Chapter Text
Cold lips touched the shell of his ear, knuckles brushing over his cheek. “Don’t go down to the basement.”
Louis startled awake.
He rubbed his hand down his face, headache blooming behind his temples. He was still wearing clothes from earlier, must have dozed off in the armchair, his music sheets scattered down by his feet. He was a mess.
A mess who had accidentally taken a nap at 9-bloody-pm.
His joints creaked as he pushed himself to his feet, his worn T-shirt and jeans sticking uncomfortably to his sleep-damp skin. Someone needed to tell his bones that he was eighteen, not eighty.
His phone kept going off, vibrating on top of his bed, so he padded over to silence it.
There was a sense of unease in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t seem to shake, following him as he dragged himself to the bathroom, eyelids like lead. He splashed tepid water over his face. It trickled down to his elbows and dripped onto the stark white tiles by his bare feet.
He breathed out through his mouth, steaming the mirror.
‘Don’t,’ he wrote with his index finger, brows creasing.
After a pause, he erased it with a swipe of his hand and turned away, his mind fuzzy.
Don’t what?
Maybe he shouldn’t sleep at all, should bribe someone into smacking him upside the head every time he tried. He hadn’t slept well in nearly a year.
He fell face-first onto his bed, the dream long gone. He couldn’t ever remember.
He felt more tired than he had before he’d fallen asleep, but his brain wouldn’t quiet down, restless as though he was missing something just out of his reach.
His phone went off again.
A text from Niall.
‘You coming tomorrow?’
Ah yes, the first day of the last year of college. Just one more year.
‘I will,’ Louis replied, rolling onto his back with his jean clad-legs bent at the knee, hoping he wouldn’t drop the phone down on his face. Wouldn’t be the first time. ‘Gotta hear all about your summer, don’t I? Since you fucked off to Spain and left me here all alone. :(’
‘You’re a right craic Lou! I’ve got loads to tell ya!’
‘Good lad!’ he texted Niall back.
Niall and Liam had both left for the summer. Louis had received several texts from poor Liam whose parents had taken their entire family on a ‘therapeutic bonding trip’.
Meanwhile he’d spent the whole summer either high on weed in his room among all those crumpled sheets of paper that went nowhere, or sitting on a bench in the park looking after his little sister Emmy while pretending he wasn’t cheating on Smurfs.
His life had clearly reached its pinnacle. It was all downhill from here.
He tossed his phone to the side and kicked off his jeans, cuddling into the duvet and falling back asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. The dim glow of his lamp faded from orange to black behind his closed eyelids.
*****
The oil lamps had long burned to the bottom.
Shadows shifted over the walls as he stood at the top of the stairs, one hand gripping the wooden banister. He’d taken off his shoes, hated them with a passion because all he’d got were hand-me-downs that never fit him right, but Miss Carson always made him put them back on anyway.
The stairs creaked under his light, childlike feet as he stepped down. For a second he paused, his heart racing.
He knew he shouldn’t be wandering around the house so late at night but he couldn’t help it. He was restless and thirsty and his stomach was clenching with hunger.
He couldn’t believe he’d got sent into bed without dinner just because Miss Carson thought he’d convinced that new orphan to sit on the big anthill in front of the back porch.
He’d merely suggested it. How was he supposed to know the kid would just go off and do it? That they were no longer allowed to go outside at all?
Children were dumb. He knew because he was nine and smarter than everyone here. Once he was old enough, he’d find a way to save enough money to make something of himself. He’d have so much of it he’d have chicken pie for dinner every day simply because he could, and he’d move away somewhere where they didn’t know what a war meant.
He hopped off the last step and let go of the banister with his sweaty hand.
“If you misbehave again, I will have to send you away,” Miss Carson had said before she’d ordered him to go to bed. “You’re putting everyone here at risk by acting like this.”
He was so hungry.
He just couldn’t get caught, that was all.
