a/n: yay so heres the update i spent five hours writing this my hands are cramped sigh whatever
71 votes last chapter wow nope bye
and we're almost at 10k im going to punch my cat
so heres harrys backstory bc i know some of you have been asking about when it was going to happen but i had to work it in the right way and here yay
dedication goes to @YouHaveToFallToFly for her cute messages on my message board and her even cuter comment last chapter wow im framing it on my wall
IF YOU WANT A DEDICATION AND I HAVENT GIVEN YOU ONE YET P L E A S E INBOX ME I WANT YOU ALL TO GET ONE
kk ily all
The smell of frying eggs and bacon woke Louis up early that morning.
He grumbled into his pillow—he really didn’t want to get up; he was so warm—but his stomach was practically whimpering because of the scents wafting into his room. Louis wasn’t ever one to miss out on a breakfast, especially when it was practically screaming his name.
So he rolled out of bed with his duvet pulled close around his shoulders and his tattered slippers on his small feet. Louis’s hair was a tousled mess and his eyes were still heavy with sleep, but he didn’t even care enough to try and make himself presentable in front of Harry. Harry, who would surely wake up looking like a sculptured god straight from above without even putting in an effort. Harry was so goddamn perfect Louis wanted to scream and tear his hair out.
Sure enough, Harry was cooking in just his boxers (Harry never wore clothes in the morning; Louis was used to this sight, but it still made his breath catch every time) and looking heavenly with the sun slanting in on his bare chest. The tattoos that splayed across his creamy skin had an odd, eerie glow to them. Louis liked to think of Harry’s skin as the paper for the story he told through inky patterns. What each of the designs meant to Harry surely had a meaning—a meaning Louis would love to find out, curled under the duvet with Harry, his fingers tracing the inked skin.
Harry turned around when he heard the tiny pitter-patter of Louis’s slippers in the kitchen. His face looked quite weary and not at all the usual, cheerful Harry Louis had grown accustomed to. It slightly upset Louis in a way he didn’t understand.
“Morning, Lou,” Harry sighed. He leaned against the counter, his chest and bare legs displayed for Louis’s roaming eyes. He tried not to stare too much, but that’s like holding an ice cream right above a child’s head who clearly won’t reach it. Teasing. Yes, that’s what Harry was. A tease.
“Hi, Harry,” he answered back carefully. There was a heaviness around them—not like their usual, unforced conversations that used to come so naturally. Harry was eyeing him nervously and Louis was trying not to stare too much.
“Listen, I want to talk to you… About everything,” Harry after a brief pause. He flipped the bacon before continuing—it sizzled in the pan loudly. Louis’s stomach gave another loud growl. “I’ve kept you in the dark while you laid out all your emotions for me. I haven’t told you a thing. And you deserve more than that, Louis, you really do. Because once you know who I am, you’ll know why I do the things I do.”
Louis just gaped at Harry, unsure of what to say. And Harry just looked back, his green eyes sad and weary as he searched Louis’s blue ones.
“You’re probably so hurt from that night, Lou,” he said softly. “I’ll never be able to apologise enough.”
Louis tried to clear his throat, but it seemed a knot had lodged its way into his airway.
Harry just sighed again when Louis didn’t say anything. He turned his back from him and finished the breakfast in silence as Louis watched, wishing he could say something to ease the evident tension in Harry’s mind. He’d never seen him break down like this.
The breakfast was finished a few minutes later and plated nicely. Harry handed him the delicious-looking food without meeting Louis’s worried gaze.
“Thanks, Harry,” he said cautiously. “Looks amazing.”
“Of course,” Harry answered back dully.
And so they ate in a suffocating silence. Louis couldn’t even enjoy the hearty food—he should’ve when he hadn’t eaten like this in ages—but Harry’s looming tale made him sick to his stomach. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for Harry to tell him everything because the more Louis knew, the more he’d care. And he didn’t think he could be anymore affectionate of the curly-haired, moss-eyed man in front of him.
“So Louis,” Harry said slowly. “I think I should start of by telling you I have a real need to please people, especially my family. I wanted to be the stereotypical son that every parent wants and adores. You know, the one that plays sports and gets great grades and is generally loved by everyone…”
Harry sighed to take a bite out of his toast before continuing.
“So as I started getting older and falling short of those high standards, I became a little… displeased with myself, per say. I wasn’t getting grades like my sister Gemma and I wasn’t doing too well on my football squad, but I still had loads of friends so I wasn’t too concerned, I guess. People still loved me, even though I wasn’t who I wanted to be,” Harry said carefully. He fiddled with his fork, a little embarrassed.
