Chapter Text
“If someone said three years from now you’d be long gone, I’d stand up and punch them out, cause they’re all wrong… That last kiss, I’ll cherish until we meet again. And time makes it harder, but I keep your memory.”
Louis remembers clearly the night everything fell apart.
There are moments in life you just can't forget. For him, there are some that just will never leave his mind: singing Torn, his first Award Ceremony, What Makes You Beautiful on the radio for the first time, bus 1 with Zayn, recording Fireproof with Liam and the look on Harry's face when he told Louis that he loved him, but they were done.
Looking back, he should have been more careful. He knew the risk he was taking with his heart before even dreaming about a career when he said "hi" to that boy many, many years ago in a bathroom. Louis should have known a lot of things, yes, and the most important of them being: it didn't matter how much they loved each other, they were doomed from the start. And he would be the one to fuck everything up... As always.
He was just getting out of the shower when he got the call. Summer was approaching and Barcelona was so damn hot, he just wanted to stay inside the hotel with the air conditioner all day. Calvin had other plans, though, and dragged the rest of the group to the beach. That was why he was alone. And thank God.
Louis finished toweling himself to pick up the phone without even checking the caller ID. It was probably Harry anyway – Louis was excited to tell him about the new bracelet he had gotten for him the day before.
“Hello”, he said cheerfully in a funny voice.
“Louis?” It was a girl’s voice; a voice he didn’t recognize.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Briana.” And, ok, the name rang a bell. He was still having trouble remembering the face. “I’m friends with Ollie; we went out a couple of times…?”
“Yeah…?” He repeated ‘cause he wasn’t sure of what to say or what the hell she wanted.
“I think we need to talk.”
“You and Ollie?” So why are you calling me? He wanted to ask.
“No. Me and you.” Oh. “Look, I really didn’t want to do this over the phone, but… I wasn’t sure I’d see you again unless I told this over the phone, so…”
She sounded extremely nervous and Louis thought that was weird, but he let her continue, making his way to the bed and sitting there, planning to take a long nap after the call.
“What- what do you remember? From, you know, the times we went out?” She asked hesitantly.
He tried to think, but not much came to his mind.
“Hm… Lots of booze, lots of weed, loots of crappy articles afterwards about me fucking five girls into the sunset…” He laughed.
“You didn’t fuck five girls into the sunset”, she affirmed seriously.
“I know, love.”
“You did fuck me, though. Twice. Well, and a half. Your body guard stopped us the third time.”
And, ok. She had to be joking. There were so many wrong things in that sentence. She didn’t laugh, though, and suddenly Louis couldn’t breathe properly.
“What?” He managed to choke that out, because… How?
“I didn’t expect you to remember, the second time you didn’t remember the first… But I thought…” He could hear her laugh, but she didn’t sound happy, excited or even ironic. Just nervous. He could relate. “Oh, God, I wish you would. I hoped you would.”
Was she pranking him? Was Ollie hidden somewhere in the room with a camera filming him?
Unfortunately, no.
“What?” He asked again. It seemed like the only word he knew at the moment because he wasn’t understanding. It came out as a whisper.
“Believe it or not… Well, you have to. You were the last person I slept with.”
“And?”
“And I’m pregnant.”
Louis had read some books in his life and he’d read many times about how out of the blue one’s life could change and the world would stop and the air wouldn’t be enough. He’d never thought he’d get to experience this, and at that moment, everything happened at once; he was on the verge of a panic attack.
“Louis, are you there?” She asked. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything. Things were spinning. He couldn’t breathe. “Look, I’ve already scheduled a DNA test, so don’t think I want something from you… I don’t need your money and I certainly don’t want your fame… Have your lawyers contact me or whatever… And you’ll have to come to LA for the test, of course. I’m assuming you want it. If not, you can forget I ever called… I just… Well, you’re the father. It wouldn’t be fair not to tell you.”
She kept talking and he was barely processing it. He had put her on speaker and now had his head cradled on his hands and everything was still spinning. He still couldn’t get enough air through his lungs.
“Louis?”
He had cheated on Harry. With a girl. Apparently, he had slept with a girl more than once, and he couldn’t even remember. He was twenty three and a father to be. He also had cheated on Harry. Because of course he’d find a way to ruin the best thing in his life.
“Fuck, Louis, say something.” She sounded frustrated.
