The drive up to Sheffield feels like the longest of his life.
Harry insists on taking the wheel the entire time, because I need to be in control of something right now, Lou, or I'll go insane. Louis lets him, because he's a better driver anyway and, well, Louis doesn't quite trust himself not to accidentally-on-purpose drive them into a ditch. With every mile-sign they pass, every minute turning into another on the radio-clock, every lane-shift Harry makes, Louis feels more sick to his stomach.
They've got the radio on, just to drown out the silence and the roar of their own thoughts, but when Sam Smith's I'm Not The Only Onecomes on it's just so tragic that it's almost laughable.
Louis doesn't laugh, though. He just flicks the radio off and thumps his head back against the window.
He glances over at Harry, just to see his reaction, but he doesn't seem to have even noticed the music cutting off. His eyes are set firmly on the road, lips pressed together so hard they've almost disappeared, knuckles gone white around the wheel.
"Hey," Louis says, reaching over and prying one hand off of it. When he tangles it up in his own it's stiff, cramp-like, sweaty in the palm. Louis takes it to rest on his thigh, folding it up in both of his own and squeezing it tight. Harry gives a shaky sigh, then a small smile and lets his hand relax in Louis'.
They stay like that for the rest of the drive, Louis' hands around Harry's, holding them closely. It's as much for himself as it is Harry.
*
When they reach their destination, a six story tall yellow-bricked building, Louis starts to feel proper carsick. The parking lot's fenced-up and private and every curb spot's already been occupied. When Harry circles the building for a third time, Louis' gone from carsick to majorly claustrophobic.
"Harry, I need to get out, I need to—"
"Well, I can't find a fuckin' spot, you've gotta wait."
"No, seriously, you need to- just stop the car, stop the fuckin' car, Harry, I mean it—"
"All right," he stops the car so abruptly that Louis nearly knocks his nose on the dash. "Jump out, then, I'm stopped in the middle of the road!"
Louis fumbles with the belt, fingers gone all rubbery, legs like fucking jelly when he finally gets out and runs to the pavement before the honking car behind them mows him down. He revels in a few breaths of fresh air after having been cramped in that lukewarm car for three hours, and then revels ten times more in one single puff of a cigarette.
Harry disappears with the car, and Louis feels terribly relieved, getting a few minutes on his own.
Eventually, he re-appears around a corner, arms going in fast choppy movements and a deep line etched between his brows.
"Did you have to smoke right now?" is the first thing he says once within earshot.
Louis gives him a pissy look. "No," he mutters, flicking it to the ground and stubbing it out, not because Harry told him so, but because he was done anyway, "why do you care?"
"S'just... don't want us to stink of smoke up there."
"What, you think she'll take away your rights to see your own child because your boyfriend smells like smoke?"
Harry just scoffs, pulling his phone out instead of replying. He's tripping, constantly, and Louis wants to grab him by the arm or bite his shoulder just to ground him, but he doesn't. He's been out of the car for a while now, but he still feels nauseated, like he's on some sort of nightmare-carousel. This feels so unreal.
"Right," Harry says, looking up from his phone and nodding at an entrance a few feet away, "s'that one. Fifth floor. She'll buzz us up."
Louis' stomach gives a terrible sucking sensation, snapping him out of some daze, and his heart starts to race. "Fuck," he says, "fuck, maybe I should just stay down here and—"
Harry's eyes widen a bit, the rest of his face going softer. He lays a hand on Louis' arm, studying his expression. "The car's two streets down. I saw a pub right round the corner too, if you'd rather not come up. But, uhm- what do you want?" he steps in a little, his other hand suddenly up at the side of Louis' face, cupping it, "Really?"
Louis glances over at Marie's building and then back up at Harry. "No, fuck, I've gotta come with. I can't- I need to come with."
Harry nods, and Louis can't tell whether he's relieved or disappointed.
Before he has a chance to ask or jab at it, Harry dips in for a little kiss. It lands on the side of Louis' mouth, chaste and nothing, really, but it's- it's so much more than what they've had in too long. It's too much, right now.
Louis backs up, wiping at his mouth with the back of his sleeve to stop the teenagery tingles in his skin. "Okay," he says, "well, lets—"
"Yeah, I- let's, then."