“But by time my sixteenth birthday came around, I was developing new feelings… Feeling I was shameful of,” Harry said slowly. “There was this older boy… Nick Grimshaw. He used to pick me up and drive me to parties and stuff. I thought we were just friends, but apparently not.”
Harry took another deep breath.
“I always found him attractive, but I was too scared of that thought to admit it. The fact that I might’ve liked boys as well as girls scared me at that time, so I tried to ignore it. I mean, what would my parents think if they knew? How could I be the perfect son I strove so hard to be?”
Louis understood Harry’s conflicted feelings so well he wanted to hug him. That’s how he felt when we first recognised his arousal for boys.
“So one night at a party, he was giving me drinks and encouraging me to take shots… I didn’t want to disappoint him of course, so I did. And being only sixteen, it didn’t take long for me to get drunk.” Harry sighed at this point and ran a hand down his face. “I don’t remember much of it. All I know is I somehow ended up in the back of Nick’s car, and we were making out… The point is, I responded back. I liked it.”
“Of course, Nick was much older and we didn’t go any farther than that. He had some sort of self-respect,” Harry laughed humourlessly. “He dropped me off that night, drunk out of my mind and love bites all over my neck. And of course, my mum and Robin were asking questions before my foot was even halfway through the door.”
Harry chuckled to himself in a dark way. He looked haunted by the memory.
“They could smell the alcohol on my breath, so they knew I was drunk. They didn’t ask where the love bites came from—they assumed I hooked up with some girl—so I didn’t have to explain those, thankfully. However, they were so disappointed in me for getting drunk underage that the kisses didn’t matter—I was consumed with guilt,” Harry said softly. “I spent the three weeks I was grounded in my room, wondering what my conflicted thoughts were telling me. I tried to convince myself repeatedly it was the alcohol, but deep inside, I knew.”
“The summer of my eighteenth birthday is when it really started to hit home with me. Nick had gone away on an exchange trip for a year, so I hadn’t thought too much about the incident. I even had a girlfriend for a few months in between, and everything was going well. I was back to being that perfect son my parents were so proud of for that year,” Harry said. “That is, until Nick came knocking on my door, looking like sin itself. He’d gotten broader and even more masculine over that year, and shit, I was so attracted to him I could hardly see straight. He took me out that night, and we ended up going back to his place. Let’s just say, Nick was happy I was finally legal…”
Louis was surprised to see a blush rising on Harry’s cheeks.
“I’d had sex before that night,” he continued after a minute. “But with girls strictly. With Nick… It was different. I don’t know why I let it escalate to that, but I happened and again, I wanted more. It was such a shameful realisation, knowing that another man could make me feel the same as a girl. Because if I was attracted to guys, how could I please my parents? They’d never understand…”
Louis understood that one hundred percent. They’d never understand.
“And my friends. They all thought I was straight. What would they think of me then? I was so paranoid with the thought of people finding out that I stopped hanging out with them and only went out with Nick. My closest friends at that time—Ed and Lou Teasdale—asked where I was constantly, but I never replied. I threw them away for Nick, and he didn’t even care for me… He just wanted my body.” Harry’s voice dropped a little. He looked ashamed.
“So that’s how I started my first year of university: living a double life. I went out and drank a lot, I hooked up with girls loads of times, and acted like the usual uni student. That was the Harry Styles everyone knew—always drunk, always shagging girls, and always a good time. The real Harry Styles was so ashamed, though and felt dirty all the time. Overused, I guess. People didn’t care about me, they only used me for what I could offer.”
Harry sighed again. The way he kept pausing to collect himself let Louis know this was hard for him to talk about.
“Nick was the only person that helped me through it. He wasn’t nice to me, per say, but he would hold me when I was crying and tell me it was going to be alright. Afterwards, he’d get me so drunk I could forget why I was upset because he didn’t know how to handle it,” Harry smiled mirthlessly. “I came with too much baggage, I guess. Nick was getting sick of having to comfort a sexually-confused whining nineteen year-old all the time, so he decided to get rid of me.”
This was the part that got Harry distraught. He tried to talk, but all that came out was a choked sigh.
“Harry, you don’t have to continue,” Louis said quietly. He didn’t want Harry to feel like he had to talk at the expense of his own emotions.
