Chapter Twelve
Over the desk, Harry and Louis were having a staring competition. Neither of them had verbally acknowledged the childish game, but their eyes had been locked together unblinkingly for a good few minutes, and they sat frozen in place, waiting. Louis had his arms resting on his desk and was leaning forwards slightly, while Harry lolled back in his chair and watched him with a relaxed, open expression. Of the two of them, Harry was the least afraid to show his feelings; he wasn’t scared of disapproval if anyone found out the thoughts running through his head about the owner of the blue eyes he was watching. Louis was slowly nibbling his bottom lip as he watched Harry: his mouth was the only part of his body that moved; he was holding his breath. They hadn’t spoken since Harry had first entered the room and taken his usual seat, and Louis was comfortable with the silence. He used the opportunity to examine Harry thoroughly. His eyes were lit up from the inside with emotions; love, happiness, laughter and an ever so slight tinge of longing. Shivering slightly at the intensity of the emerald-eyed gaze, Louis took a deep breath and licked his lips nervously, knowing that he shouldn’t have been so deeply fascinated by Harry’s eyes. His gaze carefully drifted upwards to take in the rest of Harry’s face with an odd sense of excitement tingling deep in his abdomen, although he wasn’t entirely sure why. Eyes lingering on Harry’s face, Louis stopped to take it all in. Several chocolate brown curls had fallen across Harry’s forehead, one of them particularly catching Louis’ attention because it slightly obscured one eye. Still, it was one of many; each one looked unbelievably soft and so shiny…Louis wanted to touch them, to grab handfuls of silky brown curls and feel them sliding through his fingers. Appraisingly, Louis let his gaze slip downwards, all the way down, wanting the entire Harry Styles Visual Experience. One of the first things that caught his attention was Harry’s neck, odd as that sounded. He loved Harry’s neck; there was just so much of it that was gorgeous. Amazing collarbones that you could really see but not in a disgusting way, the necklaces that he always wore…and then that jawline, good grief. Louis had spent a lot of his time thinking about that. But eventually he pulled his gaze even further upwards, and sexiness hit him like bullets: bang, bang, bang. Perfect swirling green eyes – bang. Nose that you just wanted to tap the end of whenever he wore that cheeky smile – bang. Lips that were made to give the sweetest of kisses, lips that were beautiful when smiling or scowling or even when he was crying, lips that Louis dreamt of at night and that he longed to have touching his – bang. And God the dimples – bang.
All of this took Louis only a few seconds to enjoy.
In return, Harry was returning every smouldering stare with a fiercely longing glance of his own; he was examining Louis just as thoroughly as Louis was watching him. Harry was a perfectionist and the details mattered to him, so every second of observation was spent scrutinizing every last detail of Louis’ face, committing it to memory. Louis’ hair needed cutting; the brown, silky tips hung in front of his dark, smoky blue eyes. His lips looked soft; they were pale pink and as Louis’ mouth tightened with thought, they turned white. Curiously, Harry touched his own lips with the tip of one finger. They didn’t feel soft in the slightest – whereas Louis had lips like a girl’s; rose-petal pink and silky smooth. The very thought of what it would feel like to touch those lips against his own sent Harry’s heart racing with anticipation of something that could never come; he shifted in his chair, fighting the urge to leap up and throw his arms around Louis’ neck and kiss him anyway. Swallowing hard to push away the almost overwhelming desperation rising in his chest, he directed his attention to Louis’ sparkling cerulean eyes instead; a far safer and more innocent place to look. They reminded him of whirlpools, dark and stormy and filled with a passionate fire that took Harry’s breath away, even though he refused to let himself belief that the longing in Louis’ eyes was intended for him.
Suddenly realizing that they had been pretty much drooling over each other for a length of time that was rather too long to be easily explained, they both looked away, Louis quickly staring at the door as if he expected someone to burst in, while Harry examined the floor as if it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen in his life. Despite his embarrassment, he laughed quietly, and even Louis smiled slightly in amusement at his own lack of self-discipline.
“What do you want to talk about today?” he offered, feeling that the sweet silence had gone on for a little too long.
Harry seemed nervous; he carefully kept his eyes down and twisted his fingers together where his hands rested on his lap. There was a moment’s pause as he attempted to gather his courage – until eventually, he coughed worriedly and said “I thought…could we talk about love?”
Louis’ breath hitched and stuck in his throat as his heart froze mid-beat and his lungs forgot how to work. For a painful few seconds, he watched Harry warily, but with an odd kind of happiness and a pang of hope sweeping through him. “Yeah, sure, fine by me,” he managed weakly.
“Do you think you can fall in love with someone you don’t really know?” Harry asked.
He deliberated for a moment. “I don’t believe in love at first sight. Lust at first sight, maybe. But I do think it’s possible to fall for someone very quickly.”
“Yeah,” Harry agreed quickly. He paused. “What about true love? Do you believe in that?”
The question was a sweet one, almost childishly innocent; Louis smiled. “Yes. Yes, I do. I believe that there’s someone out there for everyone; you just have to find the right person.”
“Even if other people wouldn’t approve of it?”
“Why should that make a difference? It’s nothing to do with anyone else. If the two people who are in the relationship feel that it’s right, if they’re in love and they aren’t going to change their minds, if they’ve found someone perfect for them, what right does anyone else have to interfere?”
“Society is vicious,” Harry observed.
“Society needs to learn to keep its nose out.”
Harry’s lips twitched into a smile; he liked that answer.
“So…an age difference wouldn’t bother you, then?”
“Nah. I mean, okay, there are limits – if there’s enough of an age gap that you can’t relate to each other, then the relationship wouldn’t work. But age is just a number; what does it matter what year you were born in? A couple of years makes no difference.”
