Squeak, squeak, squeak.
Harry's shoes are insufferable.
Every time he takes a step, he cringes at the high pitched noise that escapes beneath him, making everyone in the hall turn and stare. It definitely feels like high school all over again, what with the loud gossiping and unashamed giggles, the shrill bells, the feeling of crippling insecurity and self-doubt. Harry remembers it well.
One of his greatest joys was finally graduating high school and moving on with his life. At the time, he didn't know what he wanted to be, but teachers get summers off, so he decided to try that.
It's been a few years now, and he's grown to love teaching in a way that he hadn't known he would. He's been an assistant in a few kindergarten classrooms—which was fun, if a little hectic—and he's substituted in a middle school or two. Thankfully, he hadn't been forced to reenter the Axe-filled, hormonally charged Hell that is high school—until now.
His professor wants to give everyone a "well-rounded" teaching ability, regardless of what grades they prefer to teach. Objectively, Harry can understand this, but as he's walking through the halls of a brand new high school, his shoes squeaking embarrassingly loud, he can't help but curse his professor's demand.
It's just for three days, he thinks. Then he can claim that he's well-rounded enough, and refuse another entry into Hell. He's got this.
The squeak of his shoes stops abruptly as he glances down to check his schedule, confirming that he's at the right room. A16, the English wing. With one deep breath, Harry pastes a half-smile on his face and twists the door handle.
Inside, the room is partly dark, completely silent except for the tapping of a keyboard Once his eyes adjust to the darkness, Harry can see the cheesy inspirational posters hung on the walls, a giant whiteboard with what looks like an entire monologue from Shakespeare scribbled on it, with annotations and all, the tables pushed together into one long line down the middle, like a giant dining table. In the corner of the room is a small desk with a computer from the 90's at the latest, a hulking dinosaur of a computer, and a massive stack of papers.
"Hello?" Harry asks quietly. He knows the teacher must be in here—a Mr. Tomlinson, he's heard—but he can hardly see anything but a shadow.
The shadow stands up, a man slightly shorter than himself, and heads over towards the windows. "Hey!" the teacher says. Harry can't see his face, but he can tell he's smiling. He pulls open a curtain, the room filling with a soft sunrise glow. Mr. Tomlinson is turned backwards, but his hair is light and feathery, shining like a halo. And—Harry is resolutely not looking at this teacher's bum. "Sorry, the screen on my state of the art government-provided computer is so dim that the room needs to be pitch black to see it."
His arms reach above his head to give the second string a firm tug, exposing a small patch of skin on his back, and then he turns around with his hand outstretched.
The already ice-cold nerves flowing through Harry's veins freeze even further once he seems Mr. Tomlinson's face . It's—gorgeous. That's the only word that Harry's mind can produce. He's got cheekbones to die for, sharp blue eyes—a shade unlike the ocean or the sky, more like the blurred softness between them—and a pleasantly scratchy looking beard, not so long, just the right length to leave Harry's thighs looking—
No, no. No. This is a complete stranger, and a teacher at that. One wrong move and Mr. Tomlinson can give his professor a terrible report. He definitely can't get lost in his thoughts like this.
Harry extends his own hand, grasping his' small but firm fingers and shaking them once. Mr. Tomlinson's face morphs into a toothy smile as he takes his hand away. "Hello, then. I take it you're not a new student?"
"What?" Harry asks, caught up in the way his eyes are quite literally sparkling in the light. "Oh—No. Not a student."
"Well, you can call me Louis," he says. He clasps his hands together, forming a fist in front of his chest. It's such an oddly powerful thing to do, and Harry truly doesn't understand why it's got him so flustered. "Are you a sub?"
"Am I— What ?" Harry's eyes widen, his mouth fallen open in shock. He doesn't know how Louis could have found out, unless—there was a video, once, of his ex-boyfriend tying him up, but he doesn't think his own face was in it at all... His tattoos, maybe? How would Louis recognize his tattoos from one video on one site? And It's not like he goes on social media screaming about how he likes for his boyfriends to dominate him, so—How does Louis know he's a sub if he doesn't even know him?