He tried to even his breaths. He failed. But he needed to speak.
“I don’t know what to say”, he confessed. “I don’t-- I don’t mean to be an ass, I swear, I just… I can barely remember your face” lie, he didn’t remember it at all, “let alone sleeping with you.” He said. “To be honest, I’m still hoping there’s a hidden camera here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No- I- I’m. I’m sorry.” So, so sorry. But not for not remembering her. “Have you… Have you thought about an abortion?”
God, he never – NOT EVER – imagined himself in that position, saying such words. Louis loved kids. So fucking much. He wanted at least three of them. In a big house in London. Maybe LA. He just wanted them a few years from now. With Harry. Harry. He had cheated on Harry. Fuck, fuck, FUCK.
“I’m not having an abortion, Louis. I didn’t ask for this child any more than you did, but I sure as hell ain’t killing it.”
“No, of course not. I-”, damn it. “I don’t even know why I said that.”
“Like I said… You don’t have to have any part in it, Louis. I really don’t need anything from you. I like to party, yeah, but I’m a decent person and I come from an okay family. This child will be taken care of with or without you.”
This child. His child. God.
Louis didn’t doubt she was a decent person. He wasn’t even angry with her and why would he? It was his fault just as much. Rich as fuck and he didn’t bother to buy a condom. What in hell?
Truth was Louis hadn’t worn a condom since he was 19. The only person he had ever fucked in his life was Harry – and they only used it for a month or so. If it weren’t so tragic, he’d be laughing. He had slept with a girl. How drunk was he? How high?
And Alberto knew…? Why had he never said anything? What a messed up situation.
She was giving him a way out, but he couldn’t take it – he knew it. He couldn’t risk this leaking in the worst possible way, not now, not 20 years from now when the kid started wondering who the hell was the idiot who left them… He couldn’t become his own biological father he hated so much. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
“How far long are you?”
“I’m not sure… I have a doctor’s appointment next week.”
“Contact me when you know, please”, he asked as softly as he could. “I can’t not be a part of this child’s life. I’m a decent person too.” And he didn’t know who he was trying to convince, her or himself.
“Ok. And… The DNA test? You’ll want one, right?”
“Yeah, I… I’ll talk to my lawyers, have them contact you.”
“Ok.” She agreed. “Th-thank you.” She said like she was holding back tears. Maybe she was. He wasn’t that insensitive towards the girl. He knew it couldn’t be easy on her either. Her life was about to be turned upside down.
“I… I need to go. Process everything, I guess.”
“Sure, sure. I’ll reach you if I have any news.”
“Thanks. And. Thanks for telling me.”
“Of course.”
They said their goodbyes and hung up the phone. Louis had a list of people he wanted and needed to talk to and one (Harry) he’d avoid at all costs until he knew how to deal with this. Suddenly he felt twenty years older and in need of a lot of alcohol.
That was how Stan found him in the evening: lying on the bed with a bottle of whisky. Before he could get a word out, Louis cried for hours, like he could dry himself. It didn’t help at all. Stan held him through it not asking any questions and when Louis calmed down, his best friend put him under the shower again. Only then Louis realized he hadn’t even put on clothes, he still had the towel from his previous shower around his waist. Not that he could care about anything apart from the fact that he was about to lose the love of his life over a mistake… That would come in the shape of a baby, who would need him, and his love, and his care and would have no fault whatsoever.
Up until then, Louis thought that was the day his world collapsed. He knew he had already lost Harry even though Harry didn’t know it yet. But nothing had prepared him for the night it actually happened, the night they first cracked for real.
Now he knows he should’ve told him from the beginning, but back then, stupidly so, he figured he’d have time later. Later never came for him – for neither of them. For almost two months, the only people who knew about it were Stan, his lawyers and Zayn, as shocking as it may seem.
Zayn had called drunk as hell and said “I’m gonna break up with Perrie”. And Louis, who wasn’t any better, blurted out: “I’m gonna be a father”. Zayn was at his door in London in fifteen minutes. All the anger from him leaving the band vanished – he had a safe place in his brother slash friend slash guardian angel. And because of his kind, not judgmental eyes, Louis started to feel like he could breathe again.
When the first newspaper broke the story, Harry, of all the damn people in the world, was the one to show it to him, laughing loudly while shoving the iPad to his face. They were alone in the green room, which was a miracle most of the time, because it was always crowded with staff coming and going. At that moment specifically, it felt like a curse.
