing at Liam, who was staring apprehensively at his drink like he was worried he might fall in and drown in it. Then Harry looped one of his lanky arms around Louis’ shoulders and squeezed, all the tension easing out of Louis in one softly exhaled breath. “This is my boyfriend, Louis.”
“Oh.” Tom’s already narrow eyes became slits, as if his face was a serial killer’s mask with tiny holes slashed into them so he could see. “Got yourself a new man, then? ID, please,” he said brusquely, holding Harry and Louis’ drink away from them.
In utter disbelief, Harry said, “What? Since when did you ever ask any of my mates for ID?”
The guy shrugged. “Sorry. They’ve really clamped down on the rules, now. I gotta ask, more than my job’s worth not to. I’ve been serving you guys too long for it to matter, but for this guy I’d be putting my neck on the line. ID.” He gave Louis an arch look, like he was expecting him to be embarrassed and have to turn away.
Unluckily for him, Louis had been determined not to be caught out like that tonight. He slipped his ID out of his pocket and flashed it smugly in Tom’s face.
Scowling, the barman slammed his drink down so hard on the counter that more than half its contents spilled, then stalked away from them without so much as a goodbye and started violently polishing the beer taps on the other side of the bar. Silently celebrating his mini victory, Louis turned his back on the man and stood on his toes to be closer to Harry’s height, only to find that Harry was looking down at him with an amused expression.
“Alright?”
“Fine,” Louis said, and he reached for the drink and took his first sip of non-communion alcohol. It was pleasantly fizzy, sending bubbles up his nose, and very fruity, and he licked the droplets off his lips and decided that Harry was right; he did like it. He drank a little more.
“It’s just I could’ve sworn you were getting a bit jealous, there.”
“Me? Nah.”
“Okay, whatever you say,” Harry murmured. He dipped his head and kissed Louis softly on the lips, then sighed softly. “You taste good. Better than usual, I mean. It’s good stuff, right? You like it?”
“Oh, I do,” Louis said, before placing the glass back on the bar and wrapping his arms around Harry’s neck. “I really do.” He could feel Tom’s eyes on his back, knew he was shamelessly showing off, and that he oughtn’t to have been; whatever happened to forsaking jealousy? Still, he figured that he might get let off, seeing as the rule generally covered not coveting other people’s possessions, and although Louis was jealous of seeing other people flirt with Harry, he had no one to be jealous of for havingHarry. That pleasure was all his.
~*~
After another few of those blue drinks, Louis’ head was buzzing pleasantly. He felt loose and sort of light, not enough to have lost control of himself, but enough to relax him. Beside him, Harry was pretty tipsy himself, and Louis quite liked that; he enjoyed the way Harry kept snuggling up to him, kissing his neck, nuzzling him with his purple-tinted hair, making a fuss of him. Apparently, Harry was a cuddly drunk. Zayn seemed to be torn between being a moody, depressed drunk and a stupidly cheerful one; every so often he’d start cracking dirty jokes and roaring with laughter before suddenly plunging into a morose, gloomy silence, staring into the depths of his drink like he was trying to look into its soul. Niall, of course, was a bouncy, silly drunk, rushing around kissing strangers on the cheeks and pinching people’s bums and then running away before they could catch him, giggling all the time. He’d pinched Louis’ bum more than once that night, laughing delightedly at how ‘firm and round’ it supposedly was, while Louis squawked fondly at him and Harry swatted his hands away with a growl of “mine”. Louis liked the sound of that, liked being Harry’s. Liam was quiet, probably to avoid disgracing himself, but the huge grin on his face suggested that he was a happy drunk, too. As for Louis, he wasn’t sure what kind of drunk he was, but he appeared to be pretty handsy; he couldn’t seem to stop touching Harry constantly, without even pretending to have an excuse. Every time he spotted the barman’s face when he saw Louis touching Harry, he felt tempted to touch him even more.
