Chapter Text
An hour and six minutes before they have to go on stage, Harry pins him to the wall and presses his entire face into Louis’ neck, inhaling deep and slow, hands gripping at his body like Louis would turn to mist if he didn’t hold tight enough. Like he’d evanesce out of existence. In a hotel mirror that night, Louis will count the yellowish-blue circles that ring his hips, four in the meat of his muscle, one in the hollow of his hipbone, mirrored on each side, ten in all. The shape of Harry’s fingertips will make his blood zing. But, when Harry presses him against the scratchy bricks, the marks he’ll leave Louis with when he lets go are the last things he’s thinking about.
He slides his hands up Harry’s bowed back, sinking into the thick weight of his snarled curls. “Everything okay?” He whispers, lips gliding against the shell of Harry’s ear.
“Missed the way you smelled.” Harry murmured against his pulse, lips drawing together to drop a delicate kiss against it.
Louis giggled a little, drumming his fingertips down Harry’s spine through the white cotton of his shirt. Harry hummed in contented pleasure. “Is that why I’m pinned against the wall?” He asks, but he’s growing hard in his jeans, a furnace warming beneath his belly and shooting sparks through his worn veins.
“I called your name.” Harry growled lowly, which is true. “You didn’t acknowledge me. Made me angry.”
“Volatile alpha.” He says fondly, because he loves Harry and all of his stupid, possessive, caveman instincts.
Harry palmed his ass, hands wide and red-hot. “Pretty omega.” He purred. His sharp teeth nipped at Louis’ pale neck, driving in, leaving ugly, crimson marks across the collar of his shirt. Louis loves those, too.
He slapped at Harry’s shoulder. “Hands off the goods, Casanova.” Harry squeezed the flesh of his arse in rebellion. “You’ve gotta pay to play, you know that.”
“Prostitution.”
“Good business.” Louis countered. He stood on Harry’s toes, arcing up to tuck his chin over the crown of Harry’s head. His hands hadn’t loosened their bruising hold. Louis wouldn’t have had it any other way. “Do you know how many knotheads would pay to fuck a pretty omega like me?”
It feels a bit like lightning, crackling through his veins, when Harry tears back to glower into Louis’ face, throat vibrating with a growl, lip pulled back over his bared canines. The emerald of his eyes were swallowed by onyx pupil. Louis tipped back against the jagged bricks, skin licked with heat, slick wetting his briefs. The whine that escapes his mouth is almost involuntary. Harry smells like anger, like a rainy forest sharpened by fire, wood cracking and popping beneath the flames. His hands slipped up to grip at the sides of Louis’ ribs.
“Omega,” he rasps, when that seems like all he can muster, brows pulled together.
Louis cupped the side of his face. “They don’t get to have me.” He whispered soothingly. “Come on, silly alpha, we have to go get ready.”
It’s the soft look on Harry’s precious face that decimates the last of Louis’ resolve, the way his brows pull together, teeth tugging at his blushed lower lip. “Can I...” he starts, gazing into Louis’ delicate face.
Louis nodded. “Mmhmm.”
He closes his eyes as Harry scents him, neck bared to that pine tree and fresh bread scent. He won’t pretend he doesn’t love the way it mixes with his own. Harry’s hands smoothed up his spine, skimmed over his tummy, sweet and rough, as his head tucked into Louis’ neck, nose against his scent gland. He rubbed his cheek against it. So alpha. So kind.
Harry held him for an eternal second, arms wrapped around his waist, brow against his collarbone. He’s warm, firm, but his skin is soft and slides against Louis’ like water. If there’s anything that Louis can’t live without, it’s this. Harry holding him. Mixing their scents until they whorl together, a storm of pine needles and orange blossoms, of cold water and bread and vanilla, except it’s not a storm, not at all. Storms entail fury, and there’s none of it in the inches between them. Just cherry-sweet affinity.
“You smell good today.” Harry breathed against the top of his chest, bottom lip scraping the collar of his cotton tee. “Better than normal.”
Louis bumped their brows together. “Thanks, princess.” He needled.
Harry pinched the top of his thigh and darted forward to scrape his teeth across Louis’ earlobe. It drew a sharp gasp from his parted lips. “Brat.” Harry purred lowly.
Louis lets Harry pin him to the bricks once more, face buried in his neck, hands held tight to his thighs.
The boys rag on them for being late to the dressing room, but neither of them really care.
“There’s an alpha checking you out across the room.”
Louis snorted as Zayn looped a thin arm around his waist, curling his lips around his straw, prodding at the end with the tip of his tongue. There is an alpha looking at him, dark-eyed and handsome, chest turned halfway towards the dance floor like he’d been in the midst of walking to it when he’d set eyes on Louis and frozen in his shoes. Louis isn’t surprised, really. He’s been known to stun many an alpha on a night out.
He grinned absently as the club lights flashed green. “He looks like a Patrick, and you know I don’t trust Patricks.”
Somewhere in the haze of bodies and music, Harry was dancing, but Louis couldn’t see him.
Zayn grumbled, a frustrated sound that middled between amused and annoyed. “It was one time, two years ago.”
“You said he was checking me out!” Louis countered, twisting to slap Zayn’s shoulder. “I felt like a fool!”
Zayn just rolled his amber eyes, lashes fanning obscenely long against his green-cast cheekbones. He drove a finger into Louis’ side. “He doesn’t even look like a Patrick, not really. He’s... a Luke.”
“Patrick Luke.” Louis settled, sipping at his drink.
“Stop drinking a daiquiri with a straw.” Zayn scolded, shaking his head. “You look like a toddler.”
“Leave me alone.” He wrapped his lips protectively around the straw, pouting, rubbing at his nose. Zayn smelled like smoke and passion fruit, like wild and delicate omega. Louis wondered if that’s what people thought when they smelled him. “How do you know he’s an alpha?”
“I can smell him.” Zayn cast him a bizarre glance from the corner of his eye. “Can’t you? He’s the strongest smelling alpha in here.”
In very plain terms, the only alpha Louis can smell is Harry. He scented Louis before they left, under the sheer guise of concealing his scent from overbearing alphas, and it clung still to his clothes, his hair, the corners of his mouth. Like static to a rug.
Louis just shrugged. “All I smell is booze.” He shifted, wincing when the bottom of his sneakers stuck to the sticky floor. “Do you wanna have a smoke?”
Zayn slapped his arm. “Oh my god, shut up, he’s coming over.”
Anxiety flashed through Louis’ veins, dizzying and hot. “If he’s coming to flirt with you instead of me I’m going to fucking kill—“ he hissed.
Zayn pinched him until he shut up. Then he was gone. Louis had officially been abandoned.
Patrick’s real name is Brandon. Louis doesn’t remember anything else from their conversation. Halfway through, Patrick/Brandon frowns, and says, in no uncertain terms: sorry, you just smell like an alpha.
Louis goes back to the hotel drunk and alone, without telling the other boys. Harry is ten minutes behind, tugging open the door without knocking, clambering into the bed and wrapping Louis up in his arms. His hold is tighter than it would’ve been if Louis hadn’t disappeared from the club. Neither of them care that Louis’ naked, and Harry strips down to his pants and curves their bodies together.
“What’s your bank code?” Louis breathes against the warm skin of Harry’s collarbone, because he wants to hear Harry’s voice and he doesn’t know any other way to.
“That’s never going to work.” He sounds tired, thick with exhaust and pale amusement. His hands feel like taffeta against Louis’ spine. “You smell different.”
