Sleeping was nice. Louis liked sleep. Whilst he was asleep, curled up with one of Harry’s decorated arms draped over him, often dreaming of soft dark curves and lilting patterns that were the last thing he saw in the darkness before he dozed off, he was quiet and relaxed. However, when Anne’s soft knock on the door brought him back to the surface of consciousness, and he shifted into Harry’s chest with a sleepy groan only to realize that they were meant to be going to church today. His stomach immediately knotted up with tension, as if the vines tattooed on Harry’s arm had snaked around his intestines and started squeezing like a thorny boa constrictor.
He must have stiffened involuntarily, because Harry breathed out, sniffed, and opened one sleep-blurred eye, the kind of misty, vague green of dew-covered grass. Lifting his head so that several locks of hair fell over his eye, he gave Louis a reassuringly dopey grin and then slowly trailed his fingertips from Louis’ shoulder to his elbow, then his wrist, then interlocked their fingers.
Without saying a word, Harry had instantly cheered him up. Louis slipped out of bed and went on the hunt for some church-appropriate clothes, finding a not-too-badly-creased pair of black trousers (his) draped over the back of a chair and a white shirt (also his) hanging outside the wardrobe, and a black jacket that could have belonged to either of them. He was just knotting his tie, fumbling slightly since it’d been several weeks since he’d last worn one, when he looked up to see Harry fastening a blazer on over a charcoal grey shirt, his outlined eyes emphasized by the dark material, but in a different way than his usual flat black and silver ensembles. Surprised, Louis stopped to watch him. He’d assumed that Harry would keep his usual style just to make a point.
Sensing eyes on him, Harry turned and shot him a smile. “Can’t take your eyes off me, huh?”
“You look good,” Louis said quietly.
Harry’s smile softened, lips forming an even gentler sloping curve. “Thanks,” he replied, and then he walked across the room, looked Louis up and down, pursed his lips and ‘hmm’ed.
“Hmm?”
“Hmm,” Harry agreed, “I like you in a tie. Twirl for me?”
Rolling his eyes, Louis good-naturedly spun in a circle, ending with a slightly mocking curtsey, and Harry made a great show of applauding him.
“You look great,” he announced, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a suit.”
“You,” Louis told him, appreciatively eying him up and down as he straightened his collar, “look really sexy. It’s actually very inappropriate to dress so provocatively for church. Shame on you.”
Harry grinned. “You’re such a flirt. Remember, I only look sexy to you.”
“That’s only because I’m the only one in the room with taste. May I have the pleasure of escorting you to the dining hall, Master Styles?” He offered Harry his arm with a grin and stage-whispered, “that means do you want to come down for breakfast?”
“Might do,” replied Harry, accepting it with an equally bright grin, and they descended downstairs, beaming like Cheshire cats.
~*~
By the time Anne’s car had pulled up outside the church, neither of them were laughing. Harry was chewing so hard on his lip ring that Louis was worried he might chip his teeth, and Louis was twisting his fingers agitatedly together and wishing they weren’t quite so sweaty. He peeked out at the array of people slowly milling into the church and found himself staring at a mock leopard-skin coat worn by an old woman, the print blurring weirdly since he was staring so hard at it.
Harry leaned over his shoulder to see what he was looking at, and whispered softly, “I know exactlywhat you’re thinking.”
Louis said nothing. He sincerely doubted that.
“Look at that woman’s coat. So last season. This congregation is in dire need of homosexuality, we’ll teach them a thing or two about how to look fabulous.”
Louis laughed at that, he couldn’t help it, and he leaned his head against Harry’s for a moment with a sigh. Then, he breathed in deeply, and slipped out of the car.
He stayed close to Harry as they joined the crowd heading into the church, not holding his hand but slightly wishing he was. To his relief, nobody stared at them as they walked in, even though Harry stuck out like a sore thumb with his magenta hair, pierced lip and the fact that he was taller than a large number of the people around them. But they were all talking animatedly amongst themselves so that Louis, Harry, and Anne managed to walk inside without attracting much attention. (Robin wasn’t much of a churchgoer, and tended to stay at home doing odd jobs around the house on Sundays.)