Harry offers him gum twice, first in the lift and then again when they've rung Marie's doorbell and are waiting around outside, anxiously shifting weight from foot to foot.
"For fuck's sake, no," Louis hisses, "she won't care if I smoke, it doesn't fucking—"
The door gets pulled open. Well, pulled a little bit open. There's an awkward moment where she's fiddling with the door-chain, swearing under her breath when it won't budge, and Harry and Louis don't know whether to say hello yet or not.
They end up waiting until she finally manages to unleash her door and opens with a breathy, "hii."
And— she's beautiful.
Of course she is. She's just in a pair of black leather loafers and she's still only about half an inch short of Harry, many inches taller than Louis. She's rail-thin, skin that creamy colour you get when you pour too much milk in your coffee, eyes hazel and hair golden-brown and shoulder-length, waving sweetly around her little face. She's in a white tee and vertically striped high-wasted slacks that basically makes her, like, eighty percent legs.
She smiles, pearly-white, as she shakes Louis' hand and introduces herself, and all Louis can think is this can't be accidental and that's not someone you randomly pull home when the lights come on at the club and he's seen her at the other end of the bar, he's wanted her and then he's chatted her up, that's how it really happened, it's got to have been, just fucking look at her.
"Louis," he blurts, when he realises she's still waiting for him to respond to her, and it comes out awkwardly, a bit like a cough, "'m Louis."
"Marie," she says, for something like the fourth time. "Well, ehm- just, come in, and, eh- you can put your shoes there, coats go up there," she adds on, after a brief uncomfortable silence, stumbling backwards to let them in.
For a few minutes, the room is quiet again, save for the bustle off getting off trainers and unzipping windbreakers - and, well, Harry hanging his coat. They don't know this woman well enough for non-uncomfortable silence, but at the same time the purpose of this meet-up feels much too heavy for attempting polite small-talk.
Marie leads them into a cosy little livingroom; canary yellow walls, because why the fuck wouldn't she have picked the exact colour Harry wanted back at their flat?, brown low-set couches and scented candles burning on the rustic treasure-chest that functions as her coffee-table.
"You can just- uhm, sit there and I'll- I've already put the kettle on, you want tea or coffee or—"
"Tea, please," Harry says, and Louis just nods when looked at.
She disappears into another room and, the second she does, Harry turns to Louis, a terrible worried look on his face. "You all right?"
"Fine," Louis lies.
"You sure?"
Louis sighs exasperatedly. "No, I'm not fuckin' all right, but I don't want to talk about it right now, we need to focus on—"
"I hope you don't mind herbal tea, I didn't have anything else," Marie says, carrying two quirky tea-mugs in for them. One of them looks as though it might've been painted by a two year old. Which, come to think of it, it very well might have.
Louis doesn't look her in the eye when she hands him his tea, which fucking stinks of weed, just mutters a low thank you and pretends to have a sip.
She sits down in a lounge-chair across from them, first awkwardly rubbing her palms at the arm-rests, then crossing her legs and then uncrossing them again and coughing and then finally saying, quite redundantly; "I'm not quite sure how to go about this."
Harry puts his tea down. "Me neither," he admits, and she sighs and nods, her shoulders dropping notably, "I'm not, uhm- I'm not really sure of anything at all right now, to be honest."
"No."
They stare at each other for a moment without speaking, and Louis feels more uncomfortable than he ever has, sitting there on the sideline.
"Do you want to see some pictures? Of Charlie?" Marie offers, cutting her gaze away, "I've got several albums, I- oh, and Charlie's what we call her, mostly. Charlotte's a bit too- well, long."
"Right," Harry breathes. "Yeah, okay, I think I would- I would like to see."
He's twisted on of his hairbands round his pointer-finger, the tip of it a greyish purple at this point. Louis wants to whack his hand to stop him, but he feels too stiff and stuck in his own body to move.
Marie gets up and walks over to a bookcase in the corner of the room, stuffed with books - because of fucking course, she's got brains as well as beauty - funny little nicknacks and, at the bottom, a couple of photo-albums. She pulls one out and walks back, slowly flipping through the pages.
"Uhm..." she says, wavering between her lounge-chair and Harry and Louis, "this one's quite recent. From her second birthday."