“I’m persuasive.” Louis murmured gently. “An alpha tried to chat me up at the bar.” He didn’t like the weight of this duvet. It’s too heavy, too caging. With Harry beside him, he’s lying in the midst of a furnace, skin against the coals. He pushed the blanket off his shoulder and grumbled when Harry pulled it back up. “It’s too hot, I don’t want it on.”
Harry smoothed a hand down his bicep. “You’re going to get cold in the middle of the night. I turned the air con up. If you get cold, you’ll wake up, and then you’ll burrow into me trying to get warm and you’ll wake me up, and I don’t want to be woken up.”
Louis tipped his head up on the pillow to glare at Harry’s perfect, calm face. His eyes are shut, and Louis trails his fingertips over the violet eyelids, drifting featherlight across the thin skin, sweet as candy. Harry doesn’t even flinch.
He has to take advantage of it.
He poked Harry in the cheek, rough and sudden, right where the dimple would be if he were grinning. “Harry.” He says, and pokes again. “Hazza. Harry. Haz. Hazbear. Harry.” There’s no response. “Alpha.”
Harry cracked one eye open.
“I’m too warm.” Louis whispered, squirming, crown of his head bumping against Harry’s chin. The sheets are itchy on his skin, and he really is hot, sweat dusting the dimples of his spine and the base of his neck. “I’m not gonna get cold against your chest, Hazza, you’re like a radiator.”
When he shoves the duvet off his shoulders once more, until it bunches up around the dip of his waist, Harry doesn’t pull it back up. He just rolls his closed eyes and pulls Louis a little closer.
Louis wakes up in the middle of the night, freezing. Harry shifts when he pulls the blanket over his shuddering body, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he tucks his sleepy face into the juncture of Louis’ neck and shoulder and presses a kiss there. They fall asleep like that.
“Stop judging me.”
“I’m not judging you.”
“Yes, you are, I can see it in your huge dog eyes.”
Liam pouted, dark brows pulling together, pink lip jutted out. A tattooed hand brushed consciously beneath his under eye. “I just don’t understand why you’re doing it alone.”
Louis tossed the water bottles he’d been carting to the bedside table onto the mattress, watching them bounce with far less satisfaction than he might’ve on any other day. The sunlight that streamed through the water cast strange patches of light against the sheets. “Liam, you’re an alpha.”
Liam gave him a strange look. “Good on you for observing.”
“So you don’t get it.” Louis huffed, flipping him off half heartedly. “I don’t want an alpha helping me through heat. I don’t like the idea of being around someone when I’m that out of control, and—not myself.” He shuddered at the thought. “Even if I did, there’s not an alpha I could think of that I’d trust or want to help me.” Which is a lie. He can think of one. “You’re not an omega, believe me, you just don’t get it.”
Liam raked a hand through his hair. “It goes on longer if someone’s not helping, though, Lou.”
Louis spun to glare daggers at his band mate. If looks could kill, Liam would be cold in the ground. Six feet under. “Sorry for the inconvenience, you fucking knothead.”
“That wasn’t what I meant and you know it.” Liam growled, voice dipping low and gravelly. Louis bit back a whimper at the alpha timbre. “You’re in pain longer, and I don’t like thinking of you in pain.” He added, softer than before.
Louis’ deflating, sinking onto the edge of the mattress. “There’s no one—“
“That’s a lie.” Liam cut him off, shrugging at the naked truth even when Louis cringed from it. “I respect your decision because it’s not mine to make, and I respect that you don’t feel comfortable being so intimate with someone you aren’t bonded to, but don’t tell me there isn’t an alpha in this hotel that you wouldn’t want to help if you didn’t care about that.”
Louis stared at his fingers. They wiggled and twiddled of their own accord. “He’s not in this hotel right now...” he mumbled finally, sickeningly weak-willed. “And none of it matters, because I do care about it, and I’m not going to ask Harry to help me.” He set the bottles on the overflowing bedside table, an inch shy of a slam.
Liam stood and shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He murmured, mouth pulled to one side. “I’m going to get that granola from Paul, I’ll drop it back off in ten or so.” His hand was on the doorknob. “Just know that you don’t have to be scared to trust an alpha. Especially not the ones in this band.”
Louis gnawed his lip silently and managed a limp wave when Liam walked out and shut the door softly behind him.
Heat churned in his gut. He flopped back onto the mattress.
It was going to be a long three days.
He remembers two things from his haze of heat and knot-lust: the way fire had licked through his veins, hardly dulled even when a knotted dildo was eight inches deep in him and he was coming all over the soiled sheets, and the way he’d cried Harry’s name, pleading and weak, eyes shut as his face pressed into the sweat-damp pillows.
It’s the same as every other heat.
He limps down to breakfast when the blaze beneath his skin had finally gone out, leaving behind only the yearning desire for an alpha’s touch, and doesn’t even pretend to look at the buffet when he plants himself in Harry’s lap.
Harry tucked his nose into the back of Louis’ head and inhaled deeply. He’s the only one in the dining area. If Louis knows Zayn, and he does, then he’s still sleeping, and Liam is watching him sleep with that stupidly reverent look on his face, and Niall ordered room service. It’s just them. Just Harry’s nose in his hair. Hands on his tummy.
“All better?” Harry murmured, voice still rough with sleep.
Louis burrowed further into it. “Need to be...” he circled Harry’s wrist with a dainty hand. His fingers barely touched. He doesn’t finish the sentence, just whispers, “Alpha.” and Harry’s taking him back up to the room, holding Louis against his chest by the thighs, nudging his nose against Louis’ scalp to inhale the sweet, lingering heat pheromones and then erase them with his own scent. Louis slung his arms around Harry’s neck and tried to convince himself he was only letting Harry carry him.
Someone changed the sheets on Louis’ bed. The whole room still smells of heat, and Harry growls softly when he enters it before lying them both on the mattress, Louis pillowed on his chest, fingers raking through his locks.
“What did you do while I was gone?” Louis asks. Gone. Like he’d darted out of town for three days on errand. Like he hadn’t been moaning Harry’s name into this same mattress and trying not to sob when he remembered he was three rooms away.
The boys had always thought it was a good idea that there were two buffer rooms between Harry and Louis during heats and ruts. It’s just... safer.
Harry traced the contours of Louis’ face, nails tracing the bow of his lips, knuckles running up and down his nose, fingertips curving along with the shape of his shut eyelid. It feels a bit like heaven, like floating in the sky with a cloud for a pillow, eyes pulled closed because it’s far more work to keep them open. It feels just like falling asleep even though he’s wide awake. Like all-consuming serenity. He’s the face of a windless lake. The last raindrop to fall at the end of a storm. He’s so safe.
“Played FIFA with Niall.” Harry says. Louis had almost forgotten he’d asked a question. “Watched movies. Zayn and Liam got in a fight and made up within the hour. It was all very dramatic.”
“What did they fight about?”
“Omega rights.” Harry murmured, a little quieter, face reddening. “Liam thinks it’s dangerous that you spend heats alone, Zayn says he doesn’t get a say because he’s not an omega—“
“Which he doesn’t.” Louis chimed, glowering weakly.
“Which he doesn’t.” Harry agreed dutifully. “Anyway, Zayn tore into him for ‘being a knothead alpha who thinks he has a say in issues that don’t involve him.’ His words, not mine.”
Louis bumped his brow against Harry’s chest. “Good for Zayn.” He lifted his head. “But they’re okay now?”
Harry’s fingers brushed across his cheek, thumb swiping over the cliff of his cheekbone. “They’re okay now.” He assuaged.
He set his ear over Harry’s pounding heart and shut his eyes.