They entered the church, and the air was cool and smelt of candle wax and oldness (which is so asmell all by itself, without even being attached to anything specific), a smell Louis had grown up with. The flower arrangements gave off their own musky scent too, almost overpowering; as they walked past a pillar decorated with dahlias, he inhaled appreciatively. Then, he began scanning the room, trying to find a good place to sit; he didn’t want to be too close to the back, because that would look like they didn’t really want to be there, nor too close to the front, where people could stare at them and they might look overeager. Louis didn’t want anyone to think that he was only coming to church to beg God’s forgiveness for his supposedly frowned-upon relationship. He was coming to pay his respects, and because he believed it was important, not because he felt bad about Harry.
However, before he could begin to feel stressed about it, someone sitting somewhere in the middle turned round, spotted him, and started waving, and he recognized Liam sat with his parents, waving enthusiastically at him. Thankfully, Louis grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him towards their friend, and Anne followed, and they all slid onto the row, Louis sitting right beside Liam and grinning at him in relief.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Liam said excitedly.
“Yeah, if all goes to plan I’m hoping to make a regular thing of it.”
“We’re hoping to make a regular thing of it,” Harry interjected, and Louis beamed and squeezed his hand. He hadn’t liked to assume, of course, but he’d hoped that Harry would agree to come with him on a regular basis.
Leaning around her son, Liam’s mum, Karen, also seemed delighted to see Louis. “I haven’t seen you in ages, Louis!” she cried, “you’re looking well! Ooh, hello,” she added coyly, looking at Harry, then meaningfully at their clasped hands, “what have we here?”
“This is my boyfriend,” Louis told her, blushing a little.
“That’s lovely! Awww, how sweet! Pleased to meet you,” enthused Karen, holding out her hand for Harry to shake, which he did with considerable surprise. “Harry, isn’t it? I think Liam told us about you, right, Geoff?”
Her husband nodded and cheerfully shook Harry’s hand too, then went back to staring dreamily at the ceiling, bathing in organ music.
“It’s nice to see you here,” continued Karen happily, “between you and me, I think some of this lot could do with a bit of a wake-up call – they’re all stuck in the Dark Ages, or before. Someone like you two could really do some good around here – if you know what I mean.”
Louis smiled demurely, and Harry opened his mouth – probably to start excitedly offering up suggestions as to how he could convince people of his good intentions, but then two things happened: the music began to crescendo into a louder volume, letting people to know that the service was about to start, and there was an outraged hiss from behind Louis.
Stiffening, he turned around, and Harry turned too, both of them wearing matching glares to throw at whoever had taken such an offence to their presence – and that was when he clapped eyes on his father and mother, hand in hand with the twins, and with the two older girls standing beside them in all their usual church finery.
Louis swallowed, and Harry’s hand immediately slid supportively to the small of his back. Jay gave Louis a look so filthy he was surprised a pile of manure didn’t manifest in the air above his head and fall on him, and took a step back, yanking Daisy and Phoebe with her, whilst his father looked at him in dismay and then hastily retreated a few steps at an angry word from his wife. Felicite looked helpless and Lottie looked shocked, but all Louis could focus on was the disgust on his mother’s face simply at the sight of Harry and Louis sat side by side, Harry’s hand on Louis’ back not even visible from her position.
“What are they doing here?” she whispered in a strangled hiss.
“Turn around,” Harry whispered, turning his back on her.
Louis licked his lips. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, burning in her venomous gaze as she assumed he would burn in hell, hot and shaking. She honestly looked like she hated him, with her mouth contorted into a puckered scowl of crimson lipstick, forehead furrowed, only ever taking her scorching stare off him in order to send daggers into Harry’s back.
“Turn around, Louis,” Harry whispered, putting an arm around his shoulders and pulling him back to face the front.
“But –”
“We don’t want to cause a scene here,” Harry reminded him, “not in church.”
Louis knew he was right. But he couldn’t help sneaking a few glances behind him before the first hymn started, to see where his family had gone. They were seated on the opposite side of the church, quite close to the back, and Jay was alternating between staring malevolently at them and eyeing her hymn book. Mark looked unhappy but apparently had no intention of intervening with her behaviour – when did he ever? Every so often she’d tug on his sleeve and spit some comment into his ear, making him wince and his forehead creasing with every word, but he made no attempt to argue with her, or even to dissuade her by ignoring whatever she was saying. Felicite gave him a nervous smile, and Lottie kept glancing anxiously at him, whilst the twins fussed and complained and kept asking in innocent little voices why they couldn’t go and say hi to Louis, which made his chest ache. But then the organ reached its highest volume yet and hymn books were flipped to the correct page and they were required to sing, and Louis didn’t look at them anymore.