Harry clenches his hands into fists, holding them behind his back as he stumbles a bit. "I don't, uh—I mean. I've never really gotten a chance to be a true sub, you know? My ex-partners were always scared they'd hurt me. But, like—If I trusted someone a lot, and if we used a, a safeword. And talked about, you know, boundaries, then—Yes, yeah, I-I'm a sub."
Louis blinks, his smile dimming. His eyebrows scrunch up a bit in confusion, until they start glittering again with clear amusement.
That's when Harry realizes .
"Oh shit, oh my god," Harry whispers. "You meant—Okay! Wow, I've just messed this up majorly. I'm so—Oh my god."
Louis' eyes are so wide, his cheeks puffing out in the effort to not burst into laughter. Harry doesn't think he's ever been more mortified in his life .
"Well," Louis says, voice high-pitched, clearly struggling. Suddenly a quiet laugh erupts from him, and then he can't help it anymore—he doubles over, one hand on his hip and the other over his mouth. "I'm so sorry. It's—"
A few more endearingly quiet giggles escape, making Harry's heart drop even further into his stomach. He doesn't know whether to join in with the laughter or run out of the room crying. For his own sake, he does the former, and starts choking out self-deprecating laughs.
Louis straightens his back after a moment, sighing quickly to get rid of his smile. Harry can see him look down at the Visitor's ID wrapped around Harry's neck, and then he's saying, "I don't know how you got that question from what I asked, but. Harry, it's fine, alright? You look like you want to jump off a cliff."
That is, indeed, just one of the many things Harry is envisioning for himself now. Instead of admitting this, Harry trains his eyes on the floor, kicking a dust bunny up with his foot, as he says, "Let's just pretend that never happened." His cheeks are burning, surely as pink as a cherry by now, and he wants nothing more than to drop the subject for all of eternity. And to never be in Louis' presence again.
Louis taps a finger on his own lips, folded into a "V" shape. "Seriously, love, do you need to sit down?"
"No, I need you to stop talking," Harry murmurs, nearly gasping at his own rudeness as soon as the words are out of his mouth. His mom would be appalled. (Well, his mom would be appalled at every word that's come out of his mouth since meeting Louis.) "I'm so sorry. I should probably go, right? I should just go."
"Then who's going to watch my class while I'm out?"
"Right, yeah," Harry nods. He takes Louis' suggestion and sits down in the nearest chair, feeling a bit lightheaded. "When does class start?"
Louis holds uncomfortable eye contact for what feels like years before Harry has to divert his eyes. "Fifteen minutes," he answers. "I'll be leaving at the bell."
Harry nods, and picks at a string on his sweater. Every second seems to build the shame inside him, making him feel both heavily weighted to the chair, and wanting to bolt as soon as possible. There's a slight huff in front of him, and then Louis is dragging his own chair up so their knees are pressed together.
"Will it make you feel better if I told you something inappropriately open about myself too?"
Harry looks up, skeptical that anything Louis says could top his own confession. "You could try."
Louis nods. "Hmm..." he tilts his head in thought. Harry can just see the thoughts spinning in his brain. "I don't want to scare you away too soon," he punctuates this with a giggle, and Harry wonders how anything Louis could say would ever be intimidating. "Well, let's see. You know those, like, sex clubs?"
Harry scrunches his eyebrows in thought. He's certainly never been to a sex club—he didn't know they even existed outside of porn videos. "No?"
Louis looks more confident now, sitting up straighter as he says, "It's a building with a ton of rooms, and one great room, where people go to, basically, have sex. Or just watch. There are private rooms, but those are less fun," he winks. "My friend owns one. So I go there a lot for free."
"And—What do you do?" Harry asks hesitantly. He thinks he's earned the right to curiosity after making a complete fool of himself earlier.