It was dark but he knew these floorboards like the back of his hand and he knew just where to step to avoid the dodgy ones. The basement door was so close his mouth watered. Miss Carson always kept food down there locked, but Louis knew how to use a hairpin. He’d known how since he was five.
Just as he was reaching for the doorknob, almost dizzy at the thought of plums and apples behind the door, he heard the floorboards behind him whine under feet that weren’t his own.
He froze, his heart pounding in his throat.
Maybe it was too dark, maybe he hadn’t been spotted.
He slowly glanced over his shoulder and met a pair of glassy wide eyes across the sparse room, cheeks so pale they were nearly translucent under all that messy dark hair.
That kid, that stupid innocent boy that had sat down on the anthill just because Louis had suggested it. He must have followed Louis from the little, cluttered room upstairs where all the kids slept.
The boy wouldn’t survive a week in this place.
Louis held up his finger to his lips.
The boy looked as though he might start crying and Louis knew he had to act before the boy woke up the entire house. Louis couldn’t afford to be sent away. He just… couldn’t. He had nowhere else to go; his uncle had been taken to the train station with the rest.
Louis turned on his heel and took a few silent strides towards the boy, away from the promise of food. He had to press his palm against his concave stomach to muffle the growling sound.
“Stop,” Louis whispered, reaching out to grab the boy’s elbow.
The boy’s bottom lip quivered, heart-shaped lips parting on a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry,” the boy whispered and Louis forced himself to look away, to stop this feeling. That softness he felt for the boy. Nothing good ever came of it.
“You should be,” he said and pulled at the boy’s arm none too gently, dragging him towards the broom closet in case he decided to be loud and start crying. “You mess everything up. Why are you down here?”
The boy sniffed, wiped under his nose with the sleeve of his dirty linen shirt, but followed Louis into the closet without a word. Louis had been wrong. He wouldn’t survive two days.
The door snicked softly behind them, plunging them into darkness.
“Why are you awake?” Louis asked again, still not letting go. “It’s after curfew.”
“You’re awake too.”
“I’m older than you. You don’t question me, alright?”
He didn’t see the boy, could just feel the air stir as he nodded.
“Are you displeased with me?” the boy asked, fingers tugging at the bottom of Louis’ shirt. “I didn’t mean to get you into trouble with Miss Carson.”
“Why do you always talk so funny?”
“I don’t,” the boy paused. “I don’t know.”
He talked posh, like the people whose pockets Louis had used to pick as they wandered around the overpriced market. He looked so out of place Louis wanted to laugh. “You need to go back to bed.”
Then the boy did something Louis didn’t expect. He crashed into Louis, limbs like a vice around Louis’ body, his breath warm against Louis’ neck. Louis didn’t like to be touched. He didn’t.
He stayed there, unmoving, breath knocked out of his body.
“Please don’t send me back. I’m scared, I feel so alone.”
“You don’t just,” Louis sputtered, arms clamped to his sides as the boy hugged him, “you can’t say that.”
“But it’s the truth.” His voice was quiet and frail, painful in its simple naiveté.
Louis blinked in the dark, fluffy hair tickling his chin and clenched jaw. “You just… don’t.”
“Please,” the boy said as though Louis hadn’t said anything at all. Or perhaps the boy didn’t care. “Please hold me.”
Louis felt his heart climb into his throat, eyes itching. It was dark. It was all right if no one could see him, wasn’t it? It was all right to wrap his arms around the boy for just a few seconds? Just for a little while, so he wouldn’t cry and give Louis away.
The boy slumped into him, clung to Louis like a lifeline. Louis wasn’t a lifeline. No matter what he liked to think, he was as lost as anyone in this place. He couldn’t afford to feel for anyone other than himself.
“You only care about yourself,” a ragged voice of an old woman suddenly whispered into his ear, the boy in his arms glitching out of focus.
“You think you’re so clever, little boy, don’t you? You’re going to regret what you’ve just done.” Black eyes stared at him from across the glow of the orange flames. “This is just the beginning.”
*****
“Louis, Louis, Lou!”
The pounding on the door wouldn’t stop.
