Archive of Our Own

I

Hiiii.. it’s Harry from the bakery. Hope you didn’t get in too much trouble yesterday .x

The Monday Louis meets Harry, he’s nearly fired. To be fair, that’s hardly noteworthy. Niall likes to joke that nobody’s spent more time in Howard’s office than Louis, Howard included, and it’s barely an exaggeration.

It’s not his fault, is the thing. It’s not his fault that his stupid cat spewed up a hairball into his black shoes and that Louis stepped into them, sockless as always, and had to dart back into the bathroom to hose down his foot. (It’s also not his fault that Zayn laughed at him from the sofa, philistine that he is.) It’s not his fault that he had to dig around in the back of closet for a substitute pair. (It’s probably his fault that his closet, like the rest of his room and his life in general, is a total mess. It’s not a character flaw, though, no matter what Zayn says. It’s a quirk.) And it’s definitely not his fault that his bus only comes once every twenty minutes, meaning that Ruttiger’s weak stomach has caused him to be a quarter of an hour late and embarrassingly out of breath when he steps into the supermarket.

By the time Louis gets to his lane after a stern talking-to with Howard about personal responsibility and punctuality and forming habits, half an hour has passed. He’s not exactly complaining. Howard whinging at him is still preferable to dealing with customers. Customers make him believe in Satan.

He’s feeling rather harassed by the time his lunch break rolls around. (Zayn says he’s always harassed. Zayn is kind of the worst friend ever.) The fluorescent lights are giving him a headache, his left contact lens is irritating his eye, a middle-aged woman just threatened to go to his manager because he told her she couldn’t bring an entire cart of groceries through the express lane, it’s 1-16 items only, ma’am, and he ran out of plastic bags about an hour in. When Tasha comes up behind his till to take over, he practically kisses her with glee. He’s nearly salivating at the thought of his usual lunch of a fresh croissant and whatever deli meats Niall can smuggle him.

Strolling to the back of the store, he has to ward off a woman asking him where the orange juice is and duck behind a display of toilet paper to avoid Derek from the produce section. Yeah, that time Louis promised they’d get drinks was definitely a mistake. The boy just cannot take a hint.

All thoughts of Derek are abandoned when he sees the boy behind the bakery counter, leaning on his forearms and talking to a couple pleasantly.

Louis has seen attractive people, obviously. For god’s sake, he lives with Zayn Malik, possibly the most transcendentally beautiful person natural processes have ever created. But this – this person, this boy? He’s something else. He’s soft curls and glass green eyes and dark lips. He’s grey sleeves rolled up to his elbows and flour on the tip of his nose and impossibly lanky limbs.

Louis has never seen this person before. You don’t just forget the first time you lay eyes on the most attractive individual ever to exist in human history. Millions of years of evolution have converged to produce this boy who works in the bakery of Howard’s Grocery Market, and Louis has never been more grateful for science. Not that he fully understands science. Or baking.

He realizes a beat too late that the boy is looking at him, that the couple has wandered off to some other section of the store, that Louis is standing several metres back staring like a total perv. Which, he supposes, he probably is. “Hi,” he says in a stellar effort to diffuse the tension.

At the same time, baker boy says, “Can I help you?” He speaks slowly and deliberately, and there’s a smile in his voice. Louis wonders if he could smother himself with a sheet cake.

Instead, he closes the gap between the two of them. Baker boy is even more beautiful up close, with discerning eyes and shapely lips that quirk up into a smile. “Just came by to pick up a croissant for lunch,” Louis says, raising his eyes to smile. “It’s my usual.”

Baker boy holds his gaze for just a beat past what’s comfortable, then nods and ducks behind the counter. When Louis takes the paper bag from him, he says, “So you’re new, then?”

Baker boy shakes his head.  “Been here for a few months, actually. Worked night shift, though. You know, doing the actual baking in the wee hours of the morning.”

“Now you’re just another slave to the customers.”

“Yeah.” Baker boy’s curls bounce when he nods. “It’s okay, though. I like people. You’re a cashier?”

“Yep,” Louis says. “Customers’ main bitch, in other words.”

Baker boy’s laugh pours out of his mouth, warm and sweet, and Louis wishes he could gather it up in a jar and hold it close to his chest. “What’s your name, then?” he asks, peering at Louis with an intensity that’s warm rather than unnerving.

“Louis.”

His eyebrows shoot up, and his face relaxes into an easy grin. “Couldn’t be the same Louis who Howard was all in a flap about this morning? The same Louis whose lateness is becoming habitual?”

Louis grimaces, vaguely aware that there are customers behind him, that baker boy’s ginger coworker is dealing with them all and shooting them pointed glares every few seconds. “That would be me, yes,” he says. “I can explain, though. And offer one word of advice: never let a cat into your home.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” says baker boy. He extends a hand across the counter, and when Louis takes it his grip is firm. “I’m Harry.”

His cheeks feel hot, and he can only imagine what horrible splotchy colour they’ve taken on. “Harry.” He mumbles an excuse and ducks away, making a beeline for the deli counter. It’s only when Niall hands him some fresh salami cuts that he realizes Harry didn’t charge him for the croissant.

Tuesdays are invariably Louis’ day off. He’ll work weekends, he’ll work evenings, he’ll work Christmas, but he will not work Tuesdays.

Tuesdays unwaveringly mean waking Zayn before noon and slapping a PlayStation controller into his hand. This two-year tradition is met with acclaim and joy. Well, perhaps Louis is just seeing what he wants to see. It’s theoretically possible. But with Zayn, a lack of active resistance is often worth celebrating. Sometimes he even invites Liam to join them, which is a miracle in itself. Zayn doesn’t tend to trust Louis around Liam, not that Louis has ever given him any real reason to feel that way. Probably. Depending on your perspective.

(In two years, Zayn has beat Louis exactly four times. Four. Over a hundred Tuesdays’ worth of FIFA and he’s lost all but four. You’d think he’d improve after all this practice, but then, he’s startlingly indifferent to the whole thing. Louis doesn’t quite know how he’s best friends with someone who wouldn’t die for FIFA.)

