Saturday
The streets of Ennis are decked out in even more banners of blue and white, their slogans proclaiming Cead míle fáilte! and Sláinte agus táinte! In the market square, stalls cluster selling hot beverages and pasties, and they spill down the street towards the Town Hall, turning from food into wares of all kinds – jewellery and candles, tin whistles, snow globes.
Harry lags behind their group a little, listening to Niall and Liam discuss football scores while Louis tells Zayn about surfing in Australia. They’d closed the inn reception for the day, since all their guests were out and about anyway, and it seemed a shame to waste an opportunity like this.
The snow had stopped falling sometime in the early morning hours, but it had left a thin layer of white across the rooves and awnings of the town, dusting over parked cars and sprinkling the pavement with glittering flakes. It has yet to turn to slush, and Ennis looks like a photo from a postcard.
His thoughts keep returning to the morning, though not in the heated way he would possibly prefer. Instead, the flashbacks bring a kind of hollowness, as if he’d had something and let it slip away. As if he’d made a huge mistake by not grabbing Louis, throwing him down on the bed and not letting him leave until the two of them were thoroughly sated and exhausted.
He just feels… drained, of all things. Maybe because El and Perrie had thrown a grenade into their lives, and Zayn and Liam are impossibly, hopelessly useless at love, and Harry can’t do anything. He can’t do anything, and he can’t even take comfort in a bit of mutual nudity with an attractive travel writer who is literally on his doorstep.
Yeah, he’s going to put it down to that. He’s only known Louis for a few days, it can’t possibly be anything more.
He lengthens his stride to catch up to Niall and Liam.
“…his art. I kept telling him to set up a stall and sell it, but he doesn’t listen,” Liam is saying, and Niall is smiling sideways at him in a way that Liam doesn’t seem to notice. “Zayn’s impossible sometimes.”
“I’m sure he’s just doing what makes him happy, Li,” Niall replies, reaching over to pinch Liam on the cheek.
“Why would you do that?” Liam yelps, flapping his hand at Niall to get him away, and Niall laughs.
“Because you’re adorable sometimes,” he says. “Isn’t that correct, young Harry?”
“Extremely correct,” Harry confirms, falling into step with them. “But your concern for Zayn and his artistic hobbies is not adorable at all. It is manly. Very manly.”
“And noble,” Niall adds, and Harry grins.
“And rugged.”
“Both of you be quiet,” Liam hisses, speeding up so that he joins Zayn and Louis’ conversation instead, leaving Harry and Niall laughing in his wake.
“What are we going to do about them?” Harry sighs, watching as Liam falls into step with Zayn, their legs impossibly in sync as though it was as natural as breathing.
“We can do nothing, Harry. You don’t have to fix them you know,” Niall says pointedly, and Harry turns to meet his sceptical expression.
“I’m not fixing anything,” Harry says, holding his hands up to chest-height, the picture of innocence. But Niall just rolls his eyes.
“You’re all idiots. Come on, I want fairy floss.”
“Did I hear fairy floss?” Zayn asks over his shoulder, and Niall grins.
“Race you to the stall,” he says, and Zayn glances confusedly around him.
“Do you know where it is?”
“Not a clue. Might not even exist,” Niall admits nonchalantly. “Three, two, one, go!”
He’s off and running down the street within seconds, and Zayn takes a moment to make up his mind, apparently deliberating whether or not it’s worth shedding his composure.
It’s Liam who makes the choice for him, shouting “Onwards!” as he reaches for Zayn’s hand. Harry sees their fingers slip together as Liam pulls Zayn gently forwards, and then the two of them are thundering after Niall.
Louis doesn’t seem in any hurry to go racing though, his gaze crossing back and forth as he takes in the festival, the crowds of cheerful people and the faintest sound of carnivalesque music, the way the fairy lights zigzag across the street overhead.
“Alright,” Harry says, wanting to seize on their moment alone. “Have you figured out my secret past yet?”
“You robbed a bank,” is Louis’ casual, almost automatic reply, and Harry snorts.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the kind of dismissive reaction a bank robber would have,” Louis returns airily. His gaze is still on the stalls around them, but when he finally turns it on Harry he seems oddly serious.
“I’m not going to guess, Harry.”