“ONE CONCEPTION, OH MY GOD!” Harry said, flopping down by Louis’ side, bursting into laughter again. “You should see the quantity of manips out there with me being pregnant… Where did they get that from?” He asked finally, apparently going through his twitter feed to show him the edited photos. Louis couldn’t move.
He was staring at the wall in front of him avoiding Harry’s gaze at all costs, because he knew that it would only take a glance for everything to be finished. And everything, he didn’t know at the time (or he didn’t want to know at the time), meant everything.
“Lou?” Harry asked again trying to get a reaction out of him.
“I’m… I’m sorry”, his face was already heating up.
“Is this another stunt? You agreed to this? Fuck, Louis, we said we wouldn’t do that anymore.” If only it were this simple, Louis thought.
“I’m sorry”, he repeated.
Harry rubbed his hand on his lower back and rested the other one on his knee, assuring him he was kinda mad, but he was there. Oh, Louis would miss his hands. And his soothing presence. And him.
“Why didn’t you tell me before? I mean… A baby is a new low for them.” He sounded upset. Louis wanted to die.
“H…” He whispered. God, he had forgotten how to use words. Well, he wished he had anyway. He wished he didn’t exist. “’S not a stunt.”
“What?” Confusion flashed through his face the exact moment Louis chose to look into his emerald eyes. Thinking now, he should’ve tried to memorize the love Harry’s eyes held for him.
“’S not a stunt. I’m sorry. I’m so so so sorry. I love you so much. You have no idea.” He said, turning his entire body to him.
“Louis.” Now it sounded like a warning. Or a request. He was begging him not to tell what he already feared. Louis hated knowing Harry so much. He hated even more how Harry knew him.
“I don’t even remember how it happened”, he confessed, weakly. Full of shame. “I love you.”
“What?” Now Harry’s eyes showed confusion… And hurt. He took his hands off of Louis like he was contagiously ill. “H-how?” He choked out.
“I don’t know. Alcohol, I suppose. Weed too.”
Till today Louis doesn’t doubt that maybe he’d taken something stronger… But nobody that was there seems to recall anything, or have the will to tell him anyway. Not even Alberto, who only said “you told me not to mention that, ever”. Oh well.
“The usual Tomlinson package.” Harry said coldly and laughed bitterly. Louis didn’t dare to look into his eyes then. He wasn’t ready to see his boy fade. “God…” He got up from the couch and started pacing around the room. “Is it stupid that I’m in shock or, like, praying to wake up? It probably is. I’m so stupid.”
“No. You’re not”, Louis answered. “H, please”, he asked, getting up to his feet.
“Please what, Louis? When were you going to tell me? During a shower blow job or with our mothers picking flower arrangements for our wedding? Maybe when the baby was born? Would you ask me to be the godfather then?”
He walked frenetically around the small table in front of them, squeezing a bottle of water so hard in his hand that Louis thought it would explode at any minute.
“No. NO.” He reaffirmed. “I just didn’t know…”
“YOU CHEATED ON ME, YOU PRICK”, Harry yelled. And Harry never yelled unless they were having really good kinky sex. “WITH A GIRL”, he completed.
“Haz, I don’t- I don’t even remember it. Her. Anything.”
“And you think that makes this” he waved his hands between them “any better? Who the fuck is she?”
“A friend of Ollie’s, I…”
“Of course she is”, he cut Louis. “D’you know James once asked me if I got bothered that you went out so much with those friends of yours? D’you wanna know what I told him?” Harry didn’t give him a chance to reply.
“I told him that yeah, I didn’t like the man I love going out every other night without me, but I didn’t want to suffocate him since we couldn’t be out together and he loved to party, and he loved his friends…”
Harry laughed, throwing his head back. There was no humor on his tone. “If only I’d known you were shagging girls now my concern might’ve been different.”
“One girl, Harry. It was a mistake.”
“You think so?” He said, finally dropping the water to the ground. Louis was right: it exploded. “A BABY. FUCK.”
“I love you.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
At this moment, Niall, Liam and Louise decided to enter the room, laughing lightly at something Niall had just said. Only then Louis realized he was crying; his face was wet and his head was hurting a bit. He could make his friends’ figures with his peripheral vision, but his eyes never left Harry.