Today Zayn has to get to the bar early and he doesn’t feel like FIFA. Instead of pushing it, Louis acquiesces to sprawling across the sofa eating takeout with X Factor reruns blaring. The living room is dark because their lightbulb burnt out weeks ago and both of them always forget to buy a new one, and they’re shivering even under three shared blankets because the heat’s not due to turn on for another three weeks, and Ruttiger is perched on the windowsill yowling at something Louis can’t see, and this is his life. It’s been his life for two years: early mornings, creaky floors, Zayn’s dishes stacked neatly and Louis’ a dirty mess in the sink, empty bottles lined up on the windowsill, the occasional inconveniently-placed hairball. This is his life, and he’s never considered that it doesn’t have to be.

Halfway through their sixth consecutive episode, Zayn straightens, stretching his spine and yawning. Sometimes Louis thinks he’s used to the high cheekbones and perfect complexion and mile-long eyelashes, but then the light will catch Zayn’s face a certain way and Louis will remember, holy shit, Zayn is beautiful. “Do we have any crisps?”

“What?” Louis asks, gaze flicking back to the TV. Simon is criticizing a girl with long auburn hair who’s clearly choking back tears. Louis loves Simon.

“Crisps, Lou.” Zayn pats the top of his head, which Louis finds very demeaning. “I could go for some.”

“I’ll go,” Louis says, the image of Harry the baker boy flashing into his head unbidden. He’ll run to the store, and if he just so happens to take the long route and pass the bakery on the way, and if Harry just so happens to be there, and if they just so happen to exchange a few words, well, that’s hardly his fault. It’s serendipity, really.

“Yeah?” Zayn asks, brown eyes following Louis as he leaps up and straightens the hem of his jumper. “Would you mind picking up a loaf of bread too? Whole wheat, I don’t eat that shit you like.”

“Yes, princess.”

The ten-minute walk to the store leaves Louis’ ears raw and his fingers and toes numb as he huddles into his jacket. It’s mid-October, a time of year Louis generally harbours great disdain for. Bundling up is just not what he’s all about; he likes to show off his physique. He works hard for it, after all.

The store is a welcome oasis from the unrelenting wall of cold air, the familiar buzz of customers and beeping of the checkout machines strangely calming. (Louis thinks he may be getting too attached to his mundane life when he feels relieved to be walking into the place where he spends forty hours a week dealing with unmitigated bullshit.)

He can see all the way from the dairy section that Harry’s there, bent over a sheet cake with a tube of icing in his hands. Well, Louis thinks, it would be rude not to say hi. He’s just being friendly.

He’s just approaching the counter when Harry looks up. His smile illuminates his face as he sets down the bag of icing and strides over to the counter, leaning across. “Louis,” he says. “Are you running late, then?”

“I’m impressed with your wit, Styles,” Louis says. “Actually, I was just picking up a loaf of whole wheat bread for my flatmate.”

“Romantic.” Harry draws out the word into practically incomprehensible obscenity. “We’ve just taken some of those out of the oven. Give me a moment.” He ducks away, and Louis hears a rustling. Then he’s back in view, sliding a loaf across the counter. “That’s two pounds seventy-five,” he says.

“Jesus Christ.” Louis pulls out his wallet, rummaging for the right coins. “That’s some pricy bread. Is it infused with diamonds or something?”

“Your flatmate’s got expensive taste,” Harry says with a shrug. “Or he’s a health freak.” His fingers brush Louis’ wrist when he hands him his change and receipt, a fact which nobody on the planet could reasonably mock Louis for savouring.

“Christ, Zayn,” Louis mutters to nobody in particular. “You owe me.”

Harry’s curls bounce as he looks up in surprise. Louis is beginning to believe that no matter what face pulls he will remain the most resplendent being on the planet. “That wouldn’t be Zayn Malik, would it?”

“That’s the one,” Louis says. He supposes there aren’t too many people named Zayn in this town. It’s got a low unemployment rate, a beautiful cathedral, and a well-maintained movie theatre, but ethnic diversity isn’t exactly one of its selling points. “How do you know him?”

“I don’t,” Harry says. “I know Liam. He lives in the flat under mine.”

“Ahhh,” Louis says. “The Payno. I suppose he talks about Zayn a lot, then?”

“All the time.” Harry smiles and winks. Louis is torn between driving to the nearest body of water to drown himself and celebrating this euphoric moment with champagne and filet mignon. “I guess you know Niall, then?”

“Doesn’t everybody know Niall?” More accurately, Niall knows everyone, can charm even the most misanthropic people with his boisterous Irish accent and penchant for throwing ragers. Even if he weren’t conspicuously Irish in this quintessential English town, he has a reputation and an ability to make anybody love him within seconds.

“I suppose so,” Harry says. “Good lad, Niall. I’ve been meaning to ask him round for a pint.”

“Zayn and Li and I go out with him most weekends.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “You should come with us sometime.” Harry may be the fittest person to walk the face of the earth with those stupid long legs of his, but he can’t reduce Louis to a quivering, sputtering mess. It takes more than a beautiful jawline and slender fingers to strip him of his dignity.

“Yeah,” Harry says, smiling big and leaning back. His apron is just a bit too small for him, but underneath it his maroon jumper hangs off his shoulders loosely. How did Louis even survive not knowing this calibre of beauty existed in the world? “Give me your number, then?” He looks around surreptitiously, sliding his phone out of his pocket.

Louis rattles off the digits, and Harry types them in and reads them back. They’re both smiling and nodding and Harry is pocketing his phone as the smell of freshly baked bread wafts around them. The moment hangs in the air between them for just a moment too long, and Louis clears his throat. “Well, I’d better go pick up the crisps Zayn wanted. Text me about your schedule, yeah?”

“Not a health freak, then,” Harry says. “Just champagne taste.”

Louis’ phone vibrates in his pocket when he’s in line at the checkout, and he can’t contain the grin that spreads across his face. “What?” Louis mumbles to the girl ahead of him in line. “Caramilk bars are delicious.” She gives him an odd look and shifts away. He can’t find it in his heart to care.

II

HAD THE BEST TIME TONIGHT LOU :D

Miraculously, it doesn’t take long, just one night and a few shots and a song by the 1975 pulsing through the tinny speakers at Niall’s favourite bar.