Harry feels his eyebrows raise without his consent and hopes he doesn’t look too much like a startled gazelle. He notices the slightest tinge of disappointment stirring in his gut at Louis’ admission; as though he’d wanted Louis to see all the way through him, had been expecting it.
“You’re not?” he asks, as casually as he can manage, and Louis shrugs, looking away again.
“I get carried away with curiosity sometimes,” he says thoughtfully. “But it isn’t my place to force something out of you.”
He won’t look at Harry, and there’s the slightest hint of pink to his cheeks, though it could be the frosty winter air. Harry has the urge to reach out and slip his fingers under the back of Louis’ beanie, play with the hair at the base of his neck. He swats it away.
It’s unexpected, but beyond the initial surprise of it, Harry isn’t sure how to take Louis’ hesitance.
“So you don’t want to know?” Harry asks, and Louis shakes his head.
“I didn’t say that,” he replies quietly.
Harry isn’t sure, but he thinks Louis is giving him the choice. Resisting his journalist instincts, his natural curiosity that came out the last time the subject came up, to let Harry have the upper hand now. And Harry feels a little bit winded, because for days he’s watched Louis chase after every single little thing that’s caught his eye, snagged his interest. And he knows Louis wants this, wants in on Harry’s thoughts, had been so adamant that first day in the town together as they’d sat beneath the rowan tree.
But Louis isn’t taking, isn’t demanding. He’s offering, waiting, asking. It’s unprecedented.
“Look, an accordionist!” Louis says, laughing as he watches a small group of kids dancing to the music of an elderly woman as she plays. He catches Harry’s eye, joy splashed across his features, and Harry knows.
“Ok,” Harry says, and it takes Louis a few seconds to realise he’s not referring to the musician.
“Ok?” Louis asks cautiously, and Harry nods, gathering his thoughts, his words. He wants to share this with Louis, something real, something concrete. And Louis waits patiently, silently as they walk on.
“My sister,” Harry admits finally into the quiet between them. “She was severely depressed throughout her teenage years, and she hid it from everyone except me.”
It’s hard to admit out loud this time, he hasn’t spoken about it in perhaps years. But Louis’ steady eyes are finally on him again, soft and curious, and Harry finds something in them that he can take, that he can hold on to.
“So I knew, all through high school, I watched her struggling with it. A couple of times she came this close to…” Harry trails off, his breath feeling tight in his chest. He wants to close his eyes, but he knows what he’ll see if he does; the same image that had haunted him growing up, of one day coming home to find Gemma irreversibly beyond his help.
He feels Louis nudge his fingers into his arm, pressing the knuckles against his skin gently as though reminding him of where he is, as though grounding him. Harry lets out a shaky breath, and continues.
“It came to a head when I was in my last year of school and she ended up in the hospital. Painkillers. When my parents found out she went straight to therapy, and I went off to Uni in London. And it was the weirdest thing, because I was free of this crushing responsibility, but I had no idea what to do with myself.”
“I hated my degree and I thought maybe I needed to be home, so after a year I suspended and moved back. But they were fine, you know? Like, I don’t know what I was expecting, but Gem was doing well. As well as could have been hoped for. And I had this weird disconnect, because it didn’t feel like the place I was meant to be either.”
Harry remembers so clearly the way his home town had felt cold to him, staid, like an old photo from the past. Something he had warm feelings for, but that was just out of reach.
“So you left?” Louis asks quietly, and Harry nods.
“Got on a train to Wales, wondered around a bit.”
Louis smiles softly, going crinkly at the eyes, as though this was his nostalgic memory. “First time out of England?”
“Nah, I did a bit of travelling during school. Spain, Italy.” Harry smiles. “Not sure I properly appreciated it at the time. Too much partying.”
“Ah, the curse of the young and the well-off,” Louis says knowingly, and Harry knocks into him shoulder to shoulder, but gently.
“Alright, Yorkshire. Sorry for being posh,” Harry giggles, relieved to feel a lightness returning to his body as he comes out of his memories, and when Louis shoves him back they commence a quick back-and-forth of shouldering and poking until Harry manages to push Louis sideways hard enough for him to bounce off a stall selling tiny candles. For a few seconds the whole thing clatters and shudders precariously, and Harry holds his breath, but the goods survive. The two of them won’t for much longer under the wrathful stare of the stall owner though, and Louis calls an apology as Harry frogmarches him firmly in the opposite direction.