Of course, he knew that Harry could sing, but a great deal of the music Harry listened to was greatly comprised of, for want of a better term, guttural screaming (of course, it wasn’t really screaming, and some fantastic lyrics were shrouded in the sounds, but he couldn’t think of how else to describe it) so he hadn’t often had the chance to hear Harry sing properly. The hymn was ‘I, The Lord Of Sea & Sky’, one of Louis’ favourites – he thought it was pretty, without too much talk of sacrifice and Jesus dying, which of course was important but not exactly a cheerful thing to sing about on a Sunday. Anyway, Harry sang well; he had a nice voice, and several times Louis forgot to sing in favour of merely standing and gaping at his boyfriend, who noticed what he was doing and kept giving him little amused looks between each verse.
They’d just reached the part about the Lord of Wind and Flame when Louis suddenly felt an intense urge to hold Harry’s hand – and why deny it? He tugged on Harry’s sleeve to get his attention, having no intention of whispering mid-hymn (he’d been sternly told off about that by his mother enough times in his very early youth to never do it again) and then, at Harry’s questioning look, thrust his smaller hand into Harry’s big paw. The movement caused his sleeve to ride up, exposing his little wrist tattoo, and they both smiled at it before dropping their hands, fingers still intertwined. Louis didn’t even have to look to know that Jay was glaring at them.
They sat quietly through the sermons; Harry was far more attentive than Louis had anticipated, listening to every word of what the vicar said, and when bits cropped up that he disagreed with, other than a little wrinkle of his nose like a rabbit, he gave little indication of his disgust. In fact, it was Louis who found his mind wandering, as he admired the light pouring through the stained glass windows, taking in the angels and saints depicted on them. His eyes lingered on the elaborate carvings of the cross at the front, on the threads of the hanging tapestries on the walls, on the dull stone floor. He’d missed this place so much. The church was a place he’d grown up in, attending fetes and clubs and Sunday school, before his mother decided that colouring in worksheets of Jesus was a less productive use of his time than sitting listening to sermons that, at that age, he didn’t understand. She’d never exactly been logical in her approach – to anything.
One of the younger members of the congregation, a girl who was probably around eight or nine and wearing an outfit entirely comprised of knitwear in various ugly colours, was supposed to be doing a reading of some sort of passage from the Bible, which she attempted with admirable enthusiasm, rambling a little and stumbling over some of the longer words – until she glanced up halfway through and spotted Harry. Her mouth fell open, and she stopped talking and stared at him, completely in awe.
It could have been the purple hair, or his silver angel bites or lip ring, or the swelling on his mouth which had gone down considerably but was still quite an impressive mess of different shades of purple (actually, his mouth matched his hair quite well at the moment), or maybe it was just because she didn’t recognize him, but the little girl kept gawping at Harry. Everyone else craned their necks to see what had distracted her, then either looked mortified, uncomfortable, or disgusted – most notably the woman who was presumably the little girl’s mother, who looked terrified that Harry would be affronted by the staring of her daughter and exact some awful, thuggish revenge upon her. But Harry just smiled encouragingly at the child, and after she’d stared in intrigue for a while longer, her gaze dropped back to the paper resting on the pulpit in front of her and she finished the reading.
The whole church breathed a sigh of relief. Louis could have sworn he even saw the walls expanding in relief, but of course, that was his imagination. He patted Harry’s knee, and got a warm eye-roll in return; Harry was unperturbed by the attention she had drawn to him. Louis supposed he was used to it
After that, Louis relaxed reasonably well and felt pretty happy about having decided to come to the service – until it came to receiving communion, and people began trickling to the front in orderly lines to get a blessing, or bread and wine. Louis had been confirmed, so he knew exactly what he was doing. All he was required to do was keel at the front, accept his little tablet of cardboard-flavoured bread and wash it down with sour-Ribena wine, and try very hard not to show how much he wished he had some mouthwash to hand, and that was that. But Harry hadn’t been confirmed; he’d turned his back on the church shortly before he would have been due to begin the process. So as the two of them headed to the front, Louis felt a coil of nervousness in his gut like a snake that might be sleeping or playing dead, and either way it could wake up at any moment and rip his stomach-lining to shreds.