Louis allowed thirty-six entire hours to pass before texting Harry and asking him to the bar. They hadn’t technically made plans yet, but it’s never difficult to get Niall to agree to anything involving alcohol. Zayn was predictably resistant but ultimately gave in (also predictable), and Liam goes wherever Zayn does. Harry turned up at the bar last out of the five of them, stopping in the doorway and looking apprehensive for a split second before Louis jumped to his feet and waved him over. Niall pulled a chair over from an adjacent table for him, Zayn introduced himself with impressive and nearly unprecedented friendliness, and now they’re here: at their darkened corner table nursing pints.

Harry is so polite and Louis is so infatuated. Within ten minutes, he’s asked Niall if he’s written any new songs recently, Liam how the construction is going, and Zayn if he enjoys being a bartender. He makes eye contact with them and nods and laughs at all the right places. His hand is light on Louis’ wrist when he turns to him to ask if he’s had any awful customers recently.

Zayn and Niall groan in unison. “Don’t open up that can of worms, Harry,” Niall advises. “He’ll whinge for a year if you let him.”

Louis takes a very, very long sip of beer, lowering his pint to stare at Niall evenly. “Have you quite finished?”

Zayn raises his pint and pumps his fist in what can only be a crude caricature of Niall. “Let the record state,” he says, “that Louis Tomlinson is fucking unbearable.” He and Niall clink their pints together, grinning.

“The record states that,” Louis replies, “several hundred times.”

Niall reaches out to stroke the side of his face. “I love you, Lou.”

“Stop,” Zayn says. “You’re going to make Harry jealous.”

Both Harry and Louis pretend they don’t hear. Harry’s spluttering cough as he chokes on his beer makes his act less convincing, but everyone has the good grace not to mention it.

Then Niall’s bringing them shots, which everyone but Liam knocks back with wild abandon. Louis is pleasantly surprised to see that Harry’s not a bad drinker, comparatively speaking. He likes somebody who can throw back tequila shots. (That does mean he should be irrevocably attracted to Niall. Maybe he should rethink this position.)

 The music changes and Harry shoots to his feet, nearly toppling over, and declares, “I love this song!” If Louis stares at him a little too intently, so overcome with fondness for his uninhibited enthusiasm, who can really blame him? He’s only human.

“Go,” Zayn says, hands all over Louis, tipping him out of his seat with Liam’s help. “Go dance with him.”

(Zayn knows, because for all the lengths Louis went to in his attempt to hide his attraction to Harry, it was written across his face. Zayn was still lounging on the sofa when he got back from his little whole wheat bread-fuelled tryst with Harry, and his gaze flicked to the door and he said, “What took you so long?” Even though Louis was evasive, Zayn knew. Zayn always knows.)

Harry can’t dance and normally that’d be a deal breaker for Louis, but he’s feeling generous and, besides, he’s got enough rhythm for the both of them. He doesn’t need someone threatening his niche, anyway. Harry just hasn’t got the arse for impressive dance moves, to be honest. Louis more than compensates for that as well.

“You’ve got this one all loosened up, Harry!” Zayn shouts over the music. Louis pretends he doesn’t hear, shaking his hips. He hopes his gyrations devastate Harry. Through a hazy layer of alcohol and dimmed club lights, Louis has never seen someone so beautiful.

“Oh, definitely,” Harry calls back. “Just keep a steady supply of tequila in his bloodstream and he’s born to perform.”

Then they’re slick with sweat and there are bodies pressed together around them and the music is pumping. Louis is so happy he could explode, but he doesn't want his viscera ruining the occasion. There’s Harry’s hand on Louis’ waist, and Louis is looking up into his green eyes, and Harry is smiling and saying, “I’m glad I got switched to the day shift.”

“Yeah?” Louis asks, throat dry, knees weak, heart pounding. Everything is so overwhelming, and he’s flushed warm from the tequila shots, and he doesn’t know this song that Harry loves so much. “Why’s that?”

“Because otherwise I never would have met you, silly,” Harry says, voice low, and then a magnet is drawing them together and Harry’s lips are on his, soft and insistent and determined. Louis never wants this moment to end, never wants Harry to loosen his grip on his back, never wants the song to fade into oblivion. But it ends, and Harry’s still grinning so wide and happy. Louis stands up on his tiptoes to give Harry a peck on the nose, and that’s it. It takes no time at all, and then all the time in the world.

That was Saturday and now it’s Sunday. Five warm bodies in a cold flat, two bags of crisps, both of which have somehow migrated to Niall’s lap, one football match. Harry wandered into the flat in tight black jeans and a navy pea coat and tweed messenger bag, and Louis was struck by the overwhelming thought that he didn’t belong. There’s a stain in the carpet from when Niall drunkenly tipped over a glass of wine while ranting about English breweries, there’s a burnt-out bulb, there’s a threadbare sofa that they’ve covered in blankets in a valiant attempt to camouflage the shabbiness.

Now Harry’s in the living room, inspecting it in his pleasantly curious way. “I like this painting,” he says, his nose inches away from the frame above their sofa. “Where’d you get it?”

“Zayn did it.”

Harry turns to stare at Zayn, who’s making an enormous racket with the blender. (The blender, the goddamn blender. After years of bartending, Zayn is a blender snob. It’s bar quality, it cost him an exorbitant amount of money, and he justifies the expense by using it unnecessarily. Louis thinks buying a jar of peanut butter is more efficient, convenient, and clever than making your own, but hell if he’s going to mess with Zayn and his stupid blender.) “Mate, you painted this?”

“It’s not very good,” Zayn says with a little shrug. “Lou put it up.” (He’d found it leaned up against the wall to dry and gaped at Zayn, who’d blown it off. Mysteriously, Louis put it up only to find it stuck in the corner covered by a blanket. Finally he’d told Zayn that the flat needed some art on the walls anyway. Just until we find some real art, Zayn had acquiesced. They never found some real art.)

“Are you serious? You’re really good. You’re selling yourself short.” The line of Harry’s profile when he turns to gape at Zayn is almost too much for Louis to bear. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to fully process this incredible human being.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Liam says from the kitchen table. He’s playing Solitaire, which is only a surprise to Louis because he didn’t know he and Zayn owned a deck of cards. (He supposes Zayn owns it. It’s not as if everything in the flat is communal. It really should be, though. Then he’d have access to Zayn’s fancy ice cream.)