Sometimes, when Louis’ alone, he makes a nest of his clothes and pretends he has an alpha.
Louis’ tucked himself into Niall’s side and stifled a sigh. Niall said nothing, just wrapped a pale arm around Louis’ demure shoulders and tugged him closer, eyes scarcely straying from the telly. Outside the tinted windows, the asphalt rushes past, dark trees no more than shadowed blurs at the roadside. The bus hums beneath them.
“I hate bus nights.” Louis grumbled finally, shifting his cheek against the itchy fabric of Niall’s shirt. Sleep plucked arduously at his lavender eyelids. “Can’t sleep.”
Niall hummed as sedative, beta pheromones began to roll off his skin, palm stroking gently up and down Louis’ bicep. Louis groaned thankfully and tucked his face into Niall’s neck. “You can sit out here and watch Peppa with me, if you want.” He offered sweetly.
Louis snorted ungracefully. “Why are you watching Peppa Pig?”
“Because it’s on.” He huffed, as though it were obvious, manifesting a handful of crisps from who-knows-where and shoving them in his mouth. “It’s a law to watch Peppa when it’s playing, you know that.”
Louis nodded. “That I do.”
He slung an arm over Niall’s chest and tipped his face towards the ceiling. There were no stars outside the windows. Just blurs of blackened sky. He hadn’t been able to see stars in Donny, either. He used to ask his mom where they’d gone. They’re still there, boo, she’d said gently, smoothing a hand over his soft hair. Just because something is bright enough to cancel out dimmer lights, it doesn’t mean those lights go out.
Louis missed the stars.
Peppa and her friends were playing pirates.
When Louis glanced up, Zayn was in the doorway, rubbing at his dark-rimmed eyes with a sweater-hidden hand. Liam appeared behind him in half a moment, hands curling around his omega’s waist, chin on his shoulder.
“What are you doing up?” Liam asked, pressing a kiss to the side of Zayn’s head.
“Niall’s eating.” Louis supplied. “I can’t sleep.”
Zayn slumped down on the other couch, mumbling something akin to fucking Irishman, waking me up. Liam was close behind, lying on top of him, squishing Zayn’s thin body beneath his own and grinning when Zayn giggled. He peppered kisses across his tanned face. Across his thin hands when he raised them to cover his blushing cheeks.
It hurt Louis, to watch them. Like a hammer beneath his diaphragm, slamming into it, splintering his achy rib cage into jagged shards. It carves a cavity in his chest, heavy and hollow. Just beside his heart. They’re everything he doesn’t have. And he can’t even be angry at them for it.
They whisper softly to each other, grinning against each other’s skin, and Louis trains his eyes on the telly so he won’t stare, pining over something he’s never had.
“Thanks for inviting me to the party.” Harry grinned, manifesting at the door with sleepy eyes and a sleepier smile. He makes his way across the room and plops down beside Louis, jostling both he and Niall. He’s wearing only pajama pants and his bare skin, glowing softly beneath the dim LEDs, painted with tattoos that Louis knows with his eyes shut. Blind and silent, he could still trace them with his hands. Harry settled a broad hand on the inside of Louis’ thigh and dropped the other on his own stomach, just beneath the butterfly. His palm is almost scalding, and Louis melts beneath it, as he should. As he always would.
Louis turned to him, smiling softly. He smells good. “If you consider Peppa Pig a party.”
“Everyone considers Peppa a party.”
A dry chuckle. Louis leaned into Harry’s side.
It only took six minutes for him to fall asleep.
Louis raised a hand to stroke along Harry’s face, thumb pressing into the dip of his chin, fingers splayed across his sharp cheek.
Harry shifted between his thighs. “My rut starts the day after tomorrow.”
Louis’ hard in his pants, and when he shifts, he can feel Harry, too, firm against his thigh. It’s never mattered before, and it doesn’t now. “I remember.” He whispers. Sweet. Warm. Moonlight streamed through a gap in the curtains and slanted across Harry’s face.
Louis hates to imagine what it would be like if he and Harry were together. It hurts to think of. If they stumbled into the colossal More that had been biting at their heels since they fell asleep together in the X Factor bunk beds. It looms over their shoulders like rain-heavy clouds, hanging low, dizzyingly overt. Louis can taste it when Harry’s skin presses against his own. Reddish-blue.
Harry squeezed his face cheekily and giggled when Louis’ lips puckered. “What will you do without me to entertain you?”
Fondness warped the disapproving frown that Louis tried to set on his mouth. “My life exists outside of you.” He brushed the pad of his pointer finger along the swollen swell of Harry’s bottom lip.
He felt it when Harry smiled. “I know.”
A sigh into the colored-navy air. “S’pose I’ll mope and eat the food you never let me eat when we’re together.”
The frown came next. “You know that stuff is bad for you.” Harry scolded. His thighs were hot where Louis’ cradled them.
Louis grinned, feeling his chest swarm with warmth. “It tastes so good though.” He licked his lips and moaned teasingly.
Harry’s hips shifted, and Louis almost went catatonic with it, the swirl of warmth beneath his ribs blazing into an inferno, white-hot and soft-edged. He wants to turn his face into the pillow and hide there. He wants to spread his legs, strip himself naked, and present himself to Harry, wet and hard and confused. He wants too many different things he doesn’t know how to name.
“Will I ever get you to eat a carrot?” Harry grumbled with mock annoyance.
Louis pulled a face that made him giggle, even through the chiffon-soft darkness between them. “Blasphemy.” He deadpanned.
Harry tipped down, elbows digging into the soft mattress beside Louis’ shoulders, and blew a raspberry into the side of his neck.
Louis yelped, squirmed, trying desperately to dampen the giggles bubbling in his throat. “Get off, get off!” He squeals joyfully, pushing at Harry’s head. He writhes and twists and wriggles until he’s finally away from the feeling, jumping out from beneath Harry’s body and skewing atop the mattress until he’s seated on Harry’s hips.
He loves straddling Harry. It makes him feel like he’s sitting on a throne. Like he’s right in the place where he belongs.
Harry stares up at him reverently, grassy eyes glowing in the shadow. One of his hands squeezed Louis’ ample hip. The other is raised to stroke his first knuckle along his cheek. “Silly omega,” he purrs. Blood heats Louis’ face when their hard-ons brush together, and he knows Harry can feel it, blooming beneath his skin. “Silly, silly omega.”
Louis fingers drifted down Harry’s bare chest and stilled on his taut stomach. “We should go to sleep.” He breathed out, just a shape of words across bitten lips.
Harry nudged two fingers beneath Louis’ chin. “If you want.”
Louis doesn’t know what he wants. He never has. Not with Harry. He can see it, just behind his eyelids when he closes them, mocking in their divinity; Harry, three fingers deep in his arse, curling fingertips ruthlessly against his prostate until Louis can’t even move, can’t even breathe. Until it hurts. He’d whisper in Louis’ ear about how much he wanted him, how good he was being, how beautiful he looked spread over Harry’s thighs, and Louis would fall to pieces from it. And then, it’s Harry, thrusting into him just the way he wants to, groaning at the gush of slick that leaks from Louis’ bum, drips onto the sweat-damp sheets. Hands gripping his hips to pull Louis back, to meet him, thrust-for-thrust. Knotting him so divinely that Louis’ crying for it. This is what Louis sees. But, it’s also this: Harry stroking his thumb over Louis’ knuckles while they walk through the grocery store. This: their socked feet bumping together in a lawless game of footsie, lying on opposite sides of the couch, legs intertwining in the middle. It’s this: Harry making them dinner and kissing Louis gently on the forehead, with no other intention than because he’d like to, and tucking them together in bed that night, kissing devoutly over the bond mark on Louis’ neck. This and this and this. He’s always seen it.