"Usually I don't even undress," Louis says, hiding a wry grin behind his hand. "I'm not much into the sex with strangers thing. I'd rather prove that I can make them cry without ever taking my own clothes off."
"M-Make them cry?" Harry whispers, now sure that this is the most surprised he's ever been. Louis is so—not small, really, but— dainty . He's thin, with a little tummy and small hands, hair styled in a fringe that makes him look so young—and he is young, clearly, though the little crinkles around his eyes when he's smiling lead Harry to believe he's older than he looks. He's dressed like he could be one of the high school kids running the halls, in a VANS tee and skinny jeans. Truly, the only thing giving Harry the "dom" vibe is his beard.
Louis bites his lip, as if deciding whether he should keep talking or not. Selfishly, Harry hopes that he does—he's never met a real, actual dom before. Even if he's doubting just how dominant Louis can be, it's still a massive step up from Harry having to beg his ex-boyfriends to even wrap a tie around his wrists.
"Maybe you should come visit one day," Louis says instead of elaborating. "Class is about to start—wouldn't want a student to hear about this."
Harry sighs, his shoulders sinking. Surely he'd meant it as a formality. He doesn't actually want Harry to show up, does he?
Before he can even begin to feel sorry for himself, Louis stands up and grabs a post-it-note off his desk. He scribbles an address and a phone number down and puts it in Harry's palm.
"Are these entirely legal?" Harry wonders.
Louis giggles. "Yeah, of course, Harry. You should stop by. Like I said, there's a bar and everything, not everyone there is naked."
Harry blushes, reluctantly nodding. "Maybe," he says, though he knows that as soon as he gets home later, he'll be changing into new clothes and driving over immediately. "How will I know if you'll be there?"
Louis taps the phone number on the sticky note. "Whenever you're ready."
Then he moves away, flitting across the room as he rearranges some books. When he starts talking about lesson plans, Harry figures the conversation is over, but half his mind is still thinking about Louis making Harry cry.
+
The day is only slightly less disastrous than Harry thought it would be. Of course, as soon as Louis left Harry alone with the class, all the kids started talking over one another—practically screaming—and refusing to stay quiet for anything. But Harry was prepared for that, and as soon as he pulls a giant bag of candy out of his backpack, they shut up quite quickly.
It falls apart a bit later, when he runs out of candy before 3rd hour. It worked out alright, however, because those classes were all AP English, so they were full of, well, nerds. The worst they did was go on and on about how the government is quickly becoming more like Big Brother in 1984 than ever before. That was one book Harry actually enjoyed, so he added to the conversation when he could.
Still, by the end of the day, he's exhausted. He doesn't know how Louis can do this every single day, and thanks God that he won't be put into a high school for his internship later this year. A part of him thinks it'd be fun to see Louis every day, but he wouldn't last a week in this confined area of thousands ( thousands! ) of teenagers.
He's so tired, that by the time he gets home, takes a shower, and puts on his PJ's, he's forgotten all about the sex club adventures Louis had invited him on. It isn't until he sees the half-crumpled sticky note hanging out of his pants pocket that he realizes he should at least tell Louis he's not going today.
When he picks up the phone and types in the number, however, his thumbs grow a brain of their own and end up typing: Might show up in a little bit, if you'll be there? x
He writes the kiss at the end for everyone without thinking about it, but now he wonders if it'll be too much. He did just meet Louis, and now they're discussing good times for Harry to go watch Louis do intense sex things to strangers. It's not exactly a kiss worthy moment.
Either way, Harry sends the text before he can truly fret about it. He wills himself to stay calm, picking out an outfit, just in case, while he waits for Louis' response.
There's a beep, and then: Sure love, I'll be there in half an hour! Want me to wait for you? x
Harry bites his lip, smiling at the little kiss on Louis' text too. Sure, thanks! x
His brain is shouting a million different things at him, as if there's a real angel and devil sitting on his shoulders. On autopilot, he slips into the clothes he'd set out, tying up his shoes and grabbing his wallet. Once he types the address into his phone, he's ready to go.
+