Louis stirred awake, threw his pillow uselessly at the door. It fell down somewhere on the floor, a meter away from the doorstep.
He felt like death, having been startled out of sleep three times during the night by a nightmare he couldn’t remember.
“Piss off, Emmy,” he mumbled into the mattress and squinted against the sunlight, unsettled and jittery.
What time was it?
“Lou! Get up!”
“I’m up!” he yelled, voice still ragged and hoarse from sleep. “Christ.”
His chest ached. He rubbed at it, but the feeling wouldn’t ease.
The door creaked open, an indignant little six-year-old staring at him from the door slit. “Are you still sleeping?”
She was wearing a bloody tutu. She’d clearly dressed herself again.
“No,” he said and dragged the duvet over his head, even though he knew hiding was useless.
“I want cereal, the mixy one you make,” Emmy said, the mattress dipping as she huffed and puffed and climbed onto the bed only to flop over the mound of his body hidden under the duvet.
Even though he wanted to go back to sleep more than anything, having her close loosened the tight knot inside of him just the same. Made him feel a little bit less like he was living in a house full of ghosts.
By the time they came down to the kitchen, their father was already dressed in an impeccably tailored suit, ready to leave.
He eyed Louis’ wrinkled T-shirt and scuffed up duffle bag discarded by the kitchen counter with mild disinterest and handed Louis twenty quid.
“For lunch,” was all he said, eyes darting over Louis’ shoulder.
“Thanks,” Louis said, but his father was already walking away. He’d hardly looked Louis in the eye.
When Louis buckled Emmy into the car with their chauffeur Don behind the wheel, she clung to his hand just a little bit longer than usual.
“Be good,” he told her, bopping her nose. “As good as I would be.”
“I will,” she said somberly, clutching the Tangled backpack too big for her body closer to her chest.
“You sure you don’t want me to drop you off too?” Don asked, his bald head shiny in the early morning light, a toothpick hanging out of the corner of his mouth. His smile was kind.
“Nah, I’m fine. I’m taking my bike. But thanks.” Louis tapped the roof of the car and stepped away. “Go on then, don’t make her late.”
Don rolled his eyes good-naturedly and shouted, “Be careful,” as he pulled out of the driveway.
Louis watched Emmy wave at him until the car disappeared from sight before he went to grab his bike.
He made it to the school parking lot with a couple minutes to spare and was just locking his bike in place when a familiar voice called out his name.
He got just enough of a warning to brace himself against stumbling over the curb when Niall bounded towards him and nearly knocked him over with the force of his hug.
“How are you?” Niall asked, squeezing Louis incredibly tight.
“Having trouble breathing, frankly,” he wheezed out.
With one final squeeze, Niall let go with a manlier punch to Louis’ shoulder, adjusting his snapback as though they hadn’t just shared a very emotional moment.
“You look good. More tan than I expected. Still not as tan as I am,” Niall said, sly as always. “Your hair’s a proper mess.”
Louis slapped an insistent hand away from his hair, mostly because Niall’s fingers smelled like chili dip and Doritos. “Prick. It’s called artfully tousled. Look it up,” Louis bit back, reeling the fondness in as much as he could, which probably wasn’t much at all. “I’ve missed you.”
“’Course you did, mate. I’m very missable.”
“Oh, shut up,” Louis said as they made their way towards the school entrance. He really had missed him. “Have you seen Liam?”
“What, am I not enough for you anymore?” Niall asked. “I reckon he’s at the library already. Fucking horrible.”
Louis laughed because Niall was probably right. And it wasn’t that Liam was a straight-A student. Far from it. He was just really hard working and stubborn as a mule, with a crush on someone who did science for fun.
“You do realise we’ll have to do something about him this year, don’t you?” Louis asked.
“Yeah. He’s wound way too tight.”
The classes dragged, seemingly more than they had before the summer. Maybe because he knew he only had one more year until he could leave this place. Maybe because he’d rather have stayed at home, writing music for a piano he hadn’t touched in a year. One of these days, he told himself.