“Woops,” Harry murmurs, but Louis is still laughing, so he’s not overly worried.
“Jesus, you lug,” Louis groans, rubbing his shoulder. “So you found yourself in your travels then?”
“Well, I found myself when I woke up on a hand statue in Ennis,” Harry corrects, smiling. “Ben took me in, didn’t even think about it. I wanted to look after people like that, give people a place to stay while they sort themselves out, you know? That’s what travel is for, guess I wanted to aid that.”
“You sound like you could just as easily have been a therapist,” Louis comments lightly.
Harry almost flinches at that. He’s thought about it before, because maybe there’s a part of him that can’t just let other people be, that has to try and fix things. And he doesn’t know if that’s him, or if that’s because of everything that happened with Gemma. If something in him is a little bit damaged, or if he would have turned out like this anyway. The kind of person that believes in answers, and perfect endings, and therefore constantly oversteps.
“I don’t think so,” Harry replies quietly, with finality. “Like, I want to help people, but I don’t know if I’m any good at it.”
When he glances over, Louis is watching him with an expression that’s part fondness, part- well, Harry can’t quite figure it out.
“What?” he asks, and Louis smiles inwardly, his eyes crinkling a little at the edges.
“You say that,” Louis says finally, after a considered pause, “but your job seems to be geared towards helping other people.”
Harry shakes his head. “Not helping other people. Feeding people. Giving them room. Or a room. Or both.”
“Ah,” Louis says, and then, “isn’t that helping though?”
Harry shrugs, because he doesn’t have that answer. “Maybe,” he settles on.
It’s perhaps a little too close to the thoughts that Harry finds himself stuck on when his mind runs in confusing, sometimes hopeless directions. But still, he feels a little part of him relax at Louis’ words, his smile. As if he had been waiting for someone to remind him that what he’s built here is something good.
“So I guess it’s a lucky thing you found this place,” Louis says, stretching his arms above his head, and Harry’s gaze catches on the way his shirt is rucked up a little as he moves. His skin is tanned and smooth, his stomach flat as a board, and Harry has to wrench his eyes onto other things. Has to wrench his mind away from the memory of that morning, Louis kneeling in front of him in the laundry room.
“I hope so,” Harry replies. “I’m not like you.”
They pause to buy a couple of hot chocolate and baileys from a vendor, and Harry shivers as its warmth fills his belly in the chilly air.
“What makes you say that?” Louis asks, as they hand over the money and begin to walk again.
“You’re a traveller,” Harry says. “That takes a very unique kind of strength.”
“Or a very common kind of fear,” Louis replies flippantly, his tone far too casual for such a comment.
“But you love travel,” Harry says, and Louis lets out a sigh.
“I think I do,” Louis says, biting his lip. Harry stares quizzically at him.
“How can you not know that?”
Louis hums into the air between them, a sighing noise that Harry can’t interpret. “There’s a lot inside me that I’m still trying to untangle.” He takes another sip of his drink. “This is good, Haz.”
It’s a subject change, clear as day. The quiet settles between them again as they focus on their hot chocolates, but it’s not uncomfortable, Harry doesn’t want to push it. It seems Louis doesn’t want to elaborate, and Harry’s certainly done with being bogged down by his own thoughts and memories. Not when there’s a veritable winter wonderland around them. So he just grabs Louis by the arm, and points at the edge of the stalls, where a cluster of rides and attractions lie.
“Come on,” he says, giving Louis a pull as he sets off at a faster pace. “We’re going ice tobogganing.”
*
Sunday.
When Harry wakes on Sunday morning, he’s covered in bruises. The ones down his right arm are from when he’d careened his sled into Louis’, sending the two of them sprawling in a heap on the hill side and getting them ejected from the sledding track.
There are two on his hips though, two thumb-shaped blossoms of purple, and Harry runs his fingers over them, remembering how greedily Louis had dragged him into the stock room yesterday morning, pulling sounds from Harry as easily as breathing.
Harry sighs, and throws off the covers. It’s Louis’ last day, and Harry has to spend the morning teaching a bunch of out-of-towners how to make pastry.
Time to face the music.
*
“I’m staying a bit longer.”
Harry tries not to choke on his intake of breath as Louis throws himself down on the couch of the reading room and crosses his legs, staring up at Harry through long lashes. Not a ‘good morning’, or a ‘hello’, nothing by way of greeting. Louis had just swanned into the room and exhaled those words like they were effortless, inevitable.