He’s never known what he wants.
So, he just nods, tipping forward onto Harry’s warm chest and letting Harry tuck the both of them together, soft and sweet beneath the blankets. In a foreign hotel room, Harry is the only facet of home that Louis’ ever kept. Ever known.
Harry falls asleep quickly. Sleep grants no such pity for Louis, who lies awake, tracing circles and whorls and words on Harry’s spine, until he finally slips under as the first rays of dewy, pink-lilac sun lap at the horizon.
He dreams of Harry.
Louis can pretend otherwise, but he hates Harry’s ruts. It means that he can’t see Harry for four days, four whole days, sometimes five, and that’s probably illegal somewhere. A crime punishable by severe grumpiness and separation anxiety.
Of course, his bed still smells like Harry. They’d spent a whole day and a night lying together in it, the day before Harry’s rut, playing FIFA and watching movies. Harry always got possessive of Louis around ruts. All five of them, to some degree, but Louis was the only one he needed to hold, to keep in his space, in his arms. He left a few jumpers and sweaters behind for Louis to cuddle into during their days apart.
Which is exactly what he’s doing now.
He was sprawled across his bed as Niall sat on the floor in front of it, both their gazes trained intensely on the game of FIFA that blurs across the telly. Harry’s lavender jumper hung loose across his collarbones, around his wrists, but he likes it that way. And it smells so strongly of him, pure alpha, forest and bread and freezing streams of water.
“Niall,” Louis started, and cut himself off to cheer as he landed a goal. “Niall, what do I smell like?”
“Uh...” Niall said dumbly, distracted as he maneuvered the ball down the field. “Orange blossoms and vanilla. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know.” Louis pauses the game and Niall lets out a loud squawk of protest, spinning around to glare at Louis. “But do I ever smell like Harry?”
Niall’s pale brows drew together. “Yeah, almost always a little. A lot in the mornings. He scents you everyday, of course you smell like him.” He rambles, as if it’s obvious, and it’s all so casual that Louis feels sick. Niall catches sight of his darkening face and frowns. “I mean, you don’t smell mated, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, no,” Louis begins, shaking his head. He’s fully prepared to drop this conversation, except Niall looks both confused and suspicious, and he knows there’s no getting out of it. “I think—“
“Oh, fuck, Liam!”
They both freeze.
Their faces contort into something halfway between disgust and puzzlement, brows drawn together, mouths tugged into deep frowns. Niall took a breath like he was going to say something.
The wall starts pounding, sharp and rhythmic.
“Fuck, yes, Liam, Liam—”
“Oh my god!” Louis cries out, flushing red, voice strained in horror. He dropped his face into his hands as Niall gagged. “Oh my god, it’s two in the afternoon!”
“Yes, right there, fu-uck, I’m gonna—”
“Come for me.”
Louis screams. Niall snatches the garbage bin and dry heaves into it. In a panic, Louis chucks the hotel-provided Bible at the wall—something he’ll laugh hysterically about later—but the banging of the headboard doesn’t so much as falter. He can hear the mattress creaking, now.
Niall chucks him his coat, already shrugging his own on, and they hightail out of the room. Halfway down the hallway, they’re giggling.
By the time they’re in the elevator, they’re holding each other up through harsh wracks of laughter, wheezing for air, and Louis’ forgotten all about his scent.
“We could hear you and Liam fucking earlier.” Louis says casually when he and Zayn are watching some old superhero movie later that night.
Zayn grinned and shifted like he was remembering it. “Did we sound hot?”
“Niall dry heaved into the waste bin.”
“Nice.”
“Did you miss the part about the dry heaving?”
“The hotter you sound, the grosser it is to your mates, Lou, you should know that.”
Louis stared at him incredulously. “I will never figure you out.”
Zayn grinned and took a handful of pretzels, tattoos shifting over his knobby knuckles. “You’d understand if you got knotted more often.”
Louis gaped. “Hey!” He grabbed a pillow and slapped it against Zayn’s shoulder. “Don’t be mean!”
“I’m not being mean, I’m being honest. You haven’t hooked up with anyone on this tour yet, is all I’m saying.” He leaned his head on Louis’ shoulder and poked his lower lip out. “I swear I’m not trying to piss you off, I just thought you would’ve.”
Louis said nothing.
Zayn didn’t give up so easily.
“So,” he smirked. “It’s Harry, right?”
He only shut up when Louis smacked him in the face with a pillow, and even then, he was shaking with laughter for the next fifteen minutes.
There’s a very, very real chance that Zayn is onto something.
Harry pins him against the wall of the bathroom, hands wrapped tight around his thin wrists, held against the cool tiles.
Louis preened and tipped his face up, skin raising with gooseflesh when Harry eyes the extended column of his throat. He smells divine, lingering rut, spicy and thick. Louis hopes his wrists have bracelets of lavender-and-azure bruise by nightfall.
“Missed you.” Harry grumbled, pressing his face tight into Louis’ neck and scenting him, strong and definite as he can. “Four days is too long.”
Louis tipped into the feeling. “It’s not my fault one of us is an alpha and has to spend half a week trying to knot the brains out of his fist.”
Harry’s hand tangled in his hair. Tugged sharply. His teeth scraped Louis’ Adam’s apple. “And it’s not mine that one of us is an omega that has to spend half a week frantically riding a fake knot so he doesn’t beg to ride any alpha he smells, instead.”
“Knothead.” Louis hissed, but they’re both grinning against each other’s skin, hot and damp with sweat and Louis’ still pressed against the cold wall, even though only one of his wrists is pinned, now. He could make excuses, but there’s one reason that he’s still here, and it’s because he would never, ever want to leave.
“You smell like an alpha.” Harry growled, canines dipping into Louis’ collarbone.
“‘S Liam.”
“Why do you smell like Liam?”
Louis shifted, pet over the back of Harry’s head, tilted his hips forward just barely. “I was cuddled with him and Zayn yesterday.”
“No.”
Harry says it so casually, so genuinely, that for a second, Louis convinced himself that he hadn’t. Then, his brows yank together in confusion. “What do you mean, no?”
He pulls back to lock that dark, jeweled gaze on Louis’, mouth flattened into a thin, pale line but eyebrows settled impassively over his eyes. “I don’t want you to cuddle with him anymore.” He says. Blunt. Simple.
And they have seven minutes before an interview. But Louis can’t stop himself. He has to tip his hips up. He has to show Harry how much he wants him, and see if he wants Louis in return. He has to present.
Harry’s pupils seep the saturation from his irises, but his palm is soft and slow when it glides across Louis’ neck. “Don’t do that to me now, love.” He ordered steadily, even though he’s hard and Louis’ hard and knowing that they have to walk about of his echoing room in seven minutes is a whole different genre of hard. Louis shifted, whined. Harry gripped his chin between his warm fingers, and he fell silent. He pictures them inside him. He pictures them right where they are. “I know you heard me, doll.”
Louis swallowed and nodded. “I heard you.” He affirms.
Harry pulls a face like he understands. Louis can’t imagine he does. His whole chest is on fire, crackling, falling over itself like tumbling logs in a blaze. “Then listen.” He commanded.
It takes him a breath. But he nods and hides his face against Harry’s collarbone.
Six minutes later, they’re sitting in an interview, trying not to squint under the bright lights and pretending their hard-ons aren’t tenting painfully in their jeans.
It’s never mattered before. Why should it now?