She turns the album around and hands down into Harry's lap.
The second they get a look at the page, they don't have to ask which picture she's referring to.
She's sat right here in this exact couch, in Marie's lap, in front of a birthday cake with two candles on, one of her chubby little hands lashing out at the frosting. She's got the same skin- and eye-colour as Marie. That's also about it. The rest is just- all Harry. From the dark curly head of hair to the crinkles round the eyes to the dimples to the lips to the nose to the lashes, it's all Harry. If there was ever a doubt about the legitimacy of the paternity results, that's all gone now. That's Harry's kid.
Harry reaches down to trace a finger over the picture and that's when Louis realises he's shaking.
Without thinking, he wraps a hand around his waist and presses his nose into Harry's shoulder. "It's all right, H," he mutters lowly, forgetting that the woman Harry cheated on him with stands right across from them, just for a moment, "you all right?"
"I can, uhm- go in the other room for a bit if you guys need a moment to—"
Before Marie has a chance to finish her sentence, Harry snaps; "why the fuck did you leave it two years?"
She looks startled, lips dropping apart and gaze flicking over to Louis for some sort of help, but of course, there's none to find, "I, uhm—"
"Two years and nine months, you—" Harry goes on, steady enough to shout, but frail enough to crack, "you- fuck, you've kept my kid from me for over two years, you've made sure I never even had a chance, a fucking chance, to be part of her life, how the fuck could you—"
"Listen, I- d'you need minute to calm down, I can—"
"A minute?!" Harry looks like he's about to scream, maybe throw the album at her, but then he stifles himself and just shakes his head in complete disbelief instead, "a minute?" he repeats, more of a hiss than a yell this time, "I need the last two fucking years back, I need an explanation, I need, fuck-" he grabs the album, points the pictures at her and taps the birthday-one aggressively, "that's my fucking kid, right there! She looks exactly like me, that's my fuckin' kid, how could you take away any chance for me to even- fuck."
Harry pants up at her for a few tense seconds, then shakes his head and crumbles in on himself, fingers raking through his hair and digging into his scalp.
Marie signals Louis that she's going into the kitchen to give them a moment and Louis just nods and wraps his arms around Harry's hunched-over body. "Shh, babe," he mutters with his lips pressed to Harry's shoulder, along with it's all right, I understand and you take all the time you bloody need and it's okay, I'm right here with you and other things he isn't sure what he really feels about inside.
At some point, Harry suddenly sets off the couch and marches into the kitchen.
There's some more yelling, then utter silence, and then mutters, which eventually develop into a somewhat normal back and forth. Louis considers getting up and going in there several times, hundreds of times, but whatever made him find it impossible to allow Harry to be in a room alone with Marie sort of fell away the second he realised just how furious Harry was with her, and he can't really see what the hell he'd be doing in there anyway but stand and stare.
No, they need this, he thinks, as he keeps seated on her couch, wringing his hands around and staring at the picture of the child that looks like her and Harry.
I need this. I need this moment alone with myself.
-
It's an hour before Louis finally decides he's just going to go down to the car and wait there instead. Maybe pop by that pub on the way and down a pint or three.
"Hi, ehm, I'm just gonna head down to the car," he says, opening the kitchen door.
Marie's up on the counter, legs dangling loosely, hands fiddling with the sink-faucet for no apparent reason other than to deal with her nerves. Harry's leaned back against the wall across from her, thumbs in his pockets.
"No," he says, when he see's Louis, "it's all right, I think we're—" he glances over at Marie, "I think we're done for today. I'll come with you."
Louis nods.
She walks them to the door and gives a little see you and then it's just Harry and Louis again, side by side in the lift.
"I get to meet her tomorrow. If I want," Harry says, gaze straight ahead. He looks apathetic in the way that you do when you've cried or screamed so much you've just got nothing left to give, "if we come by around noon or after, the ex-step-dad - that's who Charlie's with right now - he'll have brought her back. And Marie will let me meet her."
"Okay." They step out of the lift, and then the building, and begin trotting slowly down the pavement, hands occasionally brushing, but not sparking the need to intertwine, "so, would I, ehm, be allowed to come too or—"
Harry finally looks at him, brows snapping together. "Course you fucking would," he exclaims, "what, do you think she said you couldn't come or something?"