He went ahead of Harry, and accepted his bread and wine as usual – with a new, sour taste in his mouth that was different to the one that usually accumulated after the nasty-tasting substances had been forced down. (He would never understand why the things which were intend to represent the body of Jesus, an inherently good person and therefore surely supposedly good things, tasted so vile, unless it was to dissuade cannibalism.) The vicar smiled and nodded at him, as if to say “nice to have you back”, and Louis managed to give him a slightly weak smile in return, but then he had to step aside to allow Harry his turn, and it slid off his face to be replaced with worry. Last time Father Marshall and Harry had been face to face, he knew it hadn’t turned out well. The Father had insulted Harry’s life and essentially his entire self, calling him a blasphemer and saying he needed to reform and needed the help of Jesus to avoid a fiery fate down under, and Harry had laughed at the man’s beliefs and been rather rude to him, and to cut a long story short, they weren’t friends. Louis didn’t think the man would disgrace himself by turning Harry away from the altar, but aside from that, he was certain of nothing, and he hovered nervously a foot or so away, within easy earshot, as Harry knelt in front of the man.
There was a visible hesitation. It was hard to know what to do with Harry, since he wasn’t eligible for communion, and he was really rather too old for the condescending pat on the head and short line about God’s love that the children too young for it received. For a moment, Father Marshall paused. The line of people paused. Time itself paused – or at least, it felt like it did.
“Would you…like a blessing?”
“Yeah, all right,” Harry said quietly.
Nodding, the man rested a hand on top of his curls and said softly, “May the Lord bless you and keep you in eternal life. Amen.”
Everyone waited with bated breath, as if they expected Harry to explode as his body was purged of a thousand heinous demons that had been lurking beneath his skin, like this was some sort of exorcism. Even the vicar seemed frozen, his hand still resting on Harry’s head, and he had a very odd look on his face. Louis looked at him with suspicion, feeling an odd swell of jealousy which didn’t make sense at all, until he put his finger on what was bothering him: the man wasn’t that old, for a vicar. He could only have been in his late thirties, most likely mid-twenties, by the looks of him, without a single steely fleck in his hair. He actually looked quite young, reasonably attractive, if a little too beardy, and Louis couldn’t understand the emotion in his dark eyes until he’d scrutinized it a little longer. Even then, he couldn’t be sure. But he thought the man looked envious. And that didn’t make sense at all.
After what felt like thirty years, the shaken-looking vicar lifted his hand from Harry’s head, and Harry immediately stood up. However, as he held his hand out for Louis to take, his emerald gaze lingered on the man in front of him, who looked to be sweating slightly into his dog-collar. Looking right back at him, he looked exhausted, as if blessing Harry had taken something out of him. More than that, he lookedvulnerable – as if Harry had whipped off his robe and left him standing naked at the altar with only a chalice at hand with which to preserve his modesty.
Louis’ fingers slipped between Harry’s interlocking with them like a bolt sliding home, and his anxiety evaporated. A little smile had caught the corner of Harry’s mouth, playing with it, twitching it into an almost-smile, and as they headed back to their seats and sat down, he looked at Louis and it became a proper one.
“What was that all about?” murmured Louis against the shell of his ear, curls tickling his nose. He hoped the vicar was watching. It was ridiculous – why would the man be interested in Harry, apart from as an interesting lost-cause to try to convert to strict Catholicism? – but he wanted to reassert his claim. That odd flash-burn of jealousy was still smouldering away somewhere in his intestines.
Harry shrugged. “Dunno.” There was something about his expression which implied thoughtfulness, and perhaps it was Louis’ imagination but he got the impression that whatever it was, Harry didn’t want to talk about it right now, so he decided to let it drop.
The rest of the service passed by remarkably quickly, with very little to distinguish it from the many others Louis had been to over the years. It was nice to be back in church, and he was pleased to see that a surprising number of people smiled at him, or nodded, and a couple even waved. Some people, at least, seemed glad to see him back.
The service ended with another hymn, and Louis left the building with Harry’s hand on his back and a smile on his face, pleased to have proved that they could partake in a service without causing any sort of bother. Except perhaps he shouldn’t have celebrated too soon, because they were just striding for the churchyard gates when Louis felt a hand on his arm, holding him in a claw-like grip, like a vice around his bicep. Stunned, Louis whirled around to see who had hold of him, only to meet his mother’s angry glare.