“Oh my god, Louis, close your mouth.” Niall sighed, shaking his head. “I can smell the slick in your pants.”
Louis’ cheeks bloomed, red bordering on magenta, hot and shamed. He slapped Niall’s shoulder and cried, “Niall!”
He should be angry, and he is, a little, but Niall sort of has a point. What else is he meant to be doing when Harry’s there, moving like that? Swinging his hips to the beat of the music, skin glimmering beneath the flashing red lights. Curls bouncing around his face as it tipped towards the ceiling.
He looks transcendent.
“What?” Niall rolled his eyes, pulling Louis back to the torturous present. “You’re staring like you want to eat him.”
“I don’t want to eat him.” Louis objected quietly. His tongue felt heavy and dry in his mouth.
“Oh, of course, sorry,” Niall look a long sip of his Guinness. “You want him to eat you.”
Louis sighed. “Shut up, Niall.”
It only takes twenty more minutes for Harry to shimmy off the dance floor and take Louis into his broad, sweat-dappled arms.
“Dance with me.” He breathes, dipping down to dart his tongue against the reddening shell of Louis’ ear.
Louis whined and pouted. “Don’t make me.”
Harry wiggles his hips and quirked his brows. “Show me those sweet moves, sugar-lips.” He giggled.
“Why do you ruin everything?”
Louis protests, but he still lets Harry lead him onto the floor. Lets him hold Louis’ hips against his own. Grind his arse into his thickening cock. He tips his head back, until it falls against Harry’s shoulder, and raises his hands to thread them through those soft, tangling curls. Like chiffon between his fingertips.
“You look so pretty like this.” Harry rumbles, tucking his face into Louis’ bared neck. The music almost sweeps away his words, sand under wind. “All stretched out for me, yeah?” He says.
“Shut up, oh my god,” Louis breathed out, but a smile tears across his mouth, irrepressible, like water rushing from a cracking dam. He feels light. Just an amalgamation of feathers on the breeze.
Harry lowered his lips to Louis’ cheek. Mouthed along his cheekbone, hot and wet. “You like it.” He laughed, voice pitched deeper than it had been seconds ago. “Don’t act like you don’t. I can smell you, Lou.”
Louis only dances closer.
It’s a drug, being with Harry like this. Opium. Morphine. Heroin. It takes everything else away, leaves just this behind. This pretty, stinging itch along his sparking nerve endings, rushing in sharp currents over his skin, illecebrous as it is petrifying. It’s Harry’s hands on his body, lips on his face, so close and altogether too far from his own. It’s Harry murmuring that he can smell Louis through the space between them. It’s lights flashing and music pulsing and people yelling except Louis can’t really feel any of that, because why would he want to, anyway? Why, when Harry is holding onto him? Sweat licked at his spine alongside the electricity.
Maybe four songs pass. Maybe sixteen. Maybe eighty. Harry’s cock presses hard against the swell of Louis’ ass, just beneath the dip of his waist. He moves against it devilishly and revels in the pants that Harry washes into his skin. This is existence. This is eternity.
He scrambles to bridle the quiet little “Alpha.” that slips past his teeth, but Harry still hears, flicking his tongue over Louis’ shut eyelid, hands sliding around to grab and hold Louis’ soft stomach. They flatten, palms hot against Louis’ navel through the thin cotton, and pull Louis ever tighter against his body.
“Something to ask, Omega?” Harry growls sweetly, mouth drifting to sweep along Louis’ hairline and trace back down to his scarlet-warm ear. His scent swirls around them like a cyclone, thick and cloying and angelic.
Louis shakes his head, even when the words claw up his throat like itching smoke grappling to escape a chimney. “Nothing.” He promises. Harry’s fingertips dance along the waistband of his jeans. And, recklessly, Louis breaks and whines, “You smell so nice.”
“God,” Harry gasps, voice throaty. “You too, Christ, I don’t know if it’s my rut or what and I don’t care, you smell so pretty, Lou, my little doll.”
The song changes. Louis couldn’t recall the name of the last one. Tonight, when he tries to remember, he won’t remember this one, either. Just his own voice pleading, red-faced and whiny, “Call me doll again?”
“Doll.” Harry purrs.
Louis’ knees go weak.
“My little doll,” he breathes against Louis’ jaw. “So precious, aren’t you, my boy,”
He nodded, gasped out a noise of assent, fell ever-further into Harry’s firm chest. It was all he could do.
“Careful.” Harry chuckled. “Your scent is filling up this whole room.”
Louis glanced up through his wet lashes and met the gazes awaiting him. People stared from every direction, dark eyes trained on his swaying hips, his flushed cheeks, his cerulean eyes. Betas licked their lips. Alphas glared at Harry’s hands, wrapped possessively around his midsection. A few of them had fallen still on the dance floor, frozen in desire, jaw muscles flickering with jealousy and longing. Even omegas we’re shifting, blinking brightly. The attention of the club was centered, dizzyingly, on Louis.
And Louis’ was on Harry, as it had always been.
“Everyone’s staring.” He whispered, brows pulling together. He turned his head to look at Harry over his shoulder. “They’re staring at me.”
“You look good.” Harry’s fingers brushed along his jaw, swept down his extended neck. “Of course they’re staring.”
He could feel the tensions in the room rising, like a faucet spilling into a glass. Couples danced closer, smoother. Cheeks flushed like roses. And Louis’ so wet , so turned on, grinding evolved into rocking, desperately canting his hips against Harry’s, the scent of his arousal smoking out the room. Swirling up to the ceilings. It mixes with the warm, tinged scent of Harry’s desire, spiked with that purely alpha twang that warns: this omega is mine, and no one else’s. Louis loves being that omega. He loves that warning. Everyone watches him, everyone wants him, and everyone, everyone knows that they can’t have him.
When Niall grabs his wrist, Harry growls something low and dangerous, rumbling against Louis’ back. He feels the marrow of his bones spark with interest.
Niall rolls his eyes and tugs at Louis’ hand. “You’re about to start a public orgy.” He hisses, blue eyes wide. Behind him, Zayn and Liam have migrated close, eyes dark, Zayn’s head tipped back and Liam’s teeth lingering near his throat. Where his blood runs hottest. Niall snaps in front of their faces, looking all too overwhelmed for a man who’s probably still drunk, and pulls both pairs towards the door. “Time to go.”
Harry doesn’t let go. Not when they’re walking outside. Not when they’re climbing in the car. Not when Louis shifts restlessly on his lap and chases a hint of satisfaction that he knows he won’t find. He holds on.
“I’m staying with Zayn tonight!” Louis announces, with bellowing volume, the moment they step in the hotel. Liam growled, but Louis was staring at Zayn, trying desperately to convey that he can’t stay with Harry tonight through telepathic waves of emotion aimed studiously in Zayn’s direction.
He can’t stay with Harry tonight. He’s so turned on, so willing, wanting to be knotted. And if he stays with Harry, all of the self-control he’s weakly built up over the years will utterly crash down around him. He can taste it, orangish-gray and dangerous, against his tongue.
Even though Zayn doesn’t understand for a few existential moments, Liam seems to instantaneously. The frustrated expression wipes from his face, and he leans over to press a kiss to Zayn’s temple. His hand smooths over the side of Zayn’s head.
In the time it’s taken for Zayn to comprehend Louis’ mental message and agree to it—via responsive mental message—Harry has un-looped his arms from Louis’ middle and is frowning down at him. Even if Louis can’t see it, he can most definitely feel it. “What—“ he begins.
Louis snatches Zayn’s hand, and then Niall’s, for good measure. “Alpha-free night!” He explains without looking at them. “We’re doing face masks!”
