Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Louis spends his heat trying not to cry Harry’s name into the sheets. He fails.

Everyone notices that something is wrong. The boys, first, when Louis doesn’t ask Harry to cuddle him when he gets out of heat. When he doesn’t even look at Harry, and Harry doesn’t look at him. Then the crew. Then the fans. Then, it feels, the whole world.

     They try, on stage. Try to be the LouisandHarry that everyone has always known. But every time Louis catches Harry’s eye—which is too often, because Harry’s always looking at him, gaze shimmering somewhere halfway between somber and furious—his voice falters, and the lyrics to his own songs fall out of his head. It’s dizzying.

     They haven’t spoken since Harry left his room. Louis doesn’t try to.

A week. Then two. Louis loses count of the days halfway through three weeks. It hurts too much to remember.

He’s angry. He’s so, so angry.

“I’m worried.” Zayn and Niall announce at the same time. Louis watches the door that had just closed.

     He’d walked into Zayn and Liam’s hotel room and watched Harry mutter something about taking a nap, standing from the bluish-gray couch. His head was dipped, but when their arms brushed as he slipped past Louis in the doorway, he glanced up. Just for a moment. A breath. Then he was gone, and the door was shutting behind him.

     “About what?” Louis asked absently, dragging his eyes slowly away from the doorknob. His gaze sticks on it, like maybe it will twist and Harry will be back. He has to tear it and the hope away.

     Niall snorted, gesturing frantically in Louis’ direction. “You and Harry! Harry and you! All of it!” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “All of it!” He repeated desperately, voice distraught.

     Zayn rubbed his back. Niall collapsed into his lap, groaning softly. “All of it.” Zayn assured solemnly.

     “I don’t—I don’t...” Louis stammered, shaking his head. His cheeks were hot. The tips of his ears were stained red. “I mean, I don’t know—“

     Zayn studied him for a melancholic moment, and then shifted over on the sofa and patted the empty cushion. Louis collapsed heavily beside him. “What happened?”

     When Louis didn’t answer, Niall echoed the question.

     “We got into a fight.” He says, eyes trained on the bowl of fake fruit on the coffee table, and the vase of fake flowers beside it. He wonders when everything will stop being fake. “It was bad. I guess. I don’t know.”

     “You’re shutting down.” Zayn observes studiously, which is right on the money, because Louis is shutting down. Cheers.

     He’s not sure what else to do anymore. Maybe he’s forgotten how to do anything else. It certainly feels like a faulty function. Like whatever makes him tick has stopped spinning with the cogs.

     It’s been factored out completely, and logically, Louis knows that. There’s a Harry-shaped hole where all of his working parts are standing still.

     “He’s ready.” Is all Louis says, and he hopes they understand, because he can’t have this conversation. He wants to cry when he has this conversation; wants to have total emotional catharsis and revelation. And he’s not sure the crying button still works inside his gears. He’s not sure all the right wires are attached.

     Zayn shifts, sharp shoulder knocking against Louis’. Niall made a face and asked, “Aren’t you?” His blonde brows were furrowed.

     “No.” Louis said immediately. And then: “I don’t know. Maybe. But no. Yes. It’s—complicated.”

     “It sounds it.” Niall agreed under his breath.

     Zayn’s elbow struck his rib cage, and he yelped and pressed himself into the arm of the couch, rubbing at it. A pout manifested on his mouth, blue eyes shimmering.

     Louis blinked at them. Zayn smelled nice, but there was something unnaturally sour brewing there, too. Something like concern. “What do you guys think?” Louis asks, and he knows his voice is dull, uninterested, but he can’t force it to be enthusiastic. Feelings can’t be worth it when he isn’t allowed to share them with Harry. It sounds dreadfully codependent, and it is, and Louis wouldn’t have it any other way.

     “It’s you and Harry.” Zayn made a face. “I always sort of expected you to bond and have a lot of loud, curly babies.”

     “Yeah, but do you think I’m ready?” Louis pressed.

     “Honestly, Lou?” Zayn began, and Niall was already nodding along, like he knew what Zayn was going to say. Maybe he did. “I think you were ready before he was. Probably since the beginning. You talk yourself out of it every day because you’re terrified of letting people down, and you have this twisted idea that you’ll let Harry down by not being enough in a relationship, as if you could ever let him down. Or not be enough for him.” He shrugged, like he hadn’t just turned Louis’ life on its top. “You’ve always been ready.”

     Louis wants to say no more than he’s ever wanted to say anything in his life. He wants to tell Zayn that he’s wrong, that Louis’ never been ready, how could Zayn ever think he was ready? And even if he was...

     Even if he was. He’s angry. Harry and he both said dangerous things in that godforsaken hotel room. He can’t just forget them.

     Zayn’s not really wrong. Maybe. But he’s still angry. Angry enough to want to tell him he is.

     Louis leans back on the sofa and makes them change the subject.

Harry’s drunk, and crying, and banging on Louis’ door.

     Louis pulls the door open, hugging his icy arms around his waist, and Harry stumbles in, catching first at the smooth wall and then at Louis’ thin, sleep-warm shoulders. He turned the air con up before he went to sleep, and his skin is already chilly outside the blankets.

     Harry’s green eyes were bleary in the moonbeam and city light that streamed through the cracked curtains. His hair was a mess around his face. Even in near-darkness, Louis could see the flush of alcohol that sat low in his cheeks.

     He sniffs. Tears cling to his jaw. One drips off his nose. “Lou.” He breathes, too reverent, too brokenhearted. “Are you divorcing me?”

     Louis reached back, extracting himself from Harry’s scalding palms, and pulled a jumper over his bare skin. His trousers are still in the bedroom, so there’s not much to do about his bare legs, but he can suffice with boxers until Harry goes back to his own room. “What are you doing here, Harry?” He can hear how defeated his voice sounds in his own ears. His head hung low.