But then Tom came barging over and started talking to Harry, commandeering his attention, and Louis was a bit drunk and his tongue was too heavy to spout any of his usual barbed witticisms, too clumsy to be sharp. He was hanging all over Harry, and Harry absentmindedly cuddled him in return, rubbing his back through his shirt, squeezing his waist, but he kept letting out a beautiful, giddy laugh every time Tom said anything mildly funny, the kind of unrestrained laughter which Louis hadn’t heard from him very often but made his heart stop and then start convulsing in his chest. The kind of laugh he wanted to provoke. His jealousy made him angry, and shivery, and then great waves of heat kept crashing over him like tsunami tides of boiling water, until he stopped caring about being polite, stopped caring about the fact that he was drunk and irrational, just stopped caring. The underneath of Harry’s fringe was that rich purple that glinted in the light. His jaw was a smooth curve. His smile was so big and beautiful and unrestrained, and every time he threw his head back and laughed and exposed the milky column of his neck, Louis wanted to suck deep violet marks into the skin so that it matched his hair. And Tom was looking at Harry like he wanted to throw him up against a wall and ravage him, and run his bony fingers all over Harry’s body and inside his clothes and kiss him with his thin lips, and Louis knew that he would never be able to because that was his job, except he had the vague idea that it would probably be Harry doing the throwing. He was too small to manhandle Harry, unless Harry felt like being very nice and decided to let him. Tom was tall and spindly but he looked strong, and he was older, at least twenty, and he was giving Harry hungry eyes and smirking and Harry was giggling again at one of his jokes, and Louis hated it and he wanted Harry all to himself and that was when he realized that actually, he was an angry drunk after all.
He disregarded whatever crap Tom was spewing, talking loudly right over it like taping over a cassette, and interrupted loudly, “Hey, Harry, let’s go dance.”
Harry turned to him in surprise. “Sorry, babe, what was that?”
“You. Me. Dance. Now.”
“Uh, okay. Sure,” Harry agreed easily. He slipped his arm around Louis’ waist and they walked off onto the dance floor without even saying goodbye to Tom. Louis was so smug he felt like the proverbial kitten that got the cream – he even thought he might purr.
“I really can’t dance, you know,” Harry told him as they slipped past a couple of the snooty girls from before, leaping madly around with their high heels dangling from their hands, shrieking with manic laughter, lipstick smeared everywhere, clearly drunk out of their minds. They managed to find a clear spot on the dance floor and stood still for a moment. Louis thought he should probably start dancing, but, he wondered, how on earth do you dance? He didn’t have much clue sober and he had even less of a clue drunk, and the last time he’d danced (other than leaping around doing embarrassing air-guitar solos in his bedroom by himself) would have been at a school disco when he was nine. The disco where he’d fallen over trying to do the Cha Cha Slide and cried, and immediately sworn off dancing for the rest of his life.
“S’allright, neither can I,” he said, “I just wanted you away from that sleazebag. Can’t stand him. Dick.” He wasn’t making much sense. Any attempts at eloquence had deserted him; he felt that coherence was probably a better thing to aim for now. Even that was pretty far from his reach.
“What, Tom?”
Louis growled. “Yeah. Smarmy git.”
Stifling a laugh, Harry said, “You are jealous.”
“’M not.”
“You are, aren’t you?”
“No,” Louis protested, and then he hid his face in Harry’s chest, embarrassed.
Harry laughed into his hair. “Bless. You have absolutely nothing to worry about, Lou. There’s only one guy I’m interested in, and I’m stood right here talking to him. Tom’s not my type at all. He’s way too easy. I like a challenge. Like you.”
“But he’s older. He makes you laugh, and he’s taller than I am. And he’s got a job and probably a car,” Louis mumbled into Harry’s chest.
“I like that you’re short. It means I can do this.” Harry pressed his cheek against the top of Louis’ head. “And you make me laugh too, and who cares that you don’t have a job? It means you can spend more time with me. And you’re older than me, too. I love you. And don’t get me wrong, you’re seriously cute when you’re jealous, but I don’t want to see you all worked up, okay? Tom’s been trying to get into my pants since I was fourteen, and he hasn’t managed it yet, and he never will, right? Now, are we gonna dance?”