Maybe she did. Maybe Harry suggested it. "I don't know."
"Course you're allowed to fucking come. If she'd have said otherwise I'd have told her no fuckin' way," Harry says, voice sharp in a way that tells Louis he isn't half as calmed-down he thought, "no. Unless you don't want to, you're coming with."
"I want to," Louis replies without hesitation. However semi-all right he found it to give Harry and Marie an hour alone in the kitchen together, he doesn't think his nerves could take it if he stayed back home or at a hotel-room while they spent a whole day playing happy families, "yeah, I want to come with."
*
They check into a cheap hotel ten minutes from Marie's place, because the thought of driving all the way back home and then back up here in the morning is just fucking ridiculous. There's an awkward moment when the receptionist asks whether they want a double-bed or single's, but Louis just can't handle anymore today, so he cuts it off and asks for a double.
In the lift up to their room, Harry keeps looking at him.
"I really didn't put much thought into it," Louis says once they're finally let out on their floor and he can breathe again, "it was just force of habit, Harry - asking for a double-bed. Don't- you know," he glances back at Harry as he swipes the key-card, "don't think that means- anything."
Harry shakes his head manically. "Yeah, no, I- I wasn't thinking anything, I—"
"Good."
The room is small and square, consisting of a little cube of a bathroom, and, in the main room, a queen size-bed, a desk and a mini-fridge. Louis trails his finger along the desk as he passes it, glancing out at the faint lights of the city of Sheffield. It's no more than eight pm and he hasn't eaten anything since they left home hours ago, but he doesn't feel like going out to eat. Or room-service. Or anything to do with putting something in his stomach at all.
He collapses back on the bed, kicking off his shoes.
"'m showering," Harry announces, and Louis kills the little voice in his head, telling him he should go and check if he's all right.
He can't be the supportive boyfriend, not anymore, it's enough for today, he's lying down now, shimmying out of his clothes and it's all coming back to him, slowly, all the bad and the bitter. How stunning she was. How much the kid looked like Harry, and herself, a beautiful little mix. What an idyllic little family they'd make.
How Harry couldn't possibly not remember having fucked someone who looks like that.
By the time Harry's out of the shower again, Louis' under the covers, face pressed into the pillow, eyes squeezed shut. Harry doesn't notice how his breathing's much too fast for being asleep, or maybe he does, but just doesn't mind not talking. Either way, Louis doesn't actually sleep for another hour, maybe two.
-
It's still dark out when he wakes again, with a little gasp, coming out of some half-bad dream he's already forgotten the contents of. He's on his side, back facing Harry, and he doesn't have to move to see the clock on his nightstand. 1.04 AM.
He should go back to sleep. He can go back to sleep, he thinks, if he just turns his pillow and counts a few sheep and switches sides and-
Harry's wide awake.
He's on his back, gaze flicking around the ceiling, feet shifting in the sheets, teeth chewing at his nails, wide awake. And, somehow, without asking, Louis knows he has been all night.
"Harry," he whispers, and Harry shifts violently and blinks at him, like being yanked out of a thick fog. "You all right?"
He opens his mouth, probably to say yes of course, just go back to sleep, I'm fine, but then he looks over at Louis and whatever he finds makes him sigh and tell the truth instead; "can't stop worrying." He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and takes a deep unsteady breath in through his nose. "I can't help worrying, like..."
Instinct taking over right then, Louis lays a hand on his chest. "What, Haz?"
He opens his eyes, a deep crease between his brows that Louis just wants to kiss away. "What if she doesn't like me? What if, like- I mean, I'm practically this stranger coming into her life and, what if she thinks I'm just scary or weird or—"
"She won't, Haz." Louis pries Harry's hands fully off his face, kissing the knuckles of one of them, "you're the best with children. Doris and Ernest love you. You've got the most animated face I've ever seen, little kid's love that shit."
Harry gives a breathy chuckle. "But," he says, gaze rolling up to the ceiling again, crease between the brows deepening terribly, "what if- what if she does like me?"
"What then?"