     “You’re divorcing me. Why are you divorcing me?” Harry falls to his knees and hugs tightly to Louis’ thighs. “Please don’t divorce me.”

     “Harry.” Louis pinches his own palm to keep from reaching out and threading his fingers through Harry’s disheveled curls. “Harry, get up, please.”

     Harry does as told. The tears have stopped, but his eyes are bleaker than before. Colored blue with despondency.

     He sniffs quietly, aimlessly, gentle as he’d always been. “I don’t want you to go.” He whispers.

     It knocks Louis straight in the chest. It spears through his lungs and lets loose all the air he thought he could save for when he ran out. It dampens every reserve. Leaves him deserted and shot full of holes. Spots danced in his vision.

     “I could never—“ a rock had lodged in his throat. He swallows around it, but it hurts, jabbing into his trachea and scraping up his vocal chords. “I could never leave, Haz. Not you.”

     “You are, though.” Harry says. He sounds sickeningly sober, and with the room spinning around him like this, Louis wonders if they’ve switched places. “You’re leaving, and you’re taking all the pieces of me with you.”

     Harry tilts Louis’ chin up and slants their wet lips together. It’s very soft. Harry tastes like alcohol and mints and he smells like alpha and forest and hurthurthurt and Louis can’t breathe around any of it. Around the gaping hole in his chest. Harry’s mouth is hot. The kiss is drunken. It’s plain and it’s encompassing in its entirety. Louis can’t breathe.

     For all the times Louis had thought about their first kiss, he never thought it would be so sad.

     It’s why he pushes Harry away.

     He hopes Harry remembers in the morning. Then, he hopes he doesn’t.

     “You’re drunk, Harry.” He says, tipping his head down until his chin almost presses into his chest. He’s not sure he can reject Harry and look into his eyes at the same time. It’s cowardly, and it’s the only thing Louis knows in this moment. He picks up a water bottle from the minibar beside them. “You should sleep.”

     Harry’s lips were velvet and chiffon against his. He can still feel them, imprinted on his mouth. Warm and smooth.

     Harry dips to press them together again, and Louis stops him, hand to his chest, face tipping up because now he can’t not look at Harry. He deserves this punishment. His head shakes minutely when Harry begins to lean forward again. It’s all deafening silence, forever too loud.

     “Why don’t you want to be with me?” Harry whispers. The tears spill over and down his cheeks.

     Louis takes a breath that hurts his worn lungs. He hands Harry the water bottle in his hand. He lays him down on the hotel sofa and knows that Harry will be asleep before his head is all the way down.

     He goes to bed.

Harry cries at the concert a day later, when they sing Over Again. Louis cries when he sees Harry crying. He doesn’t know how to live, how to breathe, how to see through it. He’s drowning, right there on stage.

He’d never thought it was possible to drown on land.

“You’re being stupid.”

     Louis didn’t turn to look at Liam. Didn’t even react, really, not past a dismal twitch of his eyebrow. Liam pauses the game of FIFA on the telly, so Louis drops the controller on the bedspread.

     “Harry loves you.”

     “I know.” Louis can’t remember the last time he could hear his own voice. “I love him.”

     “Then what are you doing?” Liam snaps, ever the overbearing, nosey alpha that Louis adores and despises him for. A smile plays on his mouth. It makes him sad that it feels so foreign.

     He shrugs. “We’re both mad at each other.” A pause. “We said things we shouldn’t have and stewed on things we should’ve let go.”

     Liam cocked a brow. Louis felt transparent. “Do you feel angry, Tommo, or just like you’re supposed to be?”

     Which. Is a good point. It’s an extremely good point, actually, and for the first time in a month and a half, he feels something like a rubber band snap beneath his diaphragm. The pain is sharp, but it’s there. He thinks, stupidly, that his cogs are trying to tell him things, and then reminds himself that he’s not actually a machine.

     He doesn’t feel angry anymore.

     “It’s not that easy.” He says, even as he shakes his head. “I’m sure Harry is, and... there’s still stuff we need to talk through. Stuff for both of us to learn.”

     “Okay?” Liam snapped. “So go talk through it. Go make him not angry anymore. Go learn the things you need to with him. For the love of God, Louis, go and be in love with him. You’ve waited four years for it.” A pause. “As has he.”

     When Louis stands, he feels like he’s walking into certain death. But at least it feels like walking into something again.

     It’s midnight, and it takes all of ten steps to get to Harry’s hotel room, but every stride recovers the emotions that Louis had thrown away and restores them tenfold. He thinks of Harry, surely asleep right now, and his heart aches. Fear-wracked and hopeful.

     He pushes the door open. Doesn’t wonder why it’s unlocked. Even when they can’t look at each other, Harry’s door is open for him.

     Harry’s asleep, face cushioned on the pillow, hair fanned around him.

     There’s a Harry that lives in Louis’ head; a soft-faced, curly-haired, younger Harry, who jittered when Louis spoke to him. Who sprawled himself across Louis’ body, sat in his lap, simply because he couldn’t stand not being, not feeling close to him. Shorter. Maybe quieter. Unpresented but still intense, always staring with those dazzling green eyes, afraid to blink. The boy who’d crawled into Louis’ bunk in the X Factor house and whispered I’m scared but never what he was scared of.

     What was he scared of?

     Louis could never love anyone more than he loves that boy, that young, sweet Harry. It’s the same way he could never love anyone more than he loves this Harry: older, taller, kinder. Asleep and breathing slow, lanky arms wrapped around his chest, a look of sad frustration creased between his brows. Louis wants to reach out and smooth it away.

     There’s a Harry that lives in his head, but Louis’ not sure it compares to this one. This one who is real, warm, breathing. Who Louis loves, impossibly more and more, with each stalled breath. He’s not perfect, but he’s right. He’s always been right. The right one.

      Mate.