She seemed smaller, somehow. He wasn’t sure whether that was a psychological thing, since he wasn’t so scared of her any more, or whether he’d grown, or maybe she genuinely had shrunk a little. Whatever it was, it made her far less intimidating. However, her hold was still uncomfortably tight, fingers curling into the curve of his bicep. Her eyes were still that watery blue, a colour which ought to have looked weak but bore an eerie resemblance to an ocean he was in imminent danger of drowning in. She looked him up and down, appearing displeased with what she saw.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed.
“Ow!” Louis protested, trying to pull his arm free.
The sound, and the resistance against his hand since Louis had stopped walking, alerted Harry that something was wrong, and he turned around. When he noticed Jay clinging to Louis’ arm, his eyes frosted over, green and glacial, like blades of grass stiff with ice.
“I’ve had it up to here with you,” he said coldly, laying his hand over hers on Louis’ arm. She flinched like his nettle-green gaze had stung her, but held determinedly on. “Why can’t you leave him alone?” continued Harry sadly, “you may not agree with his life choices, but you could at least respect them.”
She scowled. “I want to speak to the organ grinder, not the monkey.”
Louis scowled right back, yanking his arm away from the both of them. “And I’d rather not be talked over when I’m standing right here, thank you very much!”
Harry looked embarrassed. “Sorry,” he muttered, dropping his eyes to the ground. He looked so apologetic that Louis couldn’t stay mad at him and smiled a little to let him know that he was forgiven.
Jay didn’t seem to care either way. “What are you doing here?” she repeated viciously. “You’ve made it quite clear you aren’t interested in pursuing this faith any longer. You’ve determinedly turned your back on the church and refused to listen to reason. So what exactly is your reason for coming here? Do you think it’s a big joke now?”
“No,” Louis said patiently, “I haven’t made it clear that I’ve turned my back on my faith - in fact, I think I’ve actually told you the exact opposite. Just because I’ve turned my back on what you think my faith entails doesn’t mean that I’ve turned my back on everything I believe in, mother.”
Her mouth opened and closed several times, like a goldfish wearing lipstick. Then, she tried a different approach; manipulation. “Louis,” she cooed, “it’s okay. I understand. You’re confused. You don’t know what you want.”
With a laugh, Louis replied, “No you don’t. No I’m not. And yes I do. Why is this so hard for you to understand? I know exactly what I want! I have a boyfriend who loves me and who I love. Yes, maybe there have been implications that God wouldn’t want that, but things change, and I don’t honestly believe he cares, and I am happy with my life! The only thing that isn’t amazing about it is that people like you are trying to stop me from doing the only thing left in my life that I’m not completely satisfied with; expressing my religion.”
“Aren’t you worried, Louis?” she asked desperately. “What if God doesn’t want this for you? What if this is the exact opposite of what he wants, and your tenacity ends in – ends in you going to hell?” The very idea made her look like she might faint.
Louis was beginning to understand a little better now. Of course, he had known that her nastiness hadn’t been purely from spite or ignorance, he’d had an inclination that for some reason she seemed to honestly believe she was doing him good by keeping him away from Harry, but the fearful look in her eye actually made him start to understand.
“Then I’ll deal with the consequences of that when I have to, and not a moment before,” he said gently, “because mother, in all honesty, I’d rather have thirty, forty, fifty happy years living with Harry against God’s will and suffer eternally for it after, because those years I’ll have spent with him will be worth it. And I can never really be damned, not as long as I can still remember him.”
Harry’s expression softened and he looked at Louis as if it was the first time he’d ever properly seen him – like he’d been half blind all his life, eyes clouded with mist, and this was the first time they hadn’t been obscured.
“Besides,” continued Louis, “if what we’re doing is so wrong, he’ll be burning right with me.”
Harry’s lips started moving, fractionally so that it was almost impossible to see what he was whispering under his breath, but Louis caught the faintest snatches of a familiar tune, and saw the wicked little smirk on Harry’s face, and realized he was murmuring “burn, baby burn, disco inferno” almost silently under his breath. Louis hit him. Harry obediently stopped singing, but his smirk became an enormous, naughty grin.