"What if she does like me, and- and Marie will let me see her and—" he turns back to Louis, eyes going a bit wild, "will I be a full-on father, then? What if I don't- what if I don't know how to be or I don't love her the way I'm supposed to, what if she's just another cute little kid I feel no particular bond with, I—"
"Harry, stop—" Louis doesn't realise he's cutting him off before he does, sharply. The room falls completely silent. "Harry, I can't—"
Be the one to listen to that right now. Be the one that you offload on, not when it's about this, not yet, not when I'm still not mended enough not to be bitterly selfish inside. Not when it still hurts this much to think about how you went about having this kid.
He doesn't say it. He doesn't say any of it, because he's trying be- something for Harry, right now, just anything, because this is too fucking big for him not to be, but then—
"I'm sorry."
Louis looks up.
Harry brushes the side of Louis' face with his the pad of his thumb. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be- loading off on you, I- how are you feeling? What are you thinking?"
For a second, he considers actually answering. Then he notices the deep dark circles under Harry's eyes, the dents in his lip where he's been biting much too hard or much too long or probably both. "Come here," he says instead, reaching round Harry's waist to pull him in, "come here, kiss me."
Harry goes easily at first, lips finding Louis', tongue pushing past his teeth, trembly fingers digging into his jaw. He rolls onto Louis, a steady familiar weight atop of him, in-between his legs and grinds down, and then he stops, once they're both too hard to fucking stop, really, and lifts up and asks; "you sure you're okay with this?"
Louis feels his brows drawing together at first, because he isn't sixteen in a tent on a camping-trip with fifteen minutes to spare before their tent-mate comes back, and Harry behind him, trying not to get too eager too fast. They've done this a million times, they know each other's bodies in and out and, normally, Louis would scold Harry for ever asking something as patronizing as you sure you're okay?
But then, he remembers. He wishes he hadn't. "Yeah, I'm—" he reaches up and tangles his fingers up in Harry's hair, wanting him close enough again not to have to deal with those big eyes on him, "just, kiss me some more."
"Yeah," Harry drops a smacky little kiss to the side of his mouth, "yeah, I, mhm-" he tries as their kisses grow longer, deeper, and he starts to move his hips again, "I love.. mhm... you, Lou—"
"Love you too," Louis whispers, because it just slips this time, and of course it's true, has been ever since the start, "I just- mhm... want you inside me again."
Harry makes a needy noise at that, snapping his hips down and slipping his hands around, grabbing at as much arse as he can get. "Yeah, fuck," he hisses, "Lou, I- I miss it so bad, I want it so bad, think about it fuckin' constantly—"
He lifts up again, and he looks so sincere, so young and stupid with it, that Louis manages to forget what he's done for a second.
He rolls onto his stomach and Harry mutters something like fuck, I can't wait into the nape of Louis' neck as he pulls his pants down his arse.
It's only when Harry's giving choked pants against the space between his shoulder-blades, lubed-up and trying to get in, that Louis is reminded again. It's tighter now, harder to get in, harder to open up, it hurts more when Harry finally does manage to pop his cock-head past Louis' muscle, all for one reason; it's been too fucking long.
Because he fucked someone else.
His body reacts before he does, slapping back at Harry and trying to wriggle away from under him. "Stop, no, I can't, Harry, please get off, please, I can't—"
"What, I—"
Louis manages to elbow him in the gut and he rolls off with a groan.
"I can't, I'm sorry, I can't, I thought I could, but I can't," he rambles, yanking his pants back up, "I can't, you've fucked it, I can't, I—"
"It's okay," Harry says, voice nothing but a breath, really, "it's okay, I'm, it's- I've been pressing you for it too much, it's my fault," he mutters while Louis buries his face in the pillow and listens to the sticky sounds of him peeling off the condom they're never going to use, "I don't ever want us to- want it to be like that, that... like, that you think you have to do anything. I want you to want it. It's okay."
"I do want it, I just, I- fuck, I'm sorry."
"Louis," he says, firmer, "seriously. Stop apologising. You're makin' me feel guilty, like I've made you think you owe me something. You don't owe me shit. I just love you, that's all. And it's late. Let's go to sleep."
"Yeah, I- okay. I'm so—"
"No, you're not. I am. I'm sorry. Now, let's sleep. Goodnight."
"I- yeah. Okay. Goodnight."
Harry doesn't try to cuddle him that night and Louis tells himself it's just because he's nervous about tomorrow.