     Louis crosses the room and tucks himself into Harry’s bed, uncrossing his arms so they’ll wrap around Louis’ small body, curling into his side. Harry shifts, makes a soft sound of exhausted confusion, and for a moment, he’s silent. His limbs are stiff. It’s the only way Louis’ knows that he’s awake, probably staring down at him, his air a little stuttered in his chest. Louis can’t blame him, really. They’ve barely spoken in weeks, haven’t been in the same bed since before Louis’ heat. Louis’ breaking all the rules.

     He wonders, for a moment, if Harry will kick him out.

     It feels like ages pass before Harry’s arms tighten around Louis’ body, palm splaying flat across his spine, holding him close. He goes sleep-lax and soft, sniffling unconsciously into Louis’ hair. When Louis looks up, his eyes are closed, and his pupils shift idly beneath his purplish eyelids. His face looks gaunt, sickly. When was the last time Louis actually looked at him? Dark circles frame his under eyes, and his lips are bitten red, but the line between his brows is gone. Louis tucks his face into Harry’s neck.

     His eyes fall closed like curtains, heavy and exhausted, as sleep takes him.

Louis dreams of Harry holding him in a massive armchair, their bodies twined together, feet knocking. It’s nothing special. It’s not ballroom dancing in expensive suits, it’s not drinking champagne on a yacht. It’s just them. Just Louis and Harry.

The shower is running.

     Louis rubbed his eyes and rolled onto his back, blinking up at the white ceiling. The bed sheets and his skin smelled like Harry, and his omega preened with it, mewling at the return of it’s alpha. Still, his heart thumps nervously against his rib cage.

     For a second, he wonders what Harry would do if he stripped down and stepped into the shower with him.

     The water shut off.

     He sits up, hissing at the icy press of the headboard against the back of his neck. He tangled his feet in the sheets just to have something to do.

     Steam curls from the bathroom when the door swings open, the scent of fresh soap and Harry, pure alpha, flooding the room. A white towel hangs low on Harry’s hips, exposing the sharp V at the base of his long, firm torso. Water dots his golden skin like constellations. Louis’ tongue is heavy in his mouth, itching with desire to lick the droplets from his muscles. From his dark, lovely tattoos, painted on his body. Harry’s hair curls, wet and dark, around his face, dripping onto his collarbones, and his eyes are guarded where they rest on Louis’ face, dangerously unsure.

     Louis shifts on the mattress.

     Harry pads over to his ajar suitcase, leaving vaguely damp footprints in his wake. The muscles of his back roil beneath his gold skin when he reaches down.

     “So.” Harry begins quietly, tugging his Leeds Festival tee over his wet curls. Louis squirms. “Haven’t talked in a while.”

     Louis wants to say something intellectual. Emotional. Something that will tell Harry how he feels, how he’s always felt, and how it’s been eating away at him for the past seven weeks. Something romantic that he can repeat in their wedding vows. His blood thrums in his veins, anxious, intense.

      You’re leaving, and you’re taking all the pieces of me with you.

     “I like you.” Louis blurts.

     Harry turns on his heel and raises a brow.

     “I do.” He goes on, fisting sweaty palms in the bedsheets. “There’s stuff we have to talk about, and so much stuff we have to figure out, but—I want to be with you. I’ve wanted to be with you since we met.” A pause. “You know that, don’t you?”

     Harry’s silent as he pulls on a pair of gray joggers, damp hair hanging into his eyes. His sweeping eyelashes were dotted with glittering drops of water. He rubs at his nose, painfully mute, and then slips beneath the duvet beside Louis and tucks his feet beneath his bum.

     “I know that.” His voice wavers thickly. He raises a hand, sharp teeth digging into his knuckle, and begins to speak around it. “I don’t—“

     “Fingers out of your mouth, please,” Louis whispers, gentle and fond, reaching up to tug Harry’s knuckles from between his teeth. He tangles their hands together when they settle against the bedspread.

     Harry’s gaze is fixated on their entwined fingers. His eyes swim. He opens his mouth, as if to speak, but no sound comes out, and he closes it again.

     Louis shifted ever closer, led by the string wrapped around his rib cage, pulled taut between he and Harry. His hand raised to sweep wet curls from Harry’s brow, and his eyes fluttered shut, a tear sliding down his red cheek. “I’m sorry for saying those things in the hotel room, Alpha.” Louis whispers softly. It slips out, but he finds he doesn’t want to rescind it. The word feels familiar in his mouth. “I was angry, but I shouldn’t have treated you like that. I care about you more than anyone. And I want to be with you.”

     Harry’s head dips. He’s quiet for so long that Louis begins to fear he won’t speak at all.

     “Sixteen, Lou.” Harry whispers finally, blinking against the tears in his lovely eyes. “When I was soft and naïve and hadn’t presented and mixed up rights and lefts. I didn’t know anything then, but I knew that I belonged to you.”

     Louis’ heart lodged in his chest, immobile, stunned.

     “I’m sorry about the hotel room, too. I treated you the way misogynistic alphas treat their omegas, like they’re weak, and you’re everything but.” Harry went on. He swept his thumb over Louis’ knuckles. “And—I’m sorry for kissing you. Last week. I was drunk, but...” he shrugged jerkily. “That’s not how I wanted the first one to be.”

     Their knees bumped beneath the thin sheet. Harry’s skin was soft and shower-hot.

     “Kiss me.”

     Harry’s neck cracked as his head twisted to stare.

     Louis stared back. “If you want to.” He went on, cheeks warming. God, did he want Harry to kiss him. “I can’t fix the first one, but we can... we can fix all the ones that come after. Kiss me.”

     Harry gnawed on his lower lip, red-rimmed eyes trained on Louis’ mouth. “Are you sure?” He rasps, and Louis’ skin heats at the ruin in his voice. Ruin from just the prospect of kissing Louis.

     “Harry.” Louis chuckled, smoothing away strands of hair that had pasted themselves to his brow. His palm cradled Harry’s cheek. “Just kiss me.”