“All right, well let’s just say for a moment that God doesn’t care,” Jay began, which surprised Louis immensely. He’d never anticipated that she would even agree to discuss the theoretical possibility. “If he doesn’t care about your sexuality, then he might care about…other things. Am I right in thinking that the two of you have…had…you’re not virgins?”
Louis blushed at the horror of having to discuss his sex life with his mother, and especially in a churchyard with so many people walking past them and pretending not to listen in. He lowered his voice. “No, we’re not.”
Instantly, she drooped like a flower that hadn’t been watered. “Oh. Louis. I thought I’d taught you better than that.”
Instantly, he was irritated. “Oh, honestly, please don’t start all that ‘sex is only for procreation, do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman’ crap, because I’m really not in the mood.”
Shaking her head, she said sadly, “I always thought you’d wait for marriage. Like I did. Like your father did. But I don’t suppose that was an option for you, was it?”
“Same-sex marriage is legal in this country now.”
“That’s not what I meant…I suppose he wouldn’t wait.” She nodded meaningfully at Harry.
“Actually, he suggested that I should wait.” Louis was even more annoyed now, resenting the implication that Harry had pressured him into sex.
Jay was surprised; it was written all over her face, however hard she struggled to wipe it away. “Will you get married? I mean…ever?”
“I’d like to.”
“Would he?”
Louis glanced at Harry who nodded and said “Undoubtedly. Not for a few years yet, we’re still young…but one day, I’ll be carrying your son over my threshold with a ring on his finger, and… I hope you’ll be happy for him.”
For a while, she said nothing, merely nibbling on her lip. She had lipstick on her teeth, and it made her look strangely fragile, so that Louis wanted to hug her – to rest his head on her shoulder like he used to when he was little and nuzzle her neck with the top of his head, feathery hair fluttering against her neck. He wanted to call her ‘Mummy’ and tell her he was sorry and everything would be all right, like when he was a very little boy and a cuddle could fix everything. He missed those days. He missed her. He kind of missed believing blindly in every word he said, weird as that was. Most of all, he missed being her son.
She interrupted his wistful thoughts. “I can’t pretend to like it,” she told him, “nor do I agree with it. But you’re right about one thing,” she said to Harry; “fighting with you over it won’t do any good. Do what you want.” She gave Louis a watery smile, nodded curtly at Harry and then walked past them, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that her family were following her.
She had almost reached the church gates when Louis called, “I miss you!”
“Miss you too,” she replied, so softly that he barely heard her. Then she straightened up and walked out of the gates, her husband and children scurrying after her.
Louis watched them go feeling incredibly crestfallen; for a moment there, he’d been hopeful that there might be some sort of resolution – maybe not being accepted back into his family, because he didn’t entirely want that any more, but at least that maybe he’d be allowed to see his little sisters sometimes, and his mum would stop being so blindly prejudiced. He supposed that he really ought to be thankful that she’d finally agreed to stop shouting at him every time she was within a ten mile radius of him and his boyfriend, but it didn’t quite feel like enough. Not like hugging her after a long day. Not like playing board games with his little sisters and deliberately throwing the game so that one of the twins won but seemed to have beaten him purely by themselves. Not like sitting with his parents on Sunday evenings after he’d helped wash up after Sunday dinner, drinking hot chocolate with them in silence. It was the little things he missed, the old routines that he hadn’t told Harry about because however eagerly Harry would seek to emulate them, it just wouldn’t be the same.
“You okay?” Harry asked softly. Now that any chance of a spectacle had dwindled, people were walking faster again, not lingering for long enough to listen to their conversation. Louis was glad of that. The gentleness in Harry’s tone was his, and his alone.
“Yeah.”
They stood in silence. Harry was nibbling his lip, mouth darker than usual with the blossom of violet bruises, eyes still that leafy, gorgeous green. He looked ridiculously dapper in his suit, like some mobster from a movie, battered but beautiful; all he needed was to run a hand through his purple-tinted fringe and don a bowler hat, and he’d be a perfect mafia gangster.
“You want ice cream?” he asked eventually.
Louis lit up like candles on a birthday cake, sputtering into life as his little sad smile erupted into a full-blown grin. “Yeah.”