Louis was acutely aware that Harry’s probing questions were all related to their situation, and he was starting to get butterflies in his stomach, excitement building as he wondered whether the conversation was really heading where he thought it was going. Still, to his surprise, the knowledge didn’t affect his answers; he was responding perfectly honestly to Harry’s queries.
“What about…” Harry’s nerve failed him.
Patiently, Louis waited.
With another awkward cough, Harry muttered “What about same sex relationships? Does that…I mean, do you object to that kind of thing?”
Louis snorted. “It would be a bit hypocritical if I did. I’m not straight.”
“You’re not?” Harry said eagerly, his whole face lighting up.
“Nope. Never have been, and I’m pretty sure I never will be.”
“Good,” Harry said, and then he realized that he’d said it out loud. He blushed, and Louis bit his lip to stop a smile. Harry was ridiculously pleased; his dimples showed adorably as he smiled in delight, eyes alighting on Louis and looking him up and down with new enthusiasm. It was as if his few barriers had faded away and he had given up entirely on being subtle; he might as well have started drooling. It was kind of cute, and Louis grinned at his sweet expression.
“If you’re not…I mean…how do you feel about, um…alternative relationships?”
“You mean, like, transgender? I’m cool with that. At least, I am in theory; I’ve never had to put the idea into practice.”
“No, I meant…student/teacher relationships. That kind of thing.”
“Oh,” Louis said. “Well, like I said, you can’t help who you fall in love with. There would need to be some level of discretion about it. And if the student was underage, it’d have to be totally platonic; I think underage sex is silly. You don’t want to mess around when you’re young and rush into things you’re not ready for. But if the student is of age and the teacher isn’t taking advantage of them…” he shrugged. “What harm is there in it?”
Harry nodded.
“It’s illegal, of course,” Louis added.
“Of course.” Harry smiled faintly.
They had given up pretending that their discussion was purely hypothetical; both of them knew that every question Harry had asked was relevant to them, from the age difference to the forbidden relationship that wasn’t between a teacher and a pupil, but a psychologist and his patient. Trying to make eye contact, Louis waited hopefully to see whether Harry would continue with his questioning. He hoped that he would.
“I’m not going to be all weird and claim that I’m in love with you,” Harry promised, “because I don’t know you properly. But…I definitely have feelings for you.”
“What kind of feelings?” Louis asked. “Are we talking physically, or…?”
“Not…not completely,” Harry admitted. “I do find you attractive – of course I do! But it’s not just that. I don’t just have feelings for you…because you’re hot.” He smiled sheepishly. “It’s the things you say. I can’t really explain it. You make me feel human again. So many people treat me differently because of what I did; they can’t look me in the eye, or they’re scared of making me angry. You treat me like you treat everyone else, and I can’t thank you enough for that.”
Louis couldn’t help but be amused by that statement; he definitely didn’t treat Harry the same as everyone else. He cared for him far more deeply and more desperately than anybody else – people like Niall and Zayn and Liam were his friends, but Harry was something more than that. Harry made him feel happy and ridiculously mixed up inside, and he couldn’t remember a time when his mind wasn’t constantly filled with wistful thoughts of Harry’s curly hair, gorgeous eyes and constant playful flirting.
“Not exactly like everyone else,” he corrected with a smile.
“Maybe not,” Harry agreed, smiling back.
“I have feelings for you too, I think,” Louis conceded.
“Even though I’m a murderer?”
“Weird as it sounds, I don’t think that bothers me as much as it did.”
For a while, they watched each other with interest. Louis wondered whether he could acceptably start flirting with the younger boy, and whether that was what Harry wanted. Faint amusement lingered in Harry’s expression as he appraised Louis; he seemed to have similar thoughts in mind. Neither of them began the banter, though; they just sat and waited. At first, Harry was impatient, longing for one of them to speak – but after a while, he started to relax, and eventually he went back to watching Louis as he had before they had started speaking, and they stayed contentedly silent for a while.
“Are we going to do anything about this?” Harry asked cautiously, “or are we just going to pretend we never had this conversation?”
“Your faith in my self-restraint is quite sweet. I don’t think I could go back to just being your psychiatrist if I tried. Which I have no inclination to do.”
“What are we going to do, then?”
Harry looked cautiously at him. “We don’t have to do anything as such. But we could be…us. In a relationship.”
“If anyone found out, we’d be for it,” Louis muttered.
“Then let’s not get caught,” Harry said simply.
Louis snorted. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It could be. Nothing has to change, not really. We don’t have to act any differently. I feel…different when I’m around you. I don’t love you yet; we’re still strangers, in a way. But I’d like to get to know you better.” He smiled. “We can always start out as close friends and then see what happens after that. Who knows? Maybe one day we could have something real. Maybe one day I’ll get out of this place. I’ve got ten years left, but if I stay on my best behavior, they might shorten my sentence… I’ll be a free man, Louis. I could spend my freedom with you…if you want.” He glanced shyly at Louis.
Entranced by the idea, Louis considered that for a while. Living with Harry…it barely seemed possible. But at the same time, he felt warm all over when he thought about it. Waking up beside Harry, spending every day with him, falling asleep in his arms…he barely knew Harry, but the very thought had him longing to do just that, and spend every second of every day in Harry’s embrace.
“I like the sound of that,” he said. “But…friends? Really?”
Harry smirked. “Friends with benefits.”
“That’s a bit risky.”
“True…okay, then, I’ll have to owe you the benefits.” He grinned. “But how about it? I haven’t broken the law in over two years; I’ve got some catching up to do.”
Louis didn’t reply – but he affectionately blew a kiss into the air in response, and Harry smiled fondly at him. As Louis shook his head and returned the smile, he decided that this was an amazingly bad idea and Harry Styles was going to be the death of him.