      Give me this.

     Give us this.

     Please, Harry. He prays. I need this.

     Harry takes his face between his hands and presses their mouths together.

Louis thought he’d know what kissing Harry felt like. He thought he did , after the night in his hotel room.

He didn’t know anything.

Harry kisses like Louis is made of stardust, and he’s going to combust if they stop. Like Louis is a meal and he’s starving. Like it’s all he’s ever wanted to do, and he’s not entirely sure he isn’t dreaming.

      Louis isn’t entirely sure he isn’t dreaming.

     Harry cradles his face firmly, hotly, surging up to hold their bodies together. He licks over Louis’ bottom lip, makes a low sound when their tongues brush, pheromones rolling off him in waves. His skin seems to rise in heat beneath Louis’ hands. It’s dizzying, the spark between their mouths, the unparalleled want that darts across every synapse, every cell in Louis’ blood. He squeezes his eyes shut when the walls start to tilt, and Harry’s fingertips drive into the softness of his hips.

     He’s never needed someone like this.

     They kiss until their lips are bruised and swollen and Louis can feel his racing heartbeat from his ears to his toes. He tosses a leg over Harry’s thigh, yanking him close. Harry takes one look at his spit-slick mouth and they’re kissing again.

      Alpha, Alpha, Alpha, Louis’ mind cries, a consistent cycle of desire. His hips twitch forward desperately, but it only makes Harry hold them tighter, rumbling a deafeningly low growl that vibrates against Louis’ chest. Knocks inside his ribs.

     “We have to talk about things,” Louis tears his mouth away, panting, nails scraping along the back of Harry’s neck.

     “Omega,” Harry whispers, half a plead, half a desperate whine, and Louis surges forward to kiss him again.

     Harry mouths down his neck and Louis tips his head back. “Eventually—shit—eventually,” he begins, panting breathlessly. His lungs hurt. “We actually do have to talk.”

     “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Harry agrees, mouth against Louis’ pulse. His drags his tongue across it, and then his teeth. “Of course, baby.”

     Louis moans. He’s never been this hard in his life.

     “We’re not having sex today.”

     Louis goes still.

     Harry’s staring up at him, pale eyes swallowed by dark arousal, red lips bitten and parted. He breathes shortly through them.

     “What?” Louis whispered, feeling his stomach heat as Harry’s hands splayed across his sides.

     Harry’s nose nudged at his cheek. It was cold, and it made Louis giggle. “We’re not having sex today.” Harry repeats, and something in Louis’ chest tips it’s head back and snarls. It takes a moment for him to realize it’s his omega. “We haven’t even defined our relationship.”

     “Will you be my boyfriend?” Louis gripped at his shoulders. “Will you be my alpha? Do you want to get married one day?”

     “Yes to all of those things.” Harry grinned and peppered kisses across Louis’ cheeks.

     “Relationship defined.” Louis said, bordering on a whimper. “We can fuck now, right?”

     Harry snorted ungracefully and squeezed Louis’ cheeks between his hands, until his lips puckered. “No. We’re gonna go on a date first. We have two more concerts until tour ends, and then we’ll be back in London and I can take you for dinner at the Ivy. Then, if you want, we can sleep together.”

     “Or,” Louis frowned. “And consider this, because I think you’ll like it. We can fuck right now, and several more times before we go back home, and then go for dinner at the Ivy, and then fuck again when we’re at the flat. Christen every room, that sort of idea.”

     “Stop calling it fucking.” Harry pouted.

     Louis pulled a face, brows pulling together, except it didn’t really work, because he couldn’t stop grinning. “What do you want me to call it? Doing laundry?”

    “No. It’s...” he floundered. “It’s making love, Louis. It’s magical and romantic.” Harry dipped down to scent him. “It’s better than fucking.”

     Louis shifted and made as if to climb off his lap. “I’m breaking up with you.”

     But Harry clung to his hips, giggling, and listed forward to kiss him again. “Give me one date.” He pleaded against Louis’ mouth. “One date, and then you can jump me all you want. Fair?” He grinned.

     Louis huffed. Definitely not fair.

     He kissed Harry again.

     “Fair.”

The day of their reservation, Louis wakes up with a fever.

     “It’s my post-tour crash.” Louis hisses into the phone, voice thick with sickness. “Harry’s gonna be so upset.”

     “You sound so upset.” Niall says, voice crackling through the receiver.

     Louis whined and glanced towards the closed bathroom door. He could hear the shower water hitting the tiles through the wood. “I am upset, Niall! I’m si—“ he coughed harshly, throat burning. “I’m sick on the day of our first date, and I’m not gonna be able to go, and Harry’s gonna break up with me.”

     “Tough shit he is.” Niall huffed. Louis could hear his eyes roll through the phone. “He would never break up with you, even if you accidentally got pregnant.”

     Louis’ jaw dropped. “Thanks for jinxing that, Niall, you stupid—“

     “Good talk.” Niall laughed. At Louis’ frustrated whine, he sighed, voice softening. “Stop freaking out. Honestly, Harry’s gonna be over the moon that he gets to take care of you for the next few days. So just, like, relax.”

     Louis mumbled something unintelligible to even his own ears and swung out of bed, pinning the phone between his shoulder and his ear. His throat ached for a cuppa, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he could hear the water shut off.

     “I can’t relax.” He muttered, padding into the kitchen. “I’m ruining our first date.”

     “You’ve been on thousands of dates.”

     “Not real ones.” He pouted. “This one was special. He’s my boyfriend now.”

     “I know.” Niall laughed. In the background, a footie game played tinnily, and someone was cheering. “It’s all you’ve been talking about.”

     Louis tossed his used tea bag into the trash and sighed. “I guess. I’ll call you later, I have to go pass out in bed.”

     “Okay, Loubear. Feel better.”

     “Thanks, Nialler.”