“Farm boy, change the ledger,” Louis continues, affecting a tone of mock imperiousness as he flicks his wrist at Harry.
“I- what?” Harry asks, befuddled, still trying to wake himself up and take this new development in. “Farm boy?”
Louis blinks, actually blinks like a cartoon character doing a double take.
“Wait, you’ve never seen The Princess Bride?” he asks incredulously, his voice the absolute epitome of horror. Harry shrugs.
“I've been meaning to?”
“Harold! What’s your favourite movie?”
Harry doesn’t need to think about that one.
“Love Actually,” he answers, and watches as the pain on Louis’ face doubles.
“Your favourite movie is Love Actually and yet you haven't seen the greatest romantic comedy depicted on screen? This will not do!” Louis rolls gracelessly off the couch.
“I will try… to fix you,” he sings dramatically, running a finger down Harry's nose as Harry tries not to shiver. “But for the moment, change the bloody ledger would you? Liam and I are heading into town.”
And then he disappears into the corridor.
“But how long are you staying?” Harry calls futilely, because he needs to know for his own sake, let alone oh, that little business thing he has to run. Do they have the room even?
Well, no ok, Harry knows they have the room. A bunch of check-outs always happen the day after a festival, even if Louis is no longer one of them. But this is just patently insane.
Harry turns to thud his forehead into the side of the wall. Things are getting way, way out of hand.
*
It had been Zayn’s idea to hold a cooking lesson during the festival, open to the public to wander in and join. Of course it had been Zayn’s idea, because he wasn’t the one tasked with actually carrying it out, the bastard.
So Harry’s got eleven random humans in his kitchen, staring at him as he kneads pastry like he’s revealing the secrets of the universe, and normally he’d be overjoyed that another human being, no, several other human beings want to talk about food with him. Except that he’s distracted by Louis’ casual announcement and immediate disappearance.
He’s staying a bit longer, Harry thinks, what does that mean what does that mean what does that mean.
“Make sure you preheat the oven to 190 degrees,” Harry says, smiling benignly at the expectant faces. They probably don’t care about making pastry. They’re probably just expecting him to feed them.
Actually, Harry wouldn’t mind that. He wonders if he can get them all to just go sit in the dining room so he can make a big extravagant lunch on his own and work through his thoughts.
Although really, if he manages to have another thought besides staying or why or AGSHJDGAFGHJKDJG he’ll be pleasantly surprised, so he might as well teach his willing peasant audience to make Carrigaline whiskey pie. At least he can comfort eat the results afterwards.
He finishes the pastry demonstration and lets them start getting their hands dirty, figuratively speaking, with the potatoes, when a flash of pink in the doorway catches his attention. It’s Perrie, watching quietly with a small smile, and Harry moves around his students to meet her.
“She emerges!” he exclaims cheerfully, and Perrie returns his grin.
“We’re still alive,” she replies. “Why are there tourists in your kitchen?”
“Zayn’s doing,” Harry says with a shrug. “They want traditional Irish cooking, I’m giving them a potato and whiskey based dessert.”
“I’m sure it’s everything they’ve ever dreamed of,” Perrie laughs, her inflection ever so slightly dry, and Harry decides he likes her. A lot. Plus, her hair is kind of amazing, so.
“Zayn brought breakfast up this morning, but I was just after some tea?” Perrie continues.
“In the dining room,” Harry tells her, pointing out the doorway and across the hall. “Go bananas. You two going to see the festival?”
Perrie shakes her neon head. “El’s not up to leaving, I think she’s worried about what everyone’s going to say, you know?”
Harry can understand that. Eleanor’s flight had been the talk of the gossip mill for the last few weeks, he can’t imagine how it’s going to go down when the community figures out she’s back with Perrie in tow.
“Well you can hide out as long as you need,” Harry says, and to his surprise he is answered by Perrie stepping forwards and pulling him into a hug.
“Thankyou,” she murmurs, her voice muffled against his chest and he wraps his arms gently around her. “It means so much to us.”
“Of course,” Harry replies softly, and then Perrie lets go, steps back as if shaking herself.
“Right. Tea,” she says, her game face back on, and Harry watches her disappear down the hallway.