~*~
They ended up sitting on a wall near the local ice cream shop, which had been a cutesy old-fashioned Victorian-style sweet shop until the owners realized that nobody really wants pear drops or crystallized violets in glass jars, but everybody wants ice cream. So Harry bought a 99 vanilla cone with a little chocolate flake in it that he pretended to smoke like a cigarette for Louis’ amusement, and Louis bought a chocolate cone and tried to eat it delicately, and failed, and Harry kissed the chocolate off the end of his nose and their kisses were cold because of the delicious frozen treats, and it was all rather lovely, really.
Harry had loosened his tie and rolled up his blazer sleeves, baring his colourful forearms with their light dusting of hairs just visible in the glint of the sunlight dancing across his skin. The wind was playing with his hair, ruffling it like Louis liked to do. His mouth was cherry red, his eyes sparkling, and every so often he’d look at Louis like he couldn’t quite believe he existed. It was an emotion Louis could well reciprocate.
It wasn’t the kind of silence that particularly needed breaching, what with the wind singing softly around them and the odd car driving past. The sky was a pretty shade of blue that Louis would have compared to his eyes, if he’d ever spent much time looking at himself in the mirror and admiring them, and Harry was smiling without smiling, his eyes shining with love for Louis. Louis loved how Harry looked on beautiful days, like he was a flower and the sun made his petals unfold – but he almost wished it could rain, because of this one time when it was pouring with rain and they’d been planning to go out. Louis sulked and pouted and was disappointed, so eventually Harry grabbed him by the hand and hauled him outside. That made Louis sulk harder at first, because he was sopping wet and freezing and miserable and the sky looked like it had been shaded in with pencil, because it was flat grey. But Harry had no shoes on, and he was wearing tight jeans and a baggy white shirt, and capering around the garden with his head thrown back, laughing at the obstinately slate grey sky with the white column of his throat exposed. And as Louis stared, he began twirling around and around in the rain with his arms thrown out, just laughing, rain falling on his face and into his hair and pouring all over him, and he didn’t seem to care at all.
When he’d stopped spinning, his cheeks were flushed sunset pink and his eyes were glittering like the raindrops running down his face, looking pearly grey like the sky rather than green. He laughed breathlessly and seized Louis and kissed him in the rain, both of them soaking wet and giggling, and Louis didn’t understand what was going on at all but he loved it, loved this wild boy hanging onto him with his thick tangle of rain-darkened hair that his fingers so loved to run through, and he was completely insane, but Louis loved him so much that his chest hurt.
He loved him anyway: whether he was curled up in a corner poring over his books, dark shadows underneath his eyes and stress etched into the lines of his face; whether he was lying sprawled in their bed with his limbs hanging everywhere, big and clumsy and adorable; whether he was angry with smouldering eyes and a sharp twist to his mouth; whether he was flushed and hot and desperately turned on; whether he was crazy and hyped up, a little child with a splatter of chocolate hair and sharp snowy limbs. Or whether he was like this, soft and happy and content. Either way, he was stunningly beautiful, and god, Louis loved him. So he didn’t mind that for once, there wasn’t a hope of any rain.
So intently was Louis watching him that he watched as Harry’s tongue paused where it had been licking his ice cream, teasing at it in a rather obscene manner which made Louis want to giggle and smack his arm. He saw Harry raise his eyebrows and tilt his head a little, and followed his gaze to the ice cream shop door.
“Harry, are you –”
Harry held up a hand. He didn’t shush him, but his meaning was clear, and Louis stopped talking immediately.
Focusing intently on the shop door, Harry watched and waited. He didn’t have to wait very long; a minute or two later, the little bell tinkled and the door swung open, and the vicar stepped out, looking really weird in faded jeans, a Doncaster Rovers football shirt (the strip was several years old, too, Louis noticed) and his dog collar. Louis stared at him, blinking, unable to get used to the idea of seeing the vicar not in his ceremonial robes. But Harry didn’t seem to be preoccupied with that – he watched the man mount the bicycle he’d parked outside the shop, then set off cycling, and immediately Harry crammed the rest of the ice cream into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
“What was that all about?” Louis asked, but Harry was already off the wall and brushing crumbs off his legs.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing Louis by the wrist and starting to tug him after the man, who had already pedalled off.
“Wha - ? Why? What?” asked Louis as Harry rushed him around the corner, breaking into a run so as not to lose sight of the man on the bike.
“Trust me on this,” Harry told him, “this is something we need to do.”