     He ended the call and weaved through the flat, stopping in the doorway of the bedroom with his mug cradled in both hands. Harry was stretched across the bed, donning only black boxers, phone resting on his chest and wet hair plastered to his forehead. He took one look at Louis, red-nosed and dark-eyed, and started chuckling sweetly.

     Louis pouted. “I’m sick.” He rasped.

     He rubbed at his eyes, pajama pants billowing hugely around his legs, and sneezed softly.

     Harry opens his arms. “You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever met.”

     Louis set his mug on the bedside table and fell into Harry’s open embrace, tucking his face into the warmth of his neck and sighing. Harry scented him lovingly. “I’m sorry I fucked up our date.” He whispered. His lips scraped across Harry’s jugular.

     “Don’t even start.” Harry took Louis’ face between both his hands and tipped his head up, kissing him softly. “I get to take care of my pretty baby until he feels better, and then we get to go on the most perfect date ever and then, after that, spend all of eternity together for the rest of our lives.” He dropped kisses along Louis’ face, across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, against his fluttered-shut eyelids. His lips were soft and warm.

     A smile twitched at Louis’ mouth. “You’re very committed.”

     Harry grinned. “Extremely, doll.” He pulled Louis closer. “Extremely.”

Louis’ under the weather for three days. Harry’s sick for the next four. Louis’d warned him to stop getting so close, to stop eating the soup that Louis couldn’t finish, and for the love of God, stop kissing him, but there was no getting through.

      The heart wants what it wants, Harry would say, anytime Louis began a stuffy-nosed spiel. And mine wants you. In sickness or in health.

Louis has a fever dream about them getting married. Niall is the officiant. Harry carries him out, bridal style, and he’s grinning so wide that Louis can’t look straight at him.

“You should wear a suit.” Zayn rifled through his closet. “I bet Harry’s gonna wear a suit.”

     Louis spun. He’d practically chewed through his lower lip, and clothes were strewn wildly about his bedroom floor. His hair hung damp around his face, yet to see a blow dryer or any sort of gel today. He was a mess.

     “I don’t have a nice suit.” He said frantically, waving his hands and, subsequently, the shirt balled up in them. “We can’t go out if I’m dressed for a casual restaurant date and he’s wearing his suit from the AMA’s last year!”

     Zayn made a face and tugged open a drawer of the dresser. “He wouldn’t wear that again after you told him the fabric was scratchy.” He slid it closed and opened the next one. “You’ve really got no clothes. I can’t find shit in here.”

     “Considering you’re rooting around in my knickers drawer.” Louis rolled his eyes and tossed a pair of jeans into the haphazard no pile.

     Zayn chucked a pair of red satin panties at his head. “Fuck off.” He snorted, and then raised a thin, lacy piece of fabric in his hand, laughing. “This is the fanciest garter belt I’ve ever seen, Louis. Jesus.”

     He was still inspecting it, half-amused and half-impressed, when Louis threw yet another pair of trousers into the reject pile. “The stockings that went along with them have a run, so I can’t wear it until I get a new pair.”

     “Are you wearing pants or knickers tonight?” Zayn asked, setting the garter belt back down. He rubbed his thumb over the material of a sheer, flowery robe. It was Louis’ favorite. “Because we have to take that into account with your clothing choices, as well.”

     Louis flopped on the messy mountain of unsorted clothes on his bed and screamed into them.

     He turned on his side. Zayn was watching him, unimpressed, one brow cocked high on his forehead. “I’m gonna cancel.” Louis moaned.

     “Like fucking hell you are.” Zayn rifled through the drawer, pulled out a pair of white cotton panties with a pink rose on the front, and tossed them blindly in Louis’ direction. “There. Wear those with some casual dress pants and a button-up. Bring a jacket to go along but leave it in the car if Harry’s not all white tie. You can leave the top buttons unbuttoned.”

     “What color button-up?” Louis mumbled, trying desperately not to show how much Zayn was saving his arse.

     “Burgundy.” Zayn said, as if it were obvious. He pulled a wine-colored dress shirt from the shelves of the closet, and Louis didn’t even remember owning it. “It’ll look great. You should wear suspenders.”

     Louis sat up on the bed and glared.

     “I am not wearing suspenders.”

It was the best bad date Louis had ever been on.

     Harry closed the door on his own sleeve and ripped it. Louis had stepped in a puddle. Harry hit his head on the doorframe walking in. Louis spilled champagne all over the tabletop, and then shattered the glass. They stepped on each other’s feet under the table. Harry banged his knee against the metal leg. Louis hated whatever it was he ordered, so he ate off Harry’s plate, and Harry kept chiding him for trying to steal his peas.

     They didn’t once stop laughing.

     People stared at them, they were laughing so hard, but it wasn’t a what are these young delinquents doing in this posh restaurant sort of stare. It was a they’re so in love I can’t look away one. People smiled at their antics. The couple a table over could barely stifle their giggles when Harry laughed so hard that champagne shot out of his nose.

     Louis had never been this happy in his life.

     “Oh, whatever!” Harry laughed, waving Louis off from whichever tangent they were on now. “You have a bum like a girl’s, you can’t talk about my arse.”

     “I’m just saying, it wouldn’t kill you to do some more squats.” Louis snorted, red-faced and breathless, into his glass. He was giggling so much he almost couldn’t swallow his drink.

     Harry grinned at him over the rim of his champagne flute. “You’re such a brat.”

     “You’re stuck with me.” Louis shot back, scrunching his nose up.

     Harry grinned. He took Louis’ hand, kissed it softly. “Thank god for that.”

“You taste like cherries.”

     Louis kicked the door closed, clinging desperately to Harry’s shoulders, panting against his mouth. “It’s my chapstick.” He rasped. Even to his own ears, his voice was ruined.

     Harry’s tongue dipped between his lips. “Yum.”

     Louis was on fire.