Louis had to admit to being a bit apprehensive about that idea even though he’d suggested it, but Harry instantly put him at ease by being every bit as terrible at dancing as he’d promised. The first song they danced to was some cheesy plastic bubblegum pop-song, and Harry spent the first half of the song leaping around and the second bent double, wheezing breathlessly. Then, he began treating Louis to a series of the most flamboyant dance moves that he’d ever seen; he was pretty sure that the dance move Harry referred to as ‘pat the dog, screw the lightbulb’ was the single gayest thing he’d ever seen Harry do (excluding sucking Louis’ dick). By the time the fifth or sixth song had rolled around and Harry had moved onto the dance of the devil, otherwise known as the Cha Cha Slide (Louis had sworn enmity with that dance forever after the incident when he was nine) despite the fact that the song playing in the background was not anything resembling the Cha Cha Slide. In fact, it was a slow, mushy love song that they should have been swaying slowly around to, whereas Harry was muttering under his breath, “one hop this time, take it back now y’all!” as if saying it out loud was a necessity in order to be able to perform the dance, and shuffling around with an enormous grin over his face, stumbling over his big feet. Louis couldn’t help but laugh at him and even ended up doing his own very careful rendition of the dance, amazed to find that this time he didn’t actually fall over.
No doubt they looked ridiculous; a drunken, lanky punk with his drunken Christian boyfriend, falling around on the dance floor and laughing at each other, two idiots in love who had forgotten that discrimination even existed. From the bar, Liam fondly watched them, enjoying the sight of Louis being so carefree and unrestrainedly happy. For as long as he could remember, he’d watched his friend making himself tense and miserable trying to keep his family happy – now that his own happiness was Louis’ primary concern, he was like a new person. No tension. No worry. Just giggles and lazy kisses between him and Harry as they swayed stupidly around to a slow song, moving out of time with the music. It was pleasant for Liam to see.
Louis was enjoying himself, having truly loosened up and feeling delightfully relaxed. Now, Harry was laughing that deep, beautiful laugh at him, because of him, and Louis’ hands kept wandering all over Harry’s body and sometimes Harry would playfully slap him away, scolding him about public decency, whereas other times he’d let Louis’ fingers slide up inside his shirt or hook in his belt loops or even, at one point, slide right inside his jeans, although it was a tight squeeze. They were drunk and silly and in love and it reminded Louis of that quote in a movie they’d watched together not long ago, something about being infinite, except he was painfully aware that they weren’t infinite and people change and decay and turn their backs on you, and people die young and your grandparents don’t live forever and most things that feel good – drugs, alcohol, junk food – are bad for you and everyone gets damaged by the things that shouldn’t ruin you at all, like love. And he and Harry were just two more fragile human beings clinging to the skin of a world that seemed so huge but really wasn’t that large at all, and in the grand scheme of things they were little more than ants – but to an ant, its own little world is everything that matters, just as to him, Harry was all that mattered right now. Neither of them were infinite, but right at this moment, sweaty and inebriated, warm bodies entwined together, Harry breathing raspberry-scented air into his face and Louis’ hands on the small of Harry’s back, thumbs stroking his spine, this was their infinity. And it couldn’t go on forever, but if it did, maybe he wouldn’t be quite so inclined to appreciate it.
Someone stumbled and fell, colliding with them, shattering Louis’ little bubble – and his short-lived infinity – far sooner than he would have liked. Angry at being disrupted, he turned to give them a mouthful of abuse that, sober, he would have smothered and exchanged for a sarcastic comment, and drunk he was only too willing to express, only to find that whoever had bumped into him was far shorter than he’d expected. Frowning, he looked down.
She was a girl – quite young, too, although she’d plastered herself in heavy make-up to try and disguise that fact. Her long brown hair had been backcombed into a wild, frizzy mane and covered in hairspray to hold it in place, so it didn’t shift even slightly when she moved her head. It was hot in the room, so her mascara had run. He thought she might have been crying, too. Wearing a white blouse with puffy sleeves and frills all down the front like sea foam, and a skirt so short and tight that it might as well have been a plastic sack pulled taut around her, tottering on high heels several sizes too big, he wouldn’t have recognized her if her voice hadn’t sounded quite so familiar when she stammered “Oh – s-sorry!”
Louis stared at her, doing a double take. It took him a few more seconds to truly process who he was looking at, squinting to focus his bleary drunken vision and trying to see past the foundation and mascara. But he did recognize her, albeit with some difficulty.
“Felicite?”