Deciding not to argue, Louis ran with him, the wind messing with their hair and nipping at their cheeks, exertion staining them scarlet like Dutch dolls. The vicar kept a reasonably leisurely pace, pedalling quite slowly, so they didn’t have to run very fast to catch up with him, but there was still plenty of heavy breathing involved and Louis found that, on his considerably rather shorter legs, he struggled a little to keep up.
The man cycled merrily through the streets, and Louis wasn’t sure why he felt that there was something weird about it until he realized that, for some reason, the vicar was taking great care to avoid the main roads, even heading down a tricky little ring road and then a treacherous one-way system just to make sure he wouldn’t have to cycle a short stretch down one of the busier roads through the town. Yet on the rare occasions when anyone did happen to pass by, they’d greet him and he’d answer with a friendly wave. (No one ever waved at Harry or Louis, but he was past the stage where he expected them to.)
He was getting quite tired at the point where the vicar slowed down even more; Harry gave a gentle tug on his wrist to pull him back, and they both stopped and watched from the very corner of the street as the man pulled into the driveway of a large house, looked both ways to make sure he wasn’t being watched – Harry and Louis ducked and crouched behind a conveniently placed wheelie bin like two girls in a chick flick – and then parked his bike outside, chained it to the fence in a motion which looked extremely practiced, and marched up to the door and knocked.
Barely half a minute later, it was wrenched open, and Louis was about to whisper that he hoped Harry didn’t intend for them to sit behind this bin all day whilst the vicar was visiting friends when the man who had answered the door – tall, lean, thinning black hair, wearing a black turtleneck and expensive jeans – seized the vicar by his dog collar, yanked him forwards and kissed him right there on the doorstep.
Louis blinked. Then he gawped, staring open-mouthed at the two men, who were playing a frantic game of tonsil tennis directly in front of the other man’s house. It didn’t make sense. This was the man who had tried to talk Harry out of his sexuality, said that it wasn’t God’s will, been totally opposed to it – so what was he doing? He expected Father Marshall to stagger, shove the other man away and shout something pretentious about the will of god, but no, he was running his fingers through the other man’s remaining hair, kissing back for all he was worth. Louis had a headache. He rubbed his temples in utter confusion.
The two men broke apart; Father Marshall anxiously swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and looked around, and Louis hoped that none of Harry’s long limbs were sticking out from behind the bin. But apparently neither of the men seemed to notice anything amiss, because the stranger smiled, giving Father Marshall the most sultry bedroom eyes Louis had or would ever see anyone make at a vicar (he was rather astonished at the thought of a vicar having sex, being sexy or even knowing that sex existed; it didn’t seem particularly…holy.) He tugged the vicar over the threshold and into his house, poked his head out, sent sharp glances in every direction to be sure that no one was watching, and then hurriedly shut the door.
“Well,” Louis said. He didn’t stand up. He wasn’t sure he was quite ready for that just yet. He looked at Harry.
Those green cat eyes gleamed with satisfaction, and as he watched, Harry clambered to his feet, rising above Louis like a giant. His mouth had twitched into a little smile, the sun glittering off his angel bites, and as he reached down and gallantly helped Louis to his feet, Louis couldn’t understand why he looked quite so smug.
“What was that all about?” asked Louis. “Did you know that was going to happen?”
“I had my suspicions,” Harry admitted. “We’re done. I’ve seen what I needed to see. Come on.”
He began sauntering down the road in the direction from whence they had came, and Louis hurried to catch up with him, still questioning him insistently as they walked.
“The vicar’s gay?”
“Apparently so,” Harry agreed, “I had an inkling, from the way he was looking at me back there. Like he was jealous. Whether of you or of my confidence to be who I am, I’m not sure, unless it was both, but I just had an idea…”
“What are we going to do?” Louis asked excitedly. He knew, of course, that this could change everything – if the vicar, a man of God, was openly gay, then his mother couldn’t continue to say that it was against God’s will, surely? If one of the closest people to God was gay, and nothing had been done about it, surely that would change her mind?
“Nothing,” Harry said, “it’s not our place. I don’t go round outing people who aren’t ready, it’s not nice. Besides, we’ve done what we needed to. We’ve already set the gears in motion.”
Louis frowned. “What do you mean?”
Harry tapped his nose. “You’ll see,” he said cryptically.