     Harry’s mouth tasted the way he smelled, like pine and fire and a hint of deep fried haddock and chips. His hands gripped tight to Louis’ body; any place he could reach, he touched, grappling at his hips, his thighs, his arms, his face. His palms were hot. A fire churns deep in Louis’ belly, hotter with every place their skin presses together, every place Harry makes them fit, like jigsaw pieces. His lips already ache with the intensity at which they drive into Harry’s, but he doesn’t care, and he won’t start. Slick wet his pants.

     Harry tipped his head back and groaned at the scent, eyes fluttering shut. Louis dove forward to bite and lick at his neck. He’s never wanted so thoroughly, so entirely.

     Louis’ teeth drove into his scent gland.

     “Fuck me.”

     Harry heaved him up by the thighs and pinned him against the cold, hard wood. His grin was maniacal, devilish. Wild. “Yeah?” He pushed him harder against the door. “S’that just what you want, Omega? S’what you’re aching for?”

     Louis’ head banged against the slats as it tipped back. “Yes.”

     It was all his hot, heady mind had devolved to. Yesyesyesyes , looping, playing on a dizzying track inside his reeling head. He wants and he wants and he tries to fit all of his emotion in the stringent confines of his body but he’s failing. It buzzes out of him, vibrates through his skin. He’s drowning in it.

     Slick soaked the back of his trousers. He needs a cigarette.

     “Harry,”

     “I’ve got you, baby,” Harry licked down his neck, across his pulse, teething at his scent gland and his sharp collarbones. He rutted his hips forward against Louis’ slick-wet bum. “Hmm? Don’t I have you?” He drove his canines into the side of Louis’ neck.

     “Oh!” Louis gasped. Harry did it once more, just beside the first bite. “Hurts, Harry,” he whined.

     Harry spoke against his wet skin. “I think you like when it hurts a bit, don’t you, Lou.” He rasped. Electricity sparked up Louis’ pliant spine. “Tell me out loud, doll, I need your voice for this one.”

     “I like—“ the words stall in his throat, faulty and steaming. “Like when it hurts. I do. Just—please, Hazza, please.”

     Harry dipped forward to kiss him. Lifted him off the wall. Walked them towards his bedroom.

     “Okay, baby. Okay.”

The mattress is soft and sinks beneath the weight of their bodies, twisted together, legs and legs and arms and hands and mouths. Harry hovered above him, balanced on his elbows, face tipped down to kiss at Louis’ lips, to suck at his tongue, lick over his teeth. They’d been kissing for a long time. Where Louis had thought everything would be fast, sharp, blurry, they’d passed the threshold to Harry’s bedroom and the world had twisted into something heat-hazy and dumb, slow and sweet like strawberries in chocolate. Maybe it’s better this way.

     Harry’s breath skidded across his wet lips. It’s better this way. Just the two of them, cocooned in this bed that built them, that kept them warm while love blossomed silently beneath their diaphragm and wound it’s vines through their lungs. Isolated.

     “Harry.” Louis gasped against his mouth, hands wrapping around his corded forearms. He tipped his hips up, slick gushing against his boxers, heart thrumming inside his chest. “Harry.”

     Harry’s lips scraped the hollow of his cheek. “Yes, my love?”

     “Ah.” He whined, grabbing Harry’s hand and sliding it down his chest, until it cupped his aching cock through his trousers. “Fuck me, please, God, please—“

     Harry nipped at his lip. “Ask nicely, baby.” He grinned, devilish, lovely. “The way I like.”

     Louis’ heart thrummed like the overworked wings of a bird.

     “Make love to me, Alpha.”

     Harry’s eyes slipped shut, for just a moment, in incredulous bliss. As if he’s been waiting lifetimes for this moment. Maybe he has. The same feeling bleeds beneath Louis’ skin, slick and hot and euphoric.

     Louis reached up to cradle Harry’s face. Something unbelievably soft twisted and built between them, warm and sweet and gentle. Like a cloud of sparking adoration.

     Then, Harry’s eyes fluttered open.

     Louis’ glittering heart thumped once. Harsh. Then, it fell still.

     Harry was hungry.

“Put your hands above your head.” Harry whispered, teeth scraping at Louis’ throat, fingers dancing along the hem of his shirt where it had come undone from his trousers. He flicked a button open and sucked a mark beneath his Adam’s apple.

     Louis couldn’t breathe as he crossed his wrists against the pillow, chest rising and falling frantically, face tipped back, mouth fallen open, hips undulating desperately against the mattress. Slick had soaked through his trousers and was puddling into the sheets, but Harry just inhaled and grinned an unhinged, seductive grin. Louis wasn’t sure how many times he’d imagined this; thought it, dreamed it, pleaded for it. None of it compares to having it, to it being in his grasp, in his hands. He feels like he’s going to shake out of his skin, like he’s coming apart at the seams but it’s okay because Harry knows how to hold him together, to patch him up neater than before.

     “Harry,” he sobbed, when Harry tore through the rest of his buttons, sent them flying. And then, “Alpha.”

     “You sound beautiful, baby.” Harry praised sweetly, rolling his hips against Louis’. Just once. When Louis arched for them again, searching for the touch, Harry pinned him down with one strong, massive hand. “You’re so sexy, you know that? So lovely. Love the way you look.” He bit at Louis’ nipple, sharp and sudden, humming when Louis tossed his head back and keened. His hands were still stationary above his head, as if pinned by some weight, by the force of Harry’s demands and the pull to comply. “Love the sounds you make.”

     He kisses up and down Louis’ chest, leaves bruises, sucks marks in the shape of a heart atop the hollow of his hip bone. When Louis glances down at it, he nearly cries. Except, Harry’s got a hand on his zipper and he’s tearing his trousers open and yanking them down and—oh.

      Oh.

     Louis watches his mouth form the word.

     His green eyes go black as they absorb the sight of Louis’ panties, wet with precome, tented around his twitching cock. Between his thighs, the gray sheets are nearly black with slick. Harry rumbles with a growl, so Louis bares his throat.