God, he hopes Zayn has face masks.
He drags them into the lift and frantically smashes the buttons until the doors slide shut.
Niall tipped his head against the wall. “I finally get invited to face mask night, but only by default.” He rolls his eyes. “I better get nachos out of this.”
It takes six bottles of mini liquor from the hotel bar and an extremely decked-out tray of nachos before they’re absolutely hammered.
The three of them were sprawled across the king-sized mattress in what would’ve been Zayn and Liam’s room, giggling hysterically, an episode of Friends blurred in old-fashioned saturation on the telly. Zayn had thrown an arm around Louis’ shoulders, and Niall was stretched across both their legs, staring at the ceiling. He has cheese on his lower lip, which only makes Louis laugh harder.
“Are we going to—“ Niall stops to hiccup, and then burp. “Ignore the fact that Louis almost started a sex party at the club?”
Louis flushes rosy as Zayn giggles. He jostles Louis with an elbow to his ribs. “Yeah, Lou, what was that about? You and Harry looked ready to eat each other.”
Louis smacked his chest. “I saw you and Liam, too, you know. His teeth were literally in your trachea.” He said around a mouthful of cheese and crisps.
“Were not!” Zayn gasped.
Niall snorted at the ceiling when he and Louis laughed, in tandem: “Were too.”
“You’re dodging the question.” Zayn huffed indignantly.
Of course Louis’ dodging the question. He’s an expert. If avoiding questions is an Olympic sport, Louis is a gold medalist.
But it lingers beneath his rib cage, sparking at every synapse. It floats between the gaps in his joints. He and Harry were like twin flames tonight, spinning around each other, blazing hotter together when everyone thought they’d fizzle out. They were raw, electric, the spark of lightning that ignites the fire. Their desire was tangible, hot in the cloying air, like an oar cutting through the mirror surface of a lake. They were everything Louis’ always wanted and nothing he’d ever known. He didn’t have the right words for it. Didn’t have anything except his open palms, tipped towards the sky, bared for Harry to fill.
“Why does everything think Harry wants to eat me?” Louis grumbled, grinning, after a belated pause.
“Because he does the serial killer face with you.” Niall strained to mimic it, which only had Zayn and Louis bursting into suffocating laughter. “Shut up, you sons of bitches, you know what I mean.”
Louis leans back against the headboard, laughter still lingering in the corners of his smile, and shuts his eyes.
He dreams of he and Harry dancing. All alone, this time around. Just the sway of their hips and the sweet, slow music. No words. No clothes. Just their bodies and dwindling time. It feels very much like heaven.
No one mentions the club again, but Harry gaze is heavier when it lands on Louis’ skin.
Louis catapulted himself into Harry’s chest and whined weakly.
“This has been a colossally shit week.” He whispers into Harry’s skin, because it has. Six shows, nineteen interviews, three different countries, several publicity outings and no sleep has all culminated into pure, white-hot frustration bubbling beneath Louis’ skin and a cluster headache. The air reeks of tension, emanating from all five of them. Louis can barely breathe around it. Even he knows he smells stressed, and he can’t smell himself.
Harry stroked his spine. “I know, sweet, I agree.”
Louis almost cries. Harry’s so damn nice. It’s dizzying. “Don’t you ever want to...” he tipped his face up. “Don’t you ever want to get away?”
“Away from what?” Harry’s brows drew together, mouth turning down. “From the band?”
“No. Or. I don’t know.” He sighed, twisting away, striving to hide his crimson cheeks from Harry’s inquiring gaze. “Just away, you know?”
And then Harry’s tossing Louis gently off his lap and catapulting to his feet, spinning on his heels. A discontented noise escapes Louis’ throat without permission, drawn deep from his achy chest. His skin is cold without Harry’s against it.
“Come on.” Harry held out a hand, palm up. “Let’s go for a drive. I know a place.”
Louis stared up at him.
“You want to go for a drive?” He frowned. “It’s half past midnight.”
Harry just shrugged, shoulders jostling in a sort of awkward charm. “Less people out. Come on, let’s go.” He said, reaching forward to slip his fingers into Louis’ hair. “You said you wanted to get away, yeah? Lets get away.”
His other hand was still palm-up. There for the taking.
Louis grabs it and stands.
The drive is silent and sweet, and their hands twine together on the console like interlocking pieces of a puzzle. The radio hums lowly, delicate and gentle through the speakers, and Harry hums along to himself, sweeping his thumb over Louis’ knuckles. He turns it off when one of their songs starts to play.
They end up parked on a dusky seaside overlook, car beams shining into the radiating darkness of the night sky and the sloshing waves. They must only be a few yards from the sharp drop of the cliff face, which is at least twenty feet from the cool sand below, but with the navy shade in all directions, it feels like wading in airy shadow. Louis can’t remember the last time he saw so many stars at once.
He climbs out of the car and clambers onto the hood, shivering slightly inside Harry’s jumper when the headlights flick off and leave him with just the starlight and the emanating heat of the engine through the metal. He jumps when the car door slams, and Harry chuckles. Louis doesn’t know how he can even see him through the darkness.
“I just—“ Louis begins, either minutes or hours later, when the words are going to tear through his sternum if he doesn’t voice them. “Sometimes, I just want to scream.”
The air smells like sea salt and Harry smells like home beside him. “Why?” He asks calmly, evenly. Not like Louis’ crazy. Unusual. Just like he’s Louis.
Louis fiddles with the cuffs on his jeans. “I don’t know.” He mumbles lamely. “It’s like... don’t you ever feel pent up, Haz? Like we’re just bouncing from place to place without ever landing in any of them?” Louis tipped his face towards Polaris. “Sometimes I feel like bubbles under a stopper, you know? All this pressure is building and I feel like I’m just going to—to...” a sigh. “To scream.”
For a second, there’s only the waves sliding against the shore a hundred yards away and Louis’ own rushing blood, pounding through his hot ears.
Harry’s knuckles bump against his. “Scream, then.”
“What?” Louis asks, because that doesn’t make all that much sense. Not right now.
“Scream.” Harry offers again. His voice is pink with fondness. “We’re at the ocean anyway. It’s the perfect place. No one to hear you but the waves.”
“And you. And the people inevitably having sex down on the beach.”
Even through the darkness, Louis can feel the feral alpha grin that Harry casts him. “Well, then, it’ll scare them away. Keep them from breaking laws. Public indecency is illegal and also gross.”
“Yeah?” Louis raised a brow. “I always pegged you for an exhibitionist.”
He can almost hear the eye roll. “Come on, Louis.” Harry jostles, and it takes Louis a moment to realize that he’s sitting up, legs hanging over the grill of the car. “Scream. You said you wanted to.”
Bashfulness bleeds over Louis’ skin like water through cotton. “I can’t.”
Harry smells like excitement, now, sharp and sure, swirling with the salt in the breeze. “Sure you can.” He wobbles to his legs and heaves himself onto the roof, standing tall in his lunar silhouette. “I’ll even do it first.” He says boldly.
“Harry—“
It’s all Louis manages to get out before Harry tips his head back and bellows towards the stars, utterly loud and free, wild, like a true wolf howling up at the moon. Louis can almost hear it in his voice; the alpha that’s broken free inside his chest, rearing around in great circles for breathless moments before it’s caged up once more. It’s a sound that bleeds with power, a call to the untamed and proud. With his eyes adjusted to the dark, Louis can see Harry’s arms spread wide and his hair hanging angelically around his face.
When he shuts his mouth, his face is cool. Smooth as a pond on a windless day. He’s at peace.