“Yeah, Li, but you have to say that,” Louis points out. “I mean, you’re contractually obligated.”

“Do you tend to make contracts when you get into relationships?” Zayn tips the blender over, pink smoothie oozing into a cup. “I don’t think that’s normally how it’s done.”

Clapping his hand to his mouth, Louis feigns shock. “What? You mean you and Liam haven’t stipulated exact timing for compliments and sex?”

“You’re a twat,” Zayn says.

Louis turns to Harry, jutting his lower lip out as far as it will go. “Please defend my honour.”

Harry taps his chin as if he’s considering the request. “Nah, I think Zayn’s got it right.”

“Excuse me?” Louis pushes Harry onto the sofa, and then Harry’s reaching up and pulling him down, arms wrapped around his waist. Under their collective weight, one of the blankets shifts. Zayn’s going to have a few words to say about the havoc they’ve wreaked on the tidiness of the flat.

“Excuse you what?” Harry mumbles into his eyelid.

“Excuse me, Harry,” Louis starts, but he can’t remember what he was upset about. Was there ever anything in the world to be upset about? It doesn’t seem so, not now when Harry’s kissing his temple.

It all happens so fast. On Friday Harry was the baker boy, on Saturday he’s the boy Louis is kissing in the sweaty microcosm of the club, on Sunday he’s his boyfriend.

III

Just achieved the perfect pasta to sauce ratio .x

There was Louis and there was Harry and then there was the two of them, together, the gap closed so surely it may as well have never existed. Before two weeks ago, Louis’ life felt solid, secure. He’d wake up and go to the store and scan people’s groceries and cash his paycheque every Thursday and alternate between ordering takeaway and begging Zayn to cook something, and he’d scoop the litter box and always mean to tidy his room but never actually do it, and that was just his fucking life.

Harry Styles has turned that all upside down, and now Louis is sat in his kitchen with its checkered tiles and fridge plastered with photographs and magazine clippings. There’s a steaming heap of spaghetti and meatballs in front of him, and Harry’s staring from across the table like he’s just won the fucking lottery.

“What?” Louis asks, dribbling sauce down his chin.

Harry practically lunges across the table to drag a finger across it, still smiling. If Louis has to close his eyes when Harry pops his finger in his mouth, well. That’s just the way things go. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says.

“Me too,” Louis agrees. “I haven’t had such a delicious supper in ages.”

Harry shakes his head and clucks, but the smile never leaves his face. When he gets up to take the pie out of the oven using a potholder his mum embroidered for him, Louis wonders if a human being can count as art. The slender lines of his body, the baby curls at the nape of his neck, the colour of his eyes and lips and skin: these are all more beautiful than anything Louis has ever seen framed and mounted on a wall. Harry is his own personal masterpiece, and nobody else gets to keep him.

The weeks pass. October turns into November and frost creeps up on them and then one day Louis leaves work and the sky is swirling with snow. Harry joins them at the pub most weeks, and Louis stays at Harry’s and Harry stays at Louis’, and Louis feels his heart expanding. Harry’s pushed other thoughts out of his mind, taking over Louis’ consciousness. Perhaps it’s dangerous, perhaps it’s folly, but Louis can’t help but embrace the feeling of Harry slowly taking over.

Louis isn’t in the habit of denying himself an outlet. According to Zayn, it’s yet another character flaw: he says what he thinks with flagrant disregard for the consequences or other people’s feelings. Louis doesn’t see how honesty could be a character flaw, but then, he’s not one to heed sequences of words like You’re a fucking wanker sometimes, Louis.

It’s mid-December when he lets himself unbottle the words he’s been holding in for so long. They’re leaned up against an alley near the store, miraculously on break at the same time. The sky hangs grey above their heads, threatening to give itself over to evening any minute. Their breath comes out in little puffs when they laugh. Harry’s nose is red, he has flour on his cheeks like always, and Louis thinks that now is the time. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone more,” he says, flicking the ash of his fag into a pile of snow. (Filthy habit, really, but that’s what living with Zayn Malik will do to a man.)

Harry laughs, tugs his beanie down lower so that only a few rogue curls escape near the edges. “More than what?” he teases. “Sex? Indian takeaway? Cigarettes?”

Knocking their knees together, Louis rolls his eyes. “You, silly.” He takes Harry’s hand in his, feeling the outline of his fingers through two layers of mittens.

Harry’s head lolls against his shoulder, and his eyes are sleepy and his mouth is smiley. There are snowflakes dotted throughout his hair, melting into oblivion only to be replaced instantly by a new layer. “‘M glad you said that,” he says, “because I think so too. I mean. I love you. More than Indian takeaway and cigarettes and sex.”

“What about sex with me?” Louis asks. “How much do you love that?”

“Cheeky.” Harry squeezes his hand. “I love that a lot. Hey,” he says suddenly, tipping his head back to catch a snowflake on his tongue. “Why do seagulls live by the sea?”

“What are you talking about?” Louis stamps his feet to restore some warmth to his toes. “What kind of question is that?” When he turns, Harry’s looking at him expectantly. Maybe it’s the smear of flour, maybe it’s the wide eyes, maybe it’s just that Louis is so far gone, but he sighs deeply. “I don’t know, Harry. Because they evolved that way.”

“No.” Harry shakes his head solemnly. “Because if they lived by the bay they’d be bagels.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” Louis yells. The air is silent around them, Harry’s lazy laugh all the more outrageous as the snow begins to come down in angry clumps. “You don’t even make sense, Harry Styles.”

They’re off at the same time, a second miracle on this dark, dreary day. Without discussing it they go back to Harry’s. He has more food in his kitchen, and his heater works one hundred percent of the time, and his mattress is more comfortable. Louis wants to live in Harry’s bed, wrapped up in the heavy duvet with this ball of corny jokes and long limbs and crinkly-eyed smiles.

The contours of their bodies fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, their lines are perfectly parallel, their angles are congruent. Harry’s tall and lean and Louis is small and soft and if there was ever proof of a higher being it’s this: the fact that they fit together perfectly, like they were made to complement each other, like there was never any other option but Louisandharry, Harryandlouis. Louis thinks everything in his life has been leading up to this, every insignificant decision part of a trajectory that brought him to Harry Styles.