     “These for me?” Harry purred, running his blunt nails along the waistband, hooking a fingertip beneath the elastic and letting it snap back against Louis’ skin. He speaks through the moan it produces: “So pretty, baby. So very pretty, all for me, my... how do we feel about princess?”

     “Yes!” Louis’ voice was raw and throaty. The sound of it alarmed him, alien and staccato, but, God, how could he even care. Harry thumbed the head of his cock through the cotton.

     “Pretty princess.” Harry whispers. When Louis glances down, he catches the twitch of Harry’s cock even through his trousers. Why is he still dressed? “Princess in her panties, getting so wet and warm for me. Maybe I should fuck you without prep,” he reached around to press the pad of his finger against Louis’ leaking hole, grinning when Louis thrashed and cried out. “Already so ready for me.” A grin. “But, no. Think I want to play with you first.” He glances up. Catches Louis’ chin between his fingers, drags him back from that spacey plain he’d been barreling towards. “That sound good, Omega?”

     Louis nodded. “Sounds good, sounds so good,” he whined, sinking into the mattress as Harry hooks fingers underneath his panties and scrapes those down his thighs, too. Where Louis is bare and writhing, Harry is still fully clothed, and there’s something feral in that, something that makes Louis feel small and warm and safe.

     He’s not sure where it all comes from, with Harry. He never has been. It’s just this thing, always feeling safe, always feeling held close and protected like a baby in a swaddle. The safety makes him want things, things maybe he shouldn’t want but he does anyway, things that twist his stomach into knots and makes his skin tingle around his bones. Things like pain, shocking him back to life, like hurt. He used to think it made him sick, but now it just makes him want more, more, more of Harry, each night and morning. He collects these things, has been collecting them, storing them inside his chest. When Harry cracks him open, he can see.

     His arms stay pinned above his head. They will until Harry tells him to move.

Harry’s head dipped and shook between Louis’ legs, tongue darting against his skin, pushing into him. Louis screamed at the feeling, at the wet pleasure of it, squirming and whining against the bed. Slick drips off Harry’s chin and paints constellations on their sheets. At some point, Harry told Louis to grip his head, to move him the way Louis’ needed to move him, and Louis didn’t waste a moment, sinking his hands into the curls they’d grown to miss and pressing him deeper, deeper, deeper into his arse, noises growing higher with each swipe of his tongue. His hair feels likes silk between Louis’ fingertips, where the skin is soft and nearly untouched. It’s magical.

     He’s going to come. He’s going to come.

     “Harry!” He cried, sickeningly high-pitched and desperate. His fingers tightened in Harry’s curls, tugging harshly, voice breaking. The ball of lava in his gut churned, building, tightening, on the precipice of shattering to pieces. “Harry, Ha-rry—”

     Harry pulls away.

     He smiles when Louis cries out, reaching up to kiss him softly, like an apology. His lips taste of slick and sex and Louis’ almost crying, mourning the loss of the release that had bit at his fingertips.

     “Hush, my love,” Harry murmurs, so delicate, so sweet, he cupped Louis’ cheeks and pressed kisses to his wet eyelids. “I’ve got you, baby, my baby, I’m here.”

     Louis grappled at his shoulders, at his forearms, still restrained in his wrinkled dress shirt. His eyes were wild, and, staring into them, he could see the spark of alarm dart through Harry’s gaze.

     “Please.” Louis breathed, ragged. He squirmed atop the bed.

     And then, again.

     “Please.”

     Watching Harry undress, drinking and inhaling each spark of skin that’s revealed, Louis’ heart falls still in his chest. It’s like staring at art, this honey colored skin and slope of smooth muscles—it is staring at art. Harry is pure artistry, painted in amber in gold, a myriad of masterpieces contained in one body. Louis can’t look at him directly.

     It’s slow, again, when Harry lays naked across Louis’ body, hot skin against hot skin. He cradles Louis’ head, thumbs away his stray tears and tips down to kiss him. Their mouths moved lazily.

     Harry’s palms along the backs of Louis’ thighs. Hikes them up around his waist. His stomach twists in anticipation, and he can feel Harry’s hot head, nudging against his hole, twitching with every hitch and moan of Louis’ breath.

     “Please, Harry,” Louis murmured against his mouth, ankles locking in the small of his back. “Please, my love, my Alpha, please.”

     Harry tipped down to kiss him and pushed forward.

There’s nothing in the whole world like having Harry inside him. Louis decides that in milliseconds.

He loves Harry. God, does he love him.

“Oh my god,” Louis rasped, with tears wet on his cheeks. He holds tight to Harry’s hands, his shoulders, his waist, grasping desperately as if Harry might slip away from his palms like sand. Neither of them move. Neither breathe. Harry’s eyes are shut. “Oh my god. Harry.”

     Harry opens his mouth as if to speak, but all that escapes is a shuddering, crackling breath, rife with tears and overwhelming content.

     If Louis were a compass, Harry is North.

     His chest is breaking apart. Remolding itself to fit Harry between his ribs. Within his lungs.

     His heart beats, swollen and overworked.

     “Harry.” He gasps, again, as Harry presses close, close, closer, face against Louis’ shoulder, bodies aligned. He pulls out, just slightly, and pushes back in. Louis throws his arms around Harry’s shoulders, hot palms flattening between his shoulder blades, and holds him. This is where he’s meant to be.

     The twine and move and shift like they were programmed to. Their bodies writhe and dance together, limbs tangled and skin slick with sweat, panting into each other’s mouths, too dizzy with desire to kiss properly. There’s no feeling like this. There’s nothing in the world that exists  outside of their interlaced bodies. There’s nothing more than them.

     “Harry, Harry, Harry,” Louis whispers against Harry’s cheek, clinging desperately to him as Harry presses into him, again and again and again. His hands are tight on Louis’ hips, pulling him down for each thrust, bringing them together just on the line between sweet and rough. Passionate. Louis hopes bruises will form by morning.