“No, I’m going to finish,” he said heavily. Harry pulled out a cigarette from the box on the table and lit it up for some sort of comfort. Louis could see how his shoulders relaxed when he took a deep drag off it.
“So we were at a party one night,” Harry started again, his eyes blank and his face expressionless. “It was huge—the whole campus showed up. I brought Nick along that night, but we’d been fighting. He was annoyed with me for having another break-down before we left. In fact, he was so pissed he left me as soon as we arrived. I was alone, sitting at a table and watching him from afar. Nick was laughing and carrying on with my friends when it happened.”
Harry took another drag off the cigarette.
“He was never good at holding his tongue when we was drunk,” Harry said humourlessly. “So when people started asking how we were related, Nick told them I’d been his shag buddy for the last eight months or so. He just told them, like that.”
“Of course, I was devastated. Everyone knew now—and I was so ashamed. My persona I had taken so much time to build up came crumbling down—and I had no one to talk to about it. I suppose it was the idea that my parents would find out that finally pushed me over the edge.”
Harry closed his eyes and bit his lip. His next words were soft, so soft Louis almost didn’t catch them.
“I went home that night and took pills, Louis. I must’ve taken about thirty before I curled up on the bathroom floor and cried. I cried so hard I made myself sick three times. I didn’t want to deal with that shameful secret I had tried to hide so many times before. What was the point of living if I wasn’t the person I wanted to be?”
Louis didn’t know what to say. He was rendered speechless.
“Ed heard the news and went straight to my dorm,” Harry said a few minutes later after he’d gathered himself. “I was passed out on the bathroom floor in a puddle of my own sick. There were pills everywhere—Ed didn’t have to put those pieces together.”
“I was in the hospital for three days,” he continued. “My parents Ed, and Gemma didn’t leave my bedside the whole time. Mum was a crying mess. Gemma was shocked. And Ed… He was distraught. My parents thanked him over and over for saving my life, but he still wasn’t okay. He thought it was his fault I attempted because he wasn’t there for me in the months leading up to that night. That’s utter nonsense, though… I pushed him away for Nick, Nick who didn’t visit me one single time in the hospital. In fact, I haven’t seen him since.”
Harry put out his cigarette on the plate with a sigh. Louis watched his every movement, unsure of how to react.
“Ed told my parents about my sexuality, of course. They haven’t stopped telling me since that they support me one-hundred and ten percent,” Harry smiled mirthlessly. “Which is why they let me drop out of uni, but after the incident, they won’t let me live alone, which is why I stayed with Ed.”
“Harry-“ Louis started, but he put a single finger up to Louis’s lips.
“I wasn’t done, Louis,” he said, smiling softly at him. “I still have to explain what happened with that kiss.”
Louis felt his face burn a fiery red.
“I was scared,” Harry said simply, shrugging his shoulders. “I didn’t want you to… know… about it because of a drunken kiss. Nick did that to me… Only kissed me when I was drunk out of my mind.”
“You didn’t want me to know what?” Louis asked carefully. He was slightly confused as to where this was headed.
“Lou, I think you know,” Harry sighed. “Why else would I spend every waking moment with you?”
Louis’s heart began to pound. He couldn’t think right…
“I think it was that night after I found you in the bathroom,” Harry said thoughtfully. “You were lying on the couch, your hair tousled and your eyes heavy with sleep. You looked so kissable in the dying light of the day... I wanted to curl up with you and stroke your cheek and tell you everything was going to be okay.”
Louis started at him, unable to understand what was going on. He must be hearing wrong, or Harry was telling some kind of sick joke…
“I don’t want to rush into things,” Harry said carefully. “I couldn’t stand being hurt again. That kiss scared me, Louis. It scared me because I felt something.”
“Harry…” Louis said softly. “What are you…”
“I have strong feelings for you, Lou,” Harry said simply. “But I don’t want to force something that’s not ready and lose what we already have.”
Louis could hardly believe what he was hearing. He felt a small smile tug at the corners of his lips.
“So let’s just sit back and see where this heads, okay?” Harry said, giving Louis a sideways glance. “Who knows what may develop in the coming weeks?”
“Yeah,” Louis echoed happily. “Who knows.”
“After all,” Harry continued. “If you nurture a budding stem, it’ll grow to be the most beautiful flower in the garden.”
He smiled and reached over to comb Louis’s hair back off his forehead before saying one last thing.
“Besides, I think our stem has a lot of potential.”