It’s the only thing that persuades Louis to climb up next to him, throw his arms out wide, and scream at the obsidian ocean splayed before him.
And, it’s—at first he feels silly, knowing Harry’s watching him, probably grinning that stupidly fond grin that makes Louis want to melt in his shoes, but then. Then it just feels good. It feels like all that condensation that had been popping beneath the cork just flows free, releasing slowly, unclamping from around his lungs. Letting all the air out of a balloon. Blowing a breath between his lips until there’s none left to draw from. It’s everything that’s been plaguing him drifting free on the ocean wind, settling somewhere far below, barely bobbing on the waves before it sinks to the sandy floor. It’s his omega, bounding free, sprinting fast and joyous through his blood.
There is no one in the world that he would’ve done this with except for Harry.
They end up cross-legged on the roof, faces tipped towards the glittery stars in quiet contemplation. When Louis listens, he can almost hear the echo of his own scream, floating back at him. Gentler, this time. Not so confused. Not so hurt. Harry settles a hand on his knee and Louis lets his eyes close.
Is this life? Is it music? Is it Harry? Is it screaming at the ocean and not expecting a response? Louis prays to every god he knows, and a few he doesn’t, that he never has to choose. Life feels too much like all three.
“Do you feel better?” Harry asks, lolling his head to one side to look at the side of Louis’ face.
Louis’ cheeks heat beneath the attention. “Yeah, Haz, I think I do.” He doesn’t turn to look into Harry’s eyes, even when something in his rearing omega begs him to. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“I don’t know.” A soft pause. “Yelling first?”
Harry snorted and squeezed Louis’ knee, giggling when Louis breathed out a laugh. “Not a problem, Lou.”
That’s the night that change begins.
Louis is nesting. Louis is very, very much nesting, which is horrible, because they only have two days left in Stockholm and if he doesn’t have at least half a day to set it up and three days to smother himself in it, he steers straight past jittery and right into batshit crazy. It’s why he tells himself to wait. After Stockholm comes two days in Oslo, and then they have a whole week in LA. Which is time enough for Louis not only to smother, but to absolutely bask in his nest. All he has to do is wait a bit.
He’s not doing anything of the sort.
“Louis, why are you so stressed?” Zayn sighs worriedly, when Louis rearranges a pair of light jeans for the fourth time atop the rumpled blankets of his hotel room.
“Might not be stress.” Louis says, too fast, too skittish, like the sparking end of a live wire. “Might be the foreword to an early heat.”
“That’s worse.” Zayn points out. Louis grumbled and fixed Harry’s jumper at the top middle, near where his head would lay. Something’s missing. There’s a piece he needs and doesn’t have.
Louis’ not tetchy about anything. Not arrival times, not reigning his attitude, not making sure everything is perfect all the time. That’s Liam’s role to play.
But it’s different when it comes to his nest. Maybe it’s an omega thing, or maybe it’s a Louis thing, but he needs each item to be exact. A place for everything, and everything in its place. He doesn’t let any of the boys into his nests, terrified they’d muck it up and he’d have to start from the beginning. Niall isn’t even allowed in the same room. His nests are his sanctuary and his creation. They’re constructed of very specific items from his wardrobe; soft things, mostly. Comfy sweaters, blankets from Donny, cotton joggers. Those form almost the whole base and include whatever duvets or sheets are around him at the time. By the top is his baby blanket, the one his mum had knit him, and a scarf that always smells like her scent mixed with the nutmeg-and-vanilla perfume Louis bought her one Christmas. Next to that is one of Liam’s jumpers, a pair of Niall’s trackies, and Zayn’s old, grayish beanie. On the other side, in a meticulous row, are all of Harry’s pieces. A few are interspersed among the base of the nest, up around the sides, but most find their way haloing Louis’ head. The closest is Harry’s bandana, tucked so near to his face that it practically presses against his nose. After that are assorted jumpers, joggers, even a clean pair of socks, in order of which smell the strongest and feel the best. It’s a very specific system.
Louis could spend eons making his nests, over-analyzing the lay of each item until it’s picture perfect. Being on tour robs him of that privilege, cutting him down to half-days. Sometimes less if he wants to have enough time to at least take the edge off. But it’s nothing compared to this. This frantic scramble of assembly, tossing clothes together, knowing he’s missing something but not even knowing what. The duvet doesn’t smell right, either. It’s still too hotel-ish.
“Hello!” Zayn calls, pushing up from his chair to wave an olive-colored hand in front of Louis’ face. “You look totally out of it, babe, I can see it. You’re not dropping, are you?” His voice tinges green with dripping concern.
Louis smacked his hand away. “No. That hasn’t happened since X Factor. Not on tour, anyway.” That’s a lie. “I’m fine.”
“You’re nesting.” Zayn grabbed his wrist, yanking him to a stop halfway back to the bed. His eyes flame. “You’re not fine. What’s going on?”
Louis feels the words jar against his rib cage, the shattered scraps and fragments slicing into the marrow. They hurt, like smashed shards of metal. Needles. He’s just glass.
He shoves it away.
His frantic hands dutifully adjusted the jeans at the edge of the nest, folding them over and then spreading them out again. “Nothing’s going on, okay? Sometimes omegas nest, you should know that. You’re the last person I thought would be freaking out about this.”
“Why aren’t you freaking out about this?”
“Because.” He took a slow, fiberglass breath. “I can fix it.”
“You should get Harry’s help.”
Louis spun on him sharply. “Why would I need Harry’s help?” He snapped.
Zayn shrugged lackadaisically. “Because he’s an alpha.” He pulled a face. “Liam always helps me when I start to feel like nesting.”
Louis’ face scrunched. “How?”
“Well, I mean,” Zayn fish-mouthed for a few moments. “He fucks it out of me—“
“Lovely!”
“But! But,” Zayn went on insistently, waving his hands when Louis glared at him. “I’m sure Harry could, like, cuddle you. Or something. He’s an alpha.”
“Zayn.” Louis grumbled, balling up a head scarf and chucking it onto the floor in frustration. Almost immediately, he picks it up and delicately returns it to the nest. “I don’t need an alpha to help me with anything. And even if I did, which I don’t, I certainly don’t need it to be Harry . Got it?”
Zayn stood up and sighed, far more concerned than insulted, even among Louis’ grossly sharp tone. “Got it.” He agreed, nodding. He’s got one hand on the door when he reminds, in an all-too-uninterested voice, “I’m only trying to do what I think is best for you.”
Louis crosses the room and wraps his arms around Zayn’s waist, a balloon of anxiety deflating in his chest when Zayn pats his hands, tips his head back to rest against Louis’ forehead.
“Thank you.” Louis murmurs, still holding tight, into the fabric of Zayn’s collar. His heart thumps with fear and vexation.
This wasn’t meant to happen.
He misses his nest back home. His closet in his London flat had ideal floor space for a homey, sequestered nest, only ever for him. It was filled to the brim with pillows, blankets, different scents and clothes from different people, even fairy lights strung up on the walls. His little sanctuary. What he wouldn’t give to curl up in it now, head cushioned on Harry’s old pillow, and fall asleep.
Zayn squeezed his hand gently. “Don’t thank me, Loubear.” He extracted himself from Louis’ arms and spun to plant a strawberry-sweet kiss on the top of his head. “Trust your heart before your head, the gut knows what the brain isn’t able to yet!”
And then he’s gone.
Louis stared distastefully at his nest, hands on his hips, lips pursed.
Something was missing.