Zayn thinks Ruttiger is deliberately taunting them. There’s no choice but to agree only silently, as Louis feels that it’s his duty to publicly defend his cat’s honour. The third time Ruttiger sends a roll of paper towel flying off the counter only to bound after it, tearing it to shreds, he sighs heavily. “If I wasn’t the one who found you in that box, you’d be dead meat,” Louis tells him in a conspiratorial tone.

“I’m going to skin him and fry him up,” Zayn declares when he finds his African violet separated from its soil and spread all over the floor. Harry snorts, and Zayn pointedly ignores him. “Filet o’ intentionally disruptive cat.”

“Don’t speak of Ruttiger that way!”

Zayn is already sweeping broken terra cotta shards into a plastic bag, the cat watching reproachfully from the windowsill. “Ruttiger,” he mutters. “With a name like that, no fucking wonder. Why hasn’t he clawed Harry’s face off? How are you immune to this, Harry?”

 “Maybe if you’d put anything other than antipathy out into the world he’d like you,” Louis offers. “He just feels the happy vibes rolling off Haz.”

“Yeah? And how do you explain the fact that he barely likes you any more than me?”

“He may be a bit of an asshole,” Louis allows. There is an awful lot of dirt on the floor, after all.

“Be kind to him,” Harry says languidly, draped over the sofa. He has one finger stuck out and his eyes trained on Ruttiger, who doesn’t look like he’s about to take the bait. He likes Harry, but not that much. He has dignity. Well, of course he does. He was raised by Louis Tomlinson.

“Louis.” Zayn’s stood in the middle of the floor, hip jutting out, broom stretched in front of him. “Would you ask your boyfriend if he’d like to help with this mess instead of being a layabout on our expensive furniture?”

Casting his eyes to the tattered sofa, Louis shakes his head. “I’ll do it,” he says. “Harry’s a guest, Zayn, you have a thing or two to learn about hospitality.”

Louis Tomlinson gets on his hands and knees for no one. He does not clean. He does not do Zayn’s dirty work. But somehow he finds himself crouched on the floor, delicately picking up pieces of the planter. The knees of his grey jeans are going to be permanently stained with soil, and his dignity will be compromised for at least a fortnight, and why did Zayn need an African violet in the first place? God, Louis thinks, the things he does for love.

IV

Liam’s just bought a slip n slide, get your arse over here .x

In December, Louis throws a twenty-first birthday party that nearly gets him arrested. Harry talks the cop out of it with his easy smile and effortless charm. “This one’s a keeper,” Niall says after everyone’s left and it’s just the five of them surveying the damage. Harry’s positively glowing when Niall claps him on the back. “You’ve earned a permanent spot on my guest list, Haz.”

In January, Harry’s mum and sister come up from Holmes Chapel and they all have dinner at the Italian place down the road from Harry’s flat. Later, in the dim light of Louis’ living room (they still haven’t replaced the damn lightbulb), Harry whispers, “They loved you, Lou.” Louis can’t wipe the smile of his face until long after Shaun of the Dead is over.

February brings endless rain coming down in sheets and rattling the windows, and they stay under stacks of blankets as often as possible. Harry turns nineteen with a tiara perched atop his curls and a bottle of Smirnoff clutched in his hand.

March is slow and cold and Louis almost gets fired again. This time he can’t blame Ruttiger, although it doesn’t stop him from muttering dangerously, “God, couldn’t you have emptied the contents of your stomach on Zayn’s combat boots?” He thinks he might never forgive Ruttiger for that incident. He never wanted a cat anyway.

In April he realizes he’s never been at a job this long. He’s not sure if he should be proud or depressed. Harry has exams and takes two weeks off work, and the bakery lacks livelihood without him. Work is a slog without Louis’ favourite boy sliding him croissants across the counter and texting him pickup lines during his break.

In May Harry suddenly has free time, and he picks up more hours at work, and Louis gets in trouble three times for visiting the bakery when he’s supposed to be collecting abandoned baskets from the back of the store. It’s worth Howard’s sternly creased forehead and monotonous lectures to see Harry breaking out into a smile when he looks up from kneading dough to find Louis there, tongue stuck out.

The weather gets warm in June and they go to the park and have a picnic and buy lemonade from two little girls who set up a stand down the street from Harry’s flat, and they kiss and they’re in love.

In July, Liam buys the Slip N Slide.

It’s sweltering outside, the kind of weather that makes existing seem like an arduous task. Harry has the day off, and Louis is working eight to four. When Paula comes to relieve him of his duties two minutes late he barely contains his desire to chew her out. (That might be a tad hypocritical, he thinks. Possibly.) He would run to the break room to retrieve his bag and clothes, but even in the air conditioned store it’s too hot to imagine moving at anything faster than a snail’s pace. He’s going to strip off his uniform and then he’s going to go home and point every fan in the flat on himself and do absolutely nothing.

But then he checks his phone, and there’s a text from Harry, and in the dim lights of the break room he feels alive. It’s July, and Liam’s just bought a Slip N Slide.

Liam, Niall, and Zayn are already stripped down to just their pants in the side yard off Harry and Liam’s block of flats, patchy unclipped grass tickling their ankles as they take turns hurling their bodies down the slicked-up plastic. Louis can’t remember ever seeing Zayn bubbling with such unbridled enthusiasm, impeccable quiff destroyed and skinny legs exposed to the elements. There’s no air of irony wrapped around his joy, which Louis thinks is truly impressive.

Liam spots him first. “Lou!” He raises an arm, nodding when Louis smiles in acknowledgement. “Harry’s upstairs fixing snacks.” (Of course he is, Louis thinks. Of course he is.)

Niall’s racing over, sopping wet with a sloppy grin slapped across his face. He tugs at Louis’ shirt. “Get this off,” he cries. “This is fuckin’ incredible, Lou.”

It immediately becomes an established fact that while Liam technically owns the Slip N Slide, having been the one to purchase it, it belongs to Niall. Niall, Louis gathers, is the one who spotted it, the one who wanted it, the one who somehow managed to talk Liam into paying for it. It’s Niall’s Slip N Slide, and Louis loves him for it as he stands with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Zayn throw himself to the ground with a recklessness that doesn’t belong to him.