Everyone went silent.
“What happened?” Niall was the one to ask. Louis sat on the couch again, cradling his head on his hands.
“Tommo, you ok?” Liam asked eyeing him worriedly.
“Ha, he’s peachy, aren’t you love?” Harry snorted. Louis didn’t want to look up again but made himself look at Liam with bloodshot eyes.
“What happened?” Niall asked again and Louis handed him their- Harry’s iPad. There was no point in hiding anything anymore. He was already fucked. And not in the good way.
“Fucking hell, another stunt?” Somehow Louis was thankful that was the first thing he thought. “Or are you pregnant, H? I know Tommo’s amazing in bed if your noises are anything to go by, but I wasn’t aware he could perform miracles…” Niall laughed, Liam too, although kinda nervous.
Lou studied Harry’s face and suddenly had a protective arm around his waist.
“’S not a stunt, is it?” She asked Harry, but staring at Louis.
“I…” Harry started, but his voice was raspy and he almost choked on air. “I gotta go”, he said and hurried out of the room.
“What have you done, Louis?” Lou asked, still staring at him while Louis couldn’t take his eyes away from the door. Harry left him many times through that year and the next, and that was only the first. The last time hurt the most, but that didn’t mean any of the others didn’t haunt his memory every other night. Or day. Or always, really.
Liam sat by his side and started reading the piece. Louis started crying again. Niall looked at him like he couldn’t believe he had actually done that. If looks could kill, he was sure he’d be dead by now, because of Louise’s eyes.
Louis never had a doubt that if Harry and he broke up, their friends would split. It was pretty clear in the first day who would “get” who. Liam gave him a talk, but stayed there. It was never a mystery that Niall and Lou would side with Harry. Fuck, Louis was sided with Harry.
His tears kept falling and nobody dared to say a word. He was sobbing when Lux entered the room running with Lottie yelling behind her.
“Mommy, uncle Harry is crying!” She said so, so worried, hugging Lou’s leg.
“Where is he, sweetie?” Lou asked, picking her up. Louis lowered his head. Niall still seemed to be taking the entire situation in. Liam had finished reading and was, apparently, checking the internet for reactions.
Online, everything was just a big joke.
“He was heading towards the cars, asking Jen to book him a flight, I-”, Lottie started explaining. “Lou, what happened?” She asked her brother.
“Uncle Louis is crying too”, Lux stated seeming really, really bothered. Her mouth opening for a “oh” at the end of the sentence.
“He’s just really upset, love, maybe we should leave him alone”, her mother soothed her.
“Can I kiss him better?” Louis sobbed harder, hiding his face on Liam’s back. Lou seemed to hesitate for only a second before putting Lux on the floor.
She walked towards him and hugged him tight. Louis had never felt so vulnerable up until that moment.
“Are you sick, uncle Louis?”
“No, baby, I’m just being silly”, he said, chin rested on her tiny shoulder. She ran her fingers through his hair.
“Love you”, she said, kissing his cheek and looking at him. “Do you wanna play right now?” She asked. Louis used to tell her that playing with her always made him feel better.
“I don’t think it’s a good time, baby. Maybe we should check on uncle Harry too?” Lou asked and Lux seemed to be in a crossroad. She was three and a half years old, and she had to choose between two boys she loved dearly.
Niall seemed to be the one who’d end her misery.
“Hey, Lux, why don’t you come play football with me and the guys? They’re outside. We can have a big ice cream after.”
“Mom?”
“Go.” Lou smiled.
“Lou?” She asked, putting her small hand on his left arm.
“Go kick Niall’s butt, my little star”, he tried to smile and she kissed his nose. He only waited for her to leave the room to collapse again. Liam held him so, so strong, like he just knew Louis would break if he let him go at that moment. That was how he felt, anyway, broken… Into tiny little pieces. Liam was physically holding him together. He had needed it then, otherwise he would have dissolved.
His phone rings again and Louis is brought back to the present. The TV’s on but he’s not really sure of what he’s supposed to be watching. Nowadays is common for him to get like this, so lost in old memories – good and bad ones… Usually bad – that he blanks out for a few minutes. Sometimes for hours.
He checks the screen and the first thing he sees is that it still is midday. And he’s already thinking about Harry. It’s gonna be a long day, he figures. The days are always longer when he starts thinking about Harry before lunch.