He’s stomping out of the room before he lets himself think, unlocking Harry’s door with the spare key card and shutting it behind him. It clicks loudly. “Hazza?” He asks, a little dazed as the thick scent of shower gel and alpha curls over his skin. Harry must’ve just gotten out.
“Just a second!” A voice calls, and then Harry’s emerging from around the corner, swamped in a big yellow jumper, curls still damp and leaving spots of water on the fabric of the sweater. He smiles, wide and glimmering, and Louis’ knees knock. “What’s up, Louis?” He asks sweetly.
Louis wishes he could speak. All of his attention is utterly fixated on this new jumper. He’s never seen it before, and he’s seen all of Harry’s clothes.
“Lou?” Harry prods again, stepping closer to stroke a hand reverently along Louis’ hair. “Everything good?”
But Louis just eyes the sweater that’s settled so artfully over Harry’s torso, heart jumping in his chest at the sweet, dandelion color, the way it falls and creases around Harry’s waist, how he has the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. Louis thinks it would be soft inside. Soft, and warm. And it would smell good. Like Harry. He takes a fistful of the fabric at Harry’s diaphragm.
He doesn’t really mean to ask, but it bubbles up anyway, skirting away when his tongue tries to leash it and falling over his teeth. “Can I have this?”
It clicks halfway, in that moment. This is the last piece of his nest. This is what he wants. This perfect, sunshine sweater that smells like Harry and feels so soft against his palm.
Harry pulled a face, reddish lips tugged down. Louis’ fingers itched with desire to reach up and smooth them back into a shape of ease, complacency. “My jumper?” He asks, voice drawn up on delicate strings of confusion.
Louis nods. The words fumble across his lips before his mind can register them. “Want it for my nest, it’s the last piece. Please?”
Harry’s eyes do something funny in Louis’ peripheral vision. Something like darkening, intensity swallowing up that pretty green, but not in a way that’s bad. Louis’ too distracted to really notice. He sweeps his thumb across the soft fabric.
“You’re nesting?” Harry asks, and Louis nods agreeably. Sirens rear tinnily in the back of his head. “Why, what’s going on?”
Louis’ hum was unaffected as it was distracted. “Nesting. Can I have this?” He repeats, hand flattening to stroke down Harry’s chest.
It feels as though there’s something very big he’s missing, something poking sharp barbs into his unarmored skin. But his brain is swimming underwater, cool and muffled, and even the sirens that had begun to sing were falling silent, tucked somewhere small and soundproof. He tipped his head to one side and whined softly when Harry’s hand came to rest on the side of his extended neck. He feels pretty. Small and warm and pretty.
Harry’s staring at him.
“Yeah, baby, um...” he blinks idly, tongue darting out to wet his lower lip before his white teeth dug into it. “Can I... can I walk you back to your room?”
It takes Louis heartbeat to respond. When he does, it’s only a mildly dazed hum of, “Hmm?”
“Nest, doll.” Harry says, voice endlessly patient. It feels like the only thing reaching Louis through miles of concrete. “Take you back there?”
His nest.
“My nest.” He says dreamily. His hand tightens in the jumper, knuckles whitening, as he worries his bottom lip with sharp teeth. “I can have this?”
Harry smiled mellowly and stroked his thumb over Louis’ cheek. “Yes. Of course.”
He swings Louis up into his arms and carries him back to his room.
With Harry’s yellow jumper bundled beneath his head and his scent still clinging to Louis’ skin, the nest is perfect. More perfect than Louis could’ve hoped.
Harry is sick of waiting. Louis can feel it in his palms, his gut. It itches beneath his fingernails. He’s tired of being patient for Louis. He’s ready.
Louis is... Louis. He doesn’t know anything, and he doesn’t pretend to.
It’s their second day in LA when Louis feels it approaching. The heat churning beneath his skin, like thousands of butterflies flapping flaming wings. At best, he’s got half a day.
He texts all the boys, frantically rearranging his room, primping the lovely nest he’d carted from Stockholm, to Oslo, to here. He sets his toys in the bedside drawer, all too attainable. He tosses non-perishable foods and water beside the lamp. Then, he calls Harry.
It’s some sort of secret, that Harry’s sometimes allowed in a makeshift nest. He pretends it’s because the other boys would be jealous, but, really, it’s because Louis doesn’t want to tell them. Harry still isn’t permitted to be in his London nest, or even close to it, really, but. But nests on tour are hardly nests. It will smell of him either way.
That’s where they are now, sitting upright in the arranged pile, Louis sat between the V of Harry’s legs as Harry rests his spine against the headboard. His chest is hot on Louis’ back. Their hands are settled atop each other on Louis’ thighs.
He groans and sighs. “I don’t want to go into heat.” Louis whispers, running his nails along the veins in the back of Harry’s hands.
Harry’s cold-tipped nose pressed behind his ear, and then against his scent gland. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you cover all the PR stuff?” Louis mumbled, shifting. “I feel bad.”
“Yeah, I talked to Paul, and he’s talking to the higher beings. Don’t feel bad.” His lips brushed Louis’ pulse. “It’s not like it’s your fault.” A pause. “I feel bad, though.”
For some reason, talking about this, Louis knows Harry wants him to ask for help. Even though he’s never done it before. Even though Louis’d explained numerous times why it terrified him to spend heat with an alpha he wasn’t in a relationship with.
Harry wants him to ask. And Louis can’t do that.
“It’s not like you have to feel bad for me.” Louis said, a little harsher than he might’ve another day. “You don’t feel bad for Zayn.”
“Well, Zayn has—“
“An alpha?” Louis tugged his hands away from Harry’s. Crossed his arms over his chest.
Silence blanketed the room like snow, suffocating and cold. “I was going to say Liam, but, sure, if you want to be mean about it.”
“I wasn’t being mean about it.” That’s a lie. “I don’t need anyone to help me with my heat.” He catapulted out of his nest and threw an arm towards the door.
Harry just laughed heartlessly and shook his head. “So you’ve said.” He mumbled. “A thousand times. I’ve got it, alright? Sorry for trying to comfort you.”
Louis internalized his wince and tipped his face towards the ceiling in frustration. “Implying that I need an alpha to help me with something I’ve been doing alone since high school isn’t comforting, knothead.” His jaw feathered.
Harry stood. The air was tangy and sharp between them. Angry. “Don’t call me a knothead.” He snapped. “God, you’re so temperamental, Louis. I shouldn’t have to watch my every word around you, afraid you’ll take offense to them even if you didn’t the day before! It’s ludicrous.”
“Did you swallow a thesaurus on the way here?” Louis huffed.
Harry growled and gripped his hair in his fists, stomping towards the door. “All I do is try to be a good alpha for you—“
“You’re not my alpha!” Louis screeches.
Harry stares at him.
Louis feels chords snap between their bodies. His hands go cold, and his voice burrows somewhere sickeningly out of reach.
“I just wanted to help you.” Harry’s eyes are dull and sharp in the same second. “You know what?” He shakes his head. Presses his lips together. Shuts off. “Fuck you.” He whispers. The words are hollow. Passionless. Sad. He tugs the door open and starts out it, raking a hand roughly through his hair.
“You can’t be mad at me.” Louis calls, extracting his voice from where he’d lost it in his chest. It sounds stronger than he feels. “It’s not for you to be mad about.”
But Harry doesn’t turn to look at him. “Whatever, Louis.” He mutters. The door clicks closed behind him. Louis wishes it had slammed. Maybe the world wouldn’t feel so achingly quiet.
He stares at the empty room. At the abandoned nest on the bed.
And for the first time in his life, Louis thinks that maybe he and Harry have already lost their chance.