It was hard to resist the urge to bounce his leg, to stop chewing the end of his pencil as the teacher’s voice droned on and on.
He almost missed the knock on the door, would have, had it not been for the sudden lull of silence as the teacher paused mid-sentence.
“Come in,” the teacher called out and a gangly boy walked in, closing the door behind him, a slip of paper clutched in his hand.
Louis may or may not have had a fleeting thought of kissing the boy’s wide set knuckles. He stomped down on the thought and swallowed hard as the boy smiled at the teacher with a dimple in his left cheek and held out the paper to her.
He wasn’t that pretty. Really quite ordinary. So when the rest of the class took the distraction as a means to start chatting in increasingly less hushed voices, Louis didn’t quite understand why he kept staring.
He had dark hair that curled around his ears and feet that dragged a little as he walked, as though too big for his body. Everything seemed too big for his body, actually. His feet and hands and broad shoulders and the features of his face, and yet. Somehow it all fit together seamlessly.
The boy squinted a bit as the sunlight hit his face through the slits in the window, Adam’s apple bobbing as he said something too quietly for Louis to hear.
Louis shifted in his seat, guilty. Stop staring.
The teacher clapped her hands together and Louis’ head filled with sound again. He knew he’d been looking too long, too intently, and dropped his gaze, focused on the lewd doodle of a dick bouquet on his desk instead. It was one of his better artistic ventures.
He wondered how long it’d take for the teacher to find it and give him detention for it. He probably spent more time with Mr. Riley than Mr. Riley’s wife did.
The sound of the chair in front of him scraping across the floor startled him, drew his attention back up. Of course the boy would have sat in front of Louis even though there was another empty chair in the very back. Of-bloody-course.
He stared at the back of the boy’s head, the curls catching the light from the windows, the way his back muscles shifted under the worn cotton of his white T-shirt as he bent over to rummage through his bag then straightened back up.
When the boy suddenly twisted around in his seat and met Louis’ gaze, he briefly panicked. Only the boy didn’t seem too bothered that he caught Louis already looking.
“Hi,” he said with a crooked smile, fingers comfortably splaying over Louis’ desk as though it was nothing.
The very casual, “what’s up” froze on the tip of Louis’ tongue.
“I, um… I was wondering if you had a spare pen I could borrow? Because like, I could have sworn I took one but as it turns out, I didn’t. So… yeah.”
If this were Liam, Louis would have teased him relentlessly.
He scrambled to make his brain work so he wouldn’t blurt out anything stupid, like your eyes are really green or can I touch your mouth?
Louis didn’t want to touch his mouth. It was too soft. Too pink and plush. He wanted nothing to do with it.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” Louis finally managed to say, ignoring the way his heartbeat sped up. And then he was picking up the pen on his desk, handing it over to the new kid, hoping he wouldn’t notice how unsteady Louis’ hands got when their fingers brushed. “Here.”
“Cheers,” the boy drawled out, a genuine, disarming smile on his face, a smile that Louis was convinced he’d been perfecting for years just to stun people speechless. Louis vowed the next time he’d be prepared. Next time he wouldn’t be affected at all.
He nodded, tongue-tied, and looked away.
He tried to shake that sense of strange familiarity he felt, as though he knew this boy. As though they’d already talked.
Get yourself together.
And now he didn’t have a pen because he’d just given his only one to the boy sitting in front of him, the boy unaware of Louis’ inner turmoil and pointlessly sweaty palms.
*****
“You all right?” Liam asked during lunch break, brows pulled together as he watched Louis the way he always did when he thought something was wrong. Something for him to fix.
“Why wouldn’t he be? Seems fine to me,” Niall said, one shoulder bouncing up in a shrug as he stuffed his face full of a bacon sandwich.
Niall had always been Louis’ favourite.
“Like Niall says. I’m fine. Just haven’t slept very well.”
It took some effort to smile, but Louis was nothing if not determined. He was fine. Surviving on about four hours of uninterrupted sleep a day for over a year wasn’t taking a toll on him at all. It wasn’t anyone’s problem but his own. He could deal with it.
Liam frowned, not convinced. “Lou—”
“I’m fine, alright?” Louis smiled, more genuinely this time, and Liam dug into his food with a resigned sigh. “Don’t worry so much. You’ll get wrinkles. I mean, even more of them. That’s just tragic.”
Niall slurped Coke out of the can and said, “Now that you’re done being deep, Perrie is throwing a party this weekend. Think you two can make it?”
“Think so, yeah,” Louis said, more than happy about the change of topic. “Already texted her I’d come.”
“Figured she would text you first.” Niall grinned, and he didn’t even have to say it out loud for Louis to know. “Since you’re such good pals and all.”
“We’re just friends now. You know that,” Louis said, looking away because the teasing implication behind Niall’s words was more than obvious. Perrie had never been anything but his friend, but Niall didn’t know. Nobody did, and Louis never really cared to explain.
“If you say so.” Niall slumped back in his chair. “So, you’ll come?”
“Yeah, I’m free to party. Dad will be gone on a business trip by then, so you know… when the old cat’s away…” It didn’t matter anyway. His dad wouldn’t have cared either way. Which, in this case, was a very good thing.
Niall turned to Liam. “You’re going.” It wasn’t a question.
“But—”
“Sorry, it’s already been decided.” Niall said, shrugging as if it was a done deal. It was.
“Come on, live a little. It’s on Friday anyway,” Louis pointed out, siding with Niall.
“He’s right,” Niall said. “What’s the harm? We’ll cover for you with your parents.”
“This is peer pressure,” Liam protested, even though the corners of his lips were already tipping into a smile.
“Come on, it’ll be fun. We promise,” Louis said, reaching out to pat Liam on the forearm. “I’ll stick with you for the entire night if you want. We’ll have beer and I’ll help you chat up some lovely ladies. What do you say?”
“Will Sophia be there?” Liam’s ears were turning red. Niall laughed loudly and unabashedly, the sound of it contagious.
“I heard she might be,” Louis said with a waggle of his eyebrows.
“Oh. Okay. Good. I mean, I don’t care—”
“Oh, shut up, mate. You’ve got a big fat crush on her. We know.” Niall grinned.
Liam looked about ready to dig a hole and crawl right into it. “Could you say that any louder?”
Louis slapped his palm right over Niall’s mouth as he opened it to do just that. “Do you really want to find out?”
Niall pushed Louis’ hand away, eyes trained on something in the distance. “Hey, is that the new kid? What was his name again?”
“Eh… Harry, was it?” Liam said, glancing over his shoulder, both of them completely oblivious to the way Louis’ heart picked up in speed. “He seems a little lost.”
“Yeah, maybe we should say hi,” Niall said. “Hey, Harry! Come here, mate!”
For a second, Louis considered throwing his can of Coke at Niall’s head. As Harry approached them with that smile that made Louis’ knees weak even though he was sitting, he started to think maybe skipping today would have been a better idea.
“Hey,” sounded a deep, gravelly voice that gripped something visceral inside Louis and yanked hard.
Louis still didn’t look up, trying to gather himself and stop acting like such a knobhead around this boy. It wasn’t like him.
He distantly realised Niall and Liam had introduced themselves and there was a moment of expectant silence that stirred him into motion. Louis looked up to see them all focused on him, as if he was a rare exhibit at the zoo.
He almost choked on the bit of the sandwich he’d just shoved into his mouth to keep himself occupied.
“Harry, this is Louis. He might not look it, but he does know how to speak,” Niall said, slapping Louis hard on the shoulder.
“Shut up, Niall,” he said and smiled. “I’m Louis.” Well, obviously. Niall had already said that.
Louis’ cheeks burned, but he stuck out his hand in greeting nonetheless.
“Nice to meet you. Again,” Harry said and shook Louis’ hand, brows furrowing a little.
He had massive hands, with long gentle fingers that wrapped around Louis’ as if they belonged there, soft palm a strangely familiar pressure against his own.
Louis had to shake off a sense of déjà vu, this curious little twinge in his gut telling him he’d held his hand before.
He had to force himself to let go.
“Thanks for lending me the pen. Promise I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.”
“You should. It’s a family heirloom. My entire future wealth depends on getting it back,” Louis said seriously. His heart stuttered in the space between the last word and the moment Harry grinned.
“I’d say the chew marks add some extra value, right?”
“Obviously,” Louis said, the corner of his mouth twitching. He bit it back, because no. He wouldn’t be this easily charmed. He wouldn’t be charmed, period.
His pulse refused to settle.
“Sit down,” Liam offered, dragging the empty chair next to him away from the table.
“Thank you. Didn’t expect to meet so many nice people on my first day.”
When Harry dropped his tray on the table, shouldered off the bag and sat at the edge of the plastic chair, Louis had to drag his eyes away from him, from the way his heart-shaped lips curled around each word so carefully.
“A friend of ours is throwing a party this Friday. You should come. Get to know more people, have fun,” Niall said and Louis didn’t know whether he wanted to kiss him or punch him. It was becoming a habit.
“Are you all going?” Harry asked, the dimples in his cheeks making a devastating comeback, his posture relaxing just the tiniest bit.
He was turning to Louis.
Louis nodded, his mouth a little dry. “It’s usually fun. Nothing too wild. Just a bit of beer. A bit of dancing.”
“I hate dancing,” Liam muttered and shot them a dirty look, as though blaming them for this entire thing. Which, yeah, fair enough.
“That’s because you hate fun,” Louis said.
“He really does,” Niall agreed. “But we love him anyway.”
Liam snorted and kicked Louis under the table. “Ow! What was that for?”
“Oh, sorry. I was aiming for Niall.”
“Christ,” Louis complained, scowling at Liam who didn’t look all that contrite. “I keep getting hit today.”
“Hit on, you mean.” Niall jerked his head to the side, obviously trying to signal Louis something with his eyes, but failing miserably. He gave up with a sigh and elaborated, “Janie over there has been giving you the eyes for the past few minutes.”
He hadn’t noticed. Probably because he’d been too busy trying not to eye the boy sitting across from him.
“She’s pretty,” Harry said, eyes on her, Louis’ heart sinking.
There was no reason for him to feel anything. He was just a little off.
“Yeah,” he said, hands fiddling with the napkin in his lap, shredding it, out of sight. “I think I had some classes with her last year. She’s all right.”
“So? Get on it! Literally!” Niall chewed the last of his sandwich, rather loudly and obnoxiously, looking at Louis with a perplexed expression.
“She’s not bloody cattle, Niall.” He pinched Niall’s side until he twisted away. “If she’s at the party, I might have a chat with her.”
There. Not a lie, exactly. Even though he already knew he wasn’t interested at all.
Liam hadn’t said anything and when his eyes met Louis’, he noticed Liam’s focus was solely on him. It made Louis feel as though he was transparent and Liam could read all the thoughts running through his head. Sometimes he wondered if Liam knew, but he never confronted Louis, and he was glad.
He didn’t want to talk about it.
*****
“I can’t believe you’d betray me like this.”
Louis was trapped in an honest to god lovers’ quarrel.
Usually he’d be inconspicuously trying to goad both of them into revealing each other’s deepest, darkest secrets in public, and yet… Here he was, trying his best not to think about the way his palm had tingled when Harry had shaken his hand yesterday.
“I wouldn’t have said you cried during Lion King if you hadn’t told everyone I pooped my pants in Year Nine!” Liam said, a bit more loudly than was required.
A few people turned their heads as they walked into the cafeteria.
“It was sad when Mufasa died, okay? So, fuck you. Right, Lou?”
“Huh?”
“Lion King? Sad? Fuck Liam for being a snitch?”
“Oh, right. Yeah, definitely. Fuck you, Liam.” He glanced around the cafeteria for no particular reason. None whatsoever.
Harry already stood in the line, loading food onto his tray. He was all awkward limbs and pigeon toes, hunching his shoulders as though he wanted to take up as little space as humanly possible.
Louis couldn’t overlook him if he tried. And wasn’t that bloody tragic?
“Do you mind if I ask Harry to sit with us again?” slipped out of his mouth before his brain could properly process that thought.
“Sure,” Niall said. “I like him.”
“I don’t mind either,” Liam said, eyes flitting between Louis and Harry.
“Okay. Good,” Louis said, and why the hell did this feel so awkward? He was Louis Tomlinson. He didn’t do awkward. “Good.”
“Go on then,” Niall said with a quirked eyebrow.
“Right. Save us a seat, would you?”
“Obviously, you nut.”
Approaching Harry was nerve wracking and he had to stick his hands into the pockets of his jeans to keep from fidgeting. He didn’t know what to say, why he was even standing there in the first place.
He was just about to open his mouth when Harry turned swiftly around, and Louis hadn’t realised how close he’d been standing until Harry smacked his tray into Louis’ belly and almost upended his food on the floor.
“Oh no, fuck! I’m sorry,” Louis said, his hands shooting out to steady Harry and his food tray, his cheeks burning. God, what was wrong with him? This wasn’t like him at all.
He felt winded, and it was only partly from the impact.
“Sorry, I didn’t notice—”
“The last time I checked, you didn’t have eyes on the back of your head.” And he was holding Harry’s wrist. When had that happened? “I mean, I guess I don’t really know what you might be hiding under all those curls.”
He needed to stop talking. About Harry’s curls and in general.
Harry chuckled, easy and charming and Louis wanted to crawl away and never, ever face Harry again.
“I’m sorry,” Louis said again, dropping his hands, skin tingling where it had touched Harry’s. “Come sit with us?”
“You can’t sit with us,” Harry mumbled under his breath, but Louis caught it. It startled a laugh out of him, shrill enough to make him a little embarrassed.
“Did you just quote Mean Girls at me?”
Harry dimpled. Louis needed him to cover his face. And not say anything. Just… Remove his entire being from Louis’ vicinity.
“Did you just recognise a Mean Girls quote?”
“It’s a classic,” Louis protested.
“I mean,” Harry drawled, smiling again. Louis should look away. He fucking couldn’t. “Yeah. That would be nice though. The sitting with you thing.”
This was so lame. They were lame. Louis was the lamest.
“All right. Cool.” He ducked his face and tried to convince himself his pounding heart didn’t mean anything.
*****
Harry sat with them again the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that too. When Louis learned that Harry was a tactile sort of person, he started considering booking the first flight to South Africa, away from Harry’s constant touches that made a flush creep up the back of Louis’ neck.
It was just… Whenever fingertips would graze his wrist or Harry’s thigh would bump and press against his beneath the table, he kind of wanted to drop his face into the plate of mashed potatoes on the tray in front of him, don’t fuck this up on repeat in his head.
Harry was becoming a friend. And that was great. Amazing, even. Louis didn’t want to ruin it.
“Oi, Louis.” The sound of his name startled Louis out of his thoughts. “Remember that time you lost a bet and had to ring the doorbell of that really old lady in your neighbourhood with only a carrot to cover your willy?”
Liam glanced between the two of them. “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about that ever again.”
Louis groaned.
It had been traumatic for everyone involved. And by everyone, Louis meant himself and the carrot. His elderly neighbour Miss Ellington had been nothing short of delighted.
“Did it even cover it?” Harry asked, voice warm with undercurrents of laughter and Louis couldn’t even be mad. He tried, but he physically couldn’t. Not when Harry slung his arm around Louis’ shoulders and drew him against his side, and Louis felt like he couldn’t pull himself away from Harry’s gravity even if he tried.
“Fuck off, all of you,” Louis said. “She hit on me. It was as if she was bad touching me with her eyes.”
“She looked quite good for her age,” Niall said, grinning like the kinky shit he was. “You could have gotten yourself a sugar mommy.”
“Why are we still mates?” Liam asked as Louis kicked Niall’s shin. “You’ve reached a whole new level of low.”
“Just saying. You probably would have only ended up rubbing her feet or reading to her or something.” Niall grabbed a fistful of gummy bears and brandished them in the air. “Not that you need a sugar mommy.” He turned to Harry. “You should see his house. It’s massive.”
Louis didn’t say that he’d trade it all for a cramped apartment cluttered with mementos and snapshots hanging on the walls.
“’S a good thing he’s not a snob, at least,” Niall added.
“Thanks,” Louis said dryly. “At least I’m not Irish.”
“Hey! Ireland’s the best fucking country in the world, you English cunt.” Niall flicked a red gummy bear right at Louis. It hit his chin and fell into his lap. He picked it up and ate it. No need to waste a perfectly good gummy bear.
The conversation went on, with Liam desperately trying to steer it into less nude waters, so of course Louis decided he’d tease Niall about the time he’d ripped the seat of his jeans on the fence while jumping over it drunk off his arse. He would have, but then fingertips tickled his wrist.
His gaze dropped, the boys’ voices fading into background noise as his world narrowed down to Harry’s touch on his skin. It was simple, really, nothing that that should have warranted this, whatever this was.
All Harry did was play with the string bracelets on Louis’ wrist, tracing each and every one; a leather braided one and one with silly pink plastic gems that Emmy had made for him. It shouldn’t feel like anything.
“Nice. Very manly,” Harry commented quietly, the tips of his fingers fitting between bracelet and skin.
“My sister Emmy gave it to me.” Louis’ voice matched Harry’s in volume because he felt out of control, reckless and terrified and feeling things that kept throwing him off balance.
“How old is she?” Harry’s skin was so hot it felt as if Louis’ would catch on fire.
“Six. Currently big on making jewellery and emotionally blackmailing me into helping her.”
“I know what that’s like. I’ve got a sister too. Gemma. A couple years older than me. Used to dress me in her clothes when I was little and always threatens to post the pictures. She doesn’t live with me and Mum anymore though. Went off to a uni in L.A.,” Harry explained, the corners of his smiling mouth slumping. “I miss her.”
Harry fell silent for a bit, lost inside himself. “I’ve always wanted to have a younger sibling as well. Or maybe even two. Sounds fun.”
“Not when she wants to play hairdresser and not-so-accidentally puts gum in your hair.” Louis swallowed hard and glanced up to find Harry already looking at him with the kind of focus that made Louis want to run. “It’s just you and your mum then?”
A shrug. “Been that way for a long time now.”
Harry’s fingers slid from beneath the bracelet and it really shouldn’t have made Louis bite his tongue to keep the protest in check, but it did. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked, maybe Harry’s family life was a sore subject. Off limits. God knew Louis’ was.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t hav—”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind.”
And he looked it. There was a hint of dimples in his cheeks, his fingertips now tracing the valleys between Louis’ knuckles.
When his touch was gone and the outside world came rushing back, Louis noticed Niall was gone and Liam was standing up, picking his bag off the ground.
“Where’s Niall?”
“He’s just left. Saw someone he wanted to talk to,” Liam said, shouldering his bag.
“Where are you going?”
“Uhh… library. Got to pick up a few books.”
At any other time Louis would have made a joke about that and said Liam should just ask Sophia out without all the subterfuge, but Liam was looking at him strangely, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to say, as if he couldn’t wait to get going, so Louis only nodded and watched him go.
Had he screwed up?
Harry touched his shoulder. “We can walk to class together. If you want.”
Maybe he had, but it was too late now and saying “no” was not an option. He couldn’t seem to refuse Harry. Then again, he wasn’t even trying to.
“Lead the way then.”
Harry’s arm stayed wrapped around Louis’ shoulders all the way to the classroom, and for a moment he wondered what it would have felt like to hold Harry’s hand.
And then Louis realised what he was doing and slid from underneath Harry’s arm.
TBC