Somehow, Harry manages to balance three trays laden with snacks and cold beers in his arms, crossing the yard and laughing. “I fucking love you, mate,” Niall says, reaching across to grab a mini egg salad sandwich before Harry can set the trays down.

“Back off,” Louis says. “I found him first.”

Niall gives him a pointed look, his blue eyes narrowed dramatically. “I believe I found him first, actually,” he says. “But I guess I can let you have him.”

When Harry strips down to expose the massive butterfly tattooed across his stomach, it seems to Louis like time freezes for just a fraction of a second. Zayn notices it first, and a thousand expressions flit across his face, then Liam’s looking with an eyebrow quirked, and finally Niall says, “What the fuck is that, mate?”

Louis supposes they wouldn’t have had a reason to see it before now. He’s seen it a million and one times, and he’s kissed it and licked it and he loves it because it’s a part of Harry just like his extra nipples and his beautiful collar bones and the worn brown boots that he will never throw away. It’s Louis who says, “It’s a butterfly, mate.” Harry’s looking sheepish, but then he laughs and Zayn slaps him on the back and says, “Good line work, who’s your artist?” The tattoo conversation is just becoming dull when Niall takes a running leap from the crooked tree at the edge of the property, tackling Harry onto the Slip N Slide with a painful-sounding thud. For a moment, Louis’ breath catches in his throat. Then Harry guffaws and stands up, wet curls plastered to his forehead.

The sunlight catches his face in such a way that Louis almost can’t breathe. He’s mine, he thinks. I found him the bakery section at Howard’s Grocery Market, and he kissed me at the club and we’re in love and he’s mine. It feels like an eternity before the light shifts off Harry’s face and he opens his mouth to say, “Your turn, Lou.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says. He’s sitting on the edge of a folding chair with his hand on Liam’s lower back, sunglasses obscuring his eyes. “Slip N Slide time for Louis Tomlinson.”

Louis adopts his haughtiest stance: nose in the air, arms crossed over his chest, upper lip wrinkled in disdain. “That would be straying from established precedent.”

“Oh, yeah?” Niall says with a snort. “And what would that precedent be?”

“That Louis Tomlinson does not get wet.”

And Harry says very, very softly, “Well, I know that’s a lie. I’ve seen you in the shower.” Louis feels warm under the beating sun with his friends’ laughter wrapping around him, and so he becomes the best fucking Slip N Slider in town.

In the summer air there are a million possibilities, and the bees buzz with them all and Louis laughs and laughs and laughs, water dripping down his back.

V

Hiii crumpet, my mum wants you to come visit this weekend, can you? .x

Louis sees love in the way the dawn breaks over Harry’s milky back, in the way he begins to stockpile Yorkshire tea in his flat, in the way he always saves an unsold croissant here, a slightly stale slice of cake there. He sees love flashing in his eyes, twitching across his lips, spilling out of his mouth in that honey sweet voice. He sees love, and he believes in it.

It’s real, he believes it’s real, he believes they were meant to be they were put on this earth to be together they’re in love they’re in love they’re in love. His fingers tremble as he does up his duffel bag, terrified to stay with Harry’s mum, but his heart is full and his soul feels light and he thinks, This is it, this is real, we’re in love, I’m staying with Harry’s mum.

Harry’s bedroom in Holmes Chapel is small and homey; there are Polaroids stuck to the walls and a hand-knit blanket folded over the footboard. Harry’s cat Dusty is curled up in the middle of the bed when they drop their bags off. Harry visibly softens as he reaches out to scratch her between the ears. When Louis turns, Anne is standing in the doorway smiling tenderly. She puts a hand on Louis’ shoulder and says, “He’s not bad, is he?”

Cradling Dusty in his arms, Harry looks over at them, his curls glowing at the edges against the backdrop of his open window. “I’m happy,” he declares. “Two of my favourite people and my favourite cat all in one place.”

“Why, how very dare you?” Louis juts a hip out. “Ruttiger won’t be happy to hear this.”

“Dusty is better than Ruttiger. Ruttiger’s a bit of a wanker.”

“Harry!” Anne says.

“It’s okay.” Louis remembers the hairball in the shoe and the piles of clothes shoved to the back of his closet and the stern talking-to from Howard in his musty office and the free croissant from Harry. “He’s not the easiest cat to get along with. There’s a reason I felt a magnetic pull towards him.”

“Nonsense,” Anne says with a soft smile that makes her look so much like Harry. “You’re lovely to get along with.”

It’s the end of August and the brief humidity is dissipating, bleeding into the beginning of autumn. The sun is shining and there’s a barbecue on the deck. The three of them sit outside with the grass tickling their toes as Dusty jumps around the garden chasing butterflies. Louis is struck by how comfortable it feels. Anne pours Louis iced tea and fusses over Harry’s hair and takes videos of Dusty stalking bugs they can’t see. She asks Louis about his life, and she smiles and nods and makes him feel important, like his existence matters even though he’s a uni dropout with a dead-end job and a living room with no lightbulb. Louis realizes that she trusts he’s worth knowing simply because Harry loves him. He’s not sure anyone’s ever afforded him such a kindness.

It’s dusk when Gemma gets home. She drags a chair out of the kitchen, stretching her lean legs in front of her and kicking off her wedge sandals. Harry braids her hair and Louis tells her bad jokes and she rolls her eyes with a soft smile on her lips. Louis doesn’t know many interesting people. He knows loud people and dramatic people and people who think they’re important, but he doesn’t know anyone like Gemma.

Holmes Chapel feels like another world, an escape from the monotony of scanning groceries and spending all his free time at the pub with the same four people. It’s quiet and unhurried and the cat rolls around in the grass and Anne takes a picture of Harry and Louis to send to her friends with the caption “Harry’s found a lovely boy! x” and Gemma cajoles their stepdad into putting chicken on the grill when he gets home from work. Anne lights a citronella candle so they can eat outside without bugs swarming around them, Gemma sets the table, and Robin flips a chicken breast and asks Louis about his family.

When they’ve finished eating, Louis jumps to bus the dishes inside to the sink. “Bless you,” Anne says, smiling tenderly. Harry and Gemma splash each other with water while they do the dishes, laughing maniacally. “Louis is going to think we’re awful,” says Gemma when Harry whips her with a dishtowel. Louis thinks the exact opposite.

Before they go to bed, Anne puts the kettle on and reaches down two mugs. One has Harry written on it in handwritten letters. “We’ll get one of these for you the next time you’re up here,” she says, and she won’t accept Louis’ choked-up no. She’s bought Yorkshire tea just for him. He thinks he might cry as they sit at the table sipping it in their pyjamas.

Harry and Louis crawl into bed together around midnight. “You’re part of the family now, Lou,” Harry whispers as he draws the covers up. Louis kisses his neck and puts his head against his chest so he can hear his heart, thump-thump-thump. Harry’s alive, and Louis is alive, and they’re alive together, the two of them, curled into each other like they never belonged anywhere else.

In the morning, Harry takes Louis apart in his childhood bed. Louis’ hands fist in the striped sheets and he has to bite his lip so he doesn’t cry out.

Louis’ cried a thousand and one times over boys, but not this one. As Harry’s fingertips dig into his bare thighs, Louis thinks, This is it. Harry’s it. No more tears. It ends here.

The smell of pancake wafts around them, and they lie in bed stroking each other’s hair until Anne’s voice floats up the stairs. Harry uses up the last of the syrup and Gemma gets huffy and Louis never, ever, ever wants to go back.

Louis loves Harry best when he’s standing tall with a too-large jumper hanging loosely off his frame. He loves him best when the wind tousles his curls. He loves him best right now, under a tree in a field in Holmes Chapel. They’re near a stream, the gentle sound of the rushing water soothing Louis as he watches Harry standing stock-still in the middle of the field. His eyes flutter shut every few seconds, jolting back open to see Harry Harry Harry who he loves best.

Harry turns with a grin, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “Kissed a girl against that tree,” he says. “First kiss.”

“Oh, stop, Harold, you’re making me jealous.” Louis lets his head loll back against the tree, sun beating down on his face.

“Well,” Harry says, closing the gap between them with long strides, “it was quite saucy. We were all of twelve.”

“Show me.”

Surely the area of Harry’s face can’t contain a smile so wide, but it doesn’t crack in half. “You’ve got to stand up,” he says, and Louis doesn’t hesitate for a second.

Harry’s hands are soft on his waist and the thick trunk of the tree is hard on his back and Harry’s lips are perfect on his, pressing gently and then more insistently. His hands sink until he’s cupping Louis’ arse, and Louis breaks away with a muffled laugh. “This is quite saucy. I’m impressed. You had moves.”

“I may be exaggerating what happened slightly,” Harry mumbles into his neck. “Very slightly. For dramatic effect.”

Later Harry drops to the ground and attempts to make a snow angel in the summer grass, Louis looking on fondly. He loves Harry best when he’s uninhibited, he loves Harry best when he’s grinning maniacally, he loves Harry best.

VI

LOU! Did I leave my civil law textbook at yours, I really need it to study for my exam!! Love you <3

One year, they’ve made it an entire year, which means Louis has been at the store for three years and Zayn has been at the bar for two and they’re going to be in their shitty little flat forever, probably. One year, and Zayn’s finally replaced the lightbulb. Liam had to come over with his stepladder to screw it in, and Niall made fun of them for being incompetent, and it was an ordeal, but at least they have a functioning lightbulb. Ruttiger is still cranky, Niall still works at the deli, Zayn and Liam are still in love. Zayn’s hair has become larger and they’ve put more art up on the walls. Louis’ room isn’t any tidier, although Harry’s clothes are now mixed into the piles on his floor.

It feels like the days, weeks, months are falling away at an increasingly rapid pace, and there’s nothing Louis can do to stop them. He tries to reach out, to grab each day, but he can’t save the moment where Harry falls asleep on his sofa, an arm dangling off, or when they shower together far too early, still bleary with sleep. He can’t hold onto Harry’s wide smiles and culinary experimentation. He has to watch these things pass him by, and it never feels like enough just to experience them. He wants to keep them locked up inside his chest forever.

They’ve made it an entire year and then there are fights. Arguments over stupid things like what to watch on TV or whether to get takeaway (Louis’ default position) or have a home cooked meal (Harry’s), and then about less stupid things like Harry forgetting about a date or Louis being too negative. There’s “We’ve seen Love, Actually a hundred thousand times,” there’s “I can’t believe you think Adele is just okay,” there’s “Would it have killed you to turn up on time?”, there’s “Could you get through, like, one fucking hour without a snippy comment?”

There are fights, but there are also a million and one quiet happy loving perfect moments.

A conservative estimate would put Louis at spending about sixty percent of his time enclosed in Harry's mosaic of an apartment, staring at red cabinets and patchwork blankets and photos stuck up on the walls without a frame. That's sixty percent of his time sat next to a shelf of poetry books,  watching Harry wiggle into his black t-shirts and tight jeans of impure thoughts, eating crackers that are infused with spices he's never heard of and isn't sure he likes.

It’s October and Harry wants to throw a Halloween party. It’s two in the morning and they’ve just been on the phone. Louis could float he’s so in love. “I think he may be the best person in the world,” Louis confesses to Zayn under the flickering bulb in the kitchen. (Not that fucking light too. He’s not ready to live in perpetual darkness. He’s not even twenty-two; he’s a good person; he doesn’t deserve this.)

“No.” Zayn’s in socks and joggers, eating ice cream out of the tub standing up, and it really says something that Louis is completely unmoved by his objectively stunning best friend standing shirtless next to him. “Liam is.”

“Liam and Jesus Christ and Mother Theresa and Harry. They’re the best people this planet will ever see. Give me some of that.”

Zayn shifts the tub away as Louis lunges across the counter. “Fuck off, mate, this was expensive. Go get your sugar fix from your baker boy.”

“He doesn’t work night shifts, tosser.”

“When I said sugar fix I meant figuratively.”

“That has to be the worst euphemism I’ve ever heard,” says Louis, “and his name is Harry. Did I ever tell you his giraffe joke?”

Zayn rolls his eyes and nods, spooning more ice cream into his mouth. He really is obscenely beautiful. It’s as if God waited until the most perfect piece of marble was formed and then went, “Ah, time to sculpt my masterpiece.” He’s made up of delicate bone structure, sparkling eyes, eyelashes any girl would give her soul for. He’s here to taunt us mere mortals with his disgusting beauty, Louis thinks. That and his utter stinginess when it comes to sharing ice cream.

Then it’s a year and a half and they’re up at three in the morning in Harry’s kitchen, then two years and Harry buys the entire Babysitter’s Club series from a yard sale for six pounds just because it’s a good deal and he’s been meaning to read them. He ropes Louis into carting the heavy boxes three blocks and up two flights of stairs to his flat. (Louis buys a cookbook, and Harry laughs and says to ring him if he ever puts it to use.)

Louis falls more in love each day, with the lines of Harry’s body and the way he never has a bad thing to say about anybody and the sloppy kisses he presses to everyone’s cheek when he’s had too much to drink. Just when he thinks he can’t get in any deeper, Harry’s fingers brush against his wrist and send jolts down his spine or Harry talks to a little girl at the bakery about her Disney princess birthday cake or Harry texts his mum a picture of the coq au vin he’s just cooked for Louis. Everything Harry does causes Louis to stumble a bit, and he thinks he likes it.

Harry leaves the bakery and Louis is still a checkout boy. He can’t stand his stasis, but he also can’t seem to do anything about it. Harry has a new job, and Louis will be a checkout boy forever, just a bitter little man with no degree who hands change to people who don’t even make eye contact with him. It’s meaningless, and he wouldn’t have minded, but Harry’s got an internship and Louis’ got nothing.

Liam stops living in Harry’s building, because now he’s living with them. Louis asks a thousand and one times if it’s okay that he’s third wheeling, and Zayn just roll his eyes and says, “I wouldn’t dream of kicking you out,” and Louis doesn’t push it too much because now his rent is a hundred pounds cheaper. Liam always claps Louis on the back on his way out the door in the morning, and he tidies Louis’ dishes for him, and Louis does sweet fuck all for Liam.

Two years, and Harry’s deep into his law degree. He’s working twenty hours a week at his internship, and when he’s not working he’s sat at his kitchen table with a textbook propped open while Louis sips tea from his favourite blue mug and tries to pretend he’s not panicked about his future. He shares Harry’s beds most nights, and Zayn says, “Maybe you should be splitting the rent with Harry instead of me.”

Harry reserves a drawer just for Louis’ clothes, has a hook on his wall just for Louis’ jacket, has space in his cupboard just for Louis’ tea. Louis has a copy of Harry’s key on top of his dresser and Harry’s favourite takeaway menus in the kitchen drawer and Harry’s stupid too-large jumpers stacked on his desk chair.

“That’s so big on you,” Zayn says when Louis emerges from his bedroom in an olive green jumper that comes down over his hands and covers his bum.

“It’s Harry’s.” Louis settles onto the sofa, Zayn spreads the blanket over the two of them, and the football starts.

“Been thinking about leaving the bar,” Zayn says absently during a break. “Maybe going back to school.”

Louis looks at him sharply. “Yeah?”

Zayn shrugs, but the way his mouth twitches Louis knows he’s anything but nonchalant. Louis has witnessed too many of Zayn’s slow descents into madness over simple things to miss the signs. “Just thinking, like, I like bartending, but do I want it to be my life?”

Everyone is abandoning Louis, it seems. Harry has an internship and he’s going to have a law degree in another year, and Zayn is going back to school to get his life on track, and Liam makes good money working in construction, and Niall supplements his work at the deli counter with his music, and Louis has four years at the same supermarket and no marketable skills under his belt. “You should, Zayner,” he says, even though the words kill him. “Make something of yourself. Just don’t get so big for your boots that you leave me to rot in this flat.”

Zayn looks like he wants to say something, but then he just nods and turns back to the match. “Never, Lou.”

Harry has his last exam of the semester the next day. They go out to Zayn’s bar to celebrate, and Zayn makes them all far too many drinks on the house and then spends the rest of the night sliding plastic cups of water across the bar for them like a concerned mum.

Harry slings one arm each around Louis and Niall, kissing each of their cheeks in turn. His cheeks are pink, and he can’t stop laughing. “I met a girl, I did,” he says, then takes a break to sip from the cup Zayn’s just set down in front of him. “Really pretty, big brown eyes, and she says to me, she says, ‘I’ve seen you with your boyfriend, I saw when he dropped you off for class the other day, you looked really happy.’”

Louis’d had the morning off, and he and Harry had lain in bed for an obscene amount of time, staring at the cracks in Louis’ ceiling and whispering stupid silly ridiculous things into each other’s ears. Harry had finally dragged himself out of bed, throwing on clothes that he plucked off the floor, and then he’d pulled Louis up and whispered into his neck, “Drive me to school?” It was snowing, and they walked across campus together and when they got to Harry’s classroom Louis gave him a peck on the lips.

“Were you really happy?” Liam asks. He’s not really drunk; he’s never really drunk. He’s dating a bartender and he barely drinks. He’s friends with Niall Horan, walking Irish stereotype, and he doesn’t much like alcohol. The world truly is full of wonders.

Harry smiles wide. “I’m always really happy,” he says. “I love Lou.” He slips an arm around his lower back. The music is so loud, and Harry’s soft fingers are touching him, and Louis feels like the luckiest man in the world.

VII

Hiiiii turkey, give your mum my love!

Two and a half years of kisses and whispered words and Yorkshire tea in Harry’s cupboard. Harry has four exams until he’s got a law degree. Louis cuts back his hours at work without any other plan in mind. He books off a week and goes to Doncaster, where his mum envelops him in hugs and home cooking and threatens to disown him if he doesn’t come home more often.

Two and a half years and Harry’s been to Doncaster, let the twins paste stickers all over his face and braid his hair, talked to Lottie about her favourite boyband, baked chocolate chip cookies with Fizzy, laughed when the babies gurgled and rocked them when they cried, pulled weeds with Jay while Louis lounged on a blanket working on his tan. Bring Harry up more often, Jay seems to say all the time. We love Harry, the girls shout in between arguments and episodes of Britain’s Next Top Model. Harry’s helped them all with their homework and picked up the playroom with them and drawn them as stick figures with long, flowing hair and crooked smiles.

This is the first time Doncaster isn’t home. Louis doesn’t feel like he’s taking