     It builds and builds and builds until they’re falling apart at the joint seams, reduced to no more than cries and primal thrusts of want, desire, need. “Harry, Alpha, oh my god, Alpha, please, you feel so—God! God, oh my god, Harry!” Louis cries out, head falling back against his pillow as Harry fucks him up the mattress.

     “Love how you sound,” Harry growled, sucking Louis skin into his mouth, between his teeth. “Love the way my pretty omega needs me. Don’t you? Don’t you need me?”

     “Need you, yes, need you so bad. Need your knot.” Louis whimpered.

     Harry gasped sharply, eyes clenching shut, pressing deep, deep, deep inside Louis’ velvety heat. “Louis.” He ground.

     “Harry!” Louis cried out, tears pouring down his cheeks as Harry ground and swiveled the head of his cock against Louis’ prostate. “Harry, I’m gonna come, please, Harry, I’m gonna come, oh my god—“

     “Come for me, Lou, want it so bad. Come for me, and I’ll knot you, my love—“

     He doesn’t get any further.

     It’s almost painful, the intensity at which the orgasm rips through him, sizzling along his frayed nerve endings, raking through his gelatin muscles and rushing veins. His body contorts and arcs off the mattress. The whole world falls silent save the crash of waves inside Louis’ head, the speed of his blood, the white-blue-pink-orange-yellow explosions in front of his unseeing eyes. All he feels is the flood, the rush of indescribable pleasure racing beneath his skin, a thousand times more intense than anything he’s ever felt in his life. Stars dance and sing at him. Maybe he’s screaming, maybe he’s silent. Maybe he’s crying Harry’s name.

     There’s nothing more than this.

     When his vision clears and only his toes are left numb, Harry is crashing into him. Locking them together on his knot. His face is a mask of pleasure, and his gaze burns where it catches on Louis’. Distantly, vaguely, it feels so, so good, too good in a sharp and overwhelming way, but all Louis can feel in the thrum in his heart. The pleasure and joy and relief and love in Harry’s emerald eyes.

     He knows. He’s always known.

     Harry cradles Louis’ head to his chest when he comes, palms braced wide on either side of his skull, panting into his hair, and Louis just holds him close and murmurs unintelligible things, arms twined around his waist, lips moving over his heart. They lock together as Harry’s cum floods into him, painting his insides white, and Louis thinks he whispers Alpha, Alpha, my love. His tongue isn’t working right.

     Harry’s body finally starts to settle, relaxing against Louis’, strong arms threading around his tiny, sweat-soaked body.

     The first thing he says is: “Louis.”

He’s always known.

Louis looks up, with sex and blurriness still dancing in the corners of his tenerife eyes, and cups Harry’s face in his hands.

     “Marry me.” He breathes. 

     Harry’s breath is still shuddering.

     “Mate me and marry me.” Louis whispers. He surges up to press kisses against Harry’s spit-slick mouth. “Please.”

     For a moment, everything was still.

     Harry’s eyes flooded with tears.

“Yes.”

The sun is rising above the far horizon, but they’re still awake, twined together, staring into each other’s faces.

     “I never saw myself getting married.” Louis murmurs quietly, after what feels like hours of silence. They’d gone again, somehow, after the whirlwind of proposals and acceptances, and even though Louis’ arse is sore and his eyelids drag heavily, he doesn’t sleep. Couldn’t. He can feel Harry’s dynamic shift at his words, can taste it in the air. Literally. It’s blue with disappointment. “But, I don’t know,” he goes on. “It doesn’t look so bad when I picture it with you.”

     Harry smiled softly. “Yeah?”

     Louis nodded. “Yeah.”

     “Why didn’t you want to get married?” Harry whispered, after more long minutes of contented silence.

      “Scary.” Louis murmured. That’s not a good enough answer, so he goes on. “And, I don’t know,” he plays with his own fingers, voice dwindling. “I thought I’d feel unhappy. It’s just big, you know? I didn’t think I’d be able to find someone who I wanted that with, but, I love you, so,” his chest floods with embarrassment, so visceral it hurts, squeezing around his helpless heart. “I’m not afraid with you, I guess.”

     “Louis.” Harry breathed, voice sickeningly soft, like silk and chiffon. “Louis, Louis, I love you.”

     Tears built in Louis’ eyes.

     “I’m so in love with you, Lou.”

     He buried his face in Harry’s chest.

     “I’m in love with you, too.”

“Married.” Louis says the next night, when a day of Harry has finally let the idea sink in, feeling the word traverse deftly off his rolling tongue. Harry grins across the pillow. “I’m getting married. You’ll be my husband. Ooh, husband, I love that.” He pursed his lips to the side. “Spouse.”

     Harry twines his arms around Louis’ stomach and grins into his collarbone. “That one’s my favorite.”

     Louis slid his hands into Harry’s unruly hair, feeling the strands between his fingers, soft and tangled. “It sounds like spout.” He observed. His nose dipped to press into Harry’s curls.

     “My spout.” Harry murmured dreamily.

     Louis laughed. “That just sounds like a euphemism for cock.”

     “Oh my god, you’re impossible.”

     “And you’re getting married to my impossible.”

     Harry tipped his face up. His eyes were fond, narrowed in sweet joy, and his mouth was warm when he pressed it to Louis’. “That I am.” He agreed.

     Louis put two fingers beneath his chin and tilted them together, lips pressing together.

     “I love you, Louis Tomlinson.” Harry said into his mouth, eyes fluttering closed. “Do you love me?”

     “Harry Styles.” Louis murmured fondly, pulling away to stroke his thumb across Harry’s cheek. To stare into his face.

     “I’ve always loved you.” He says, and watches Harry’s eyes spark and shimmer. “Don’t you know?”

     Harry just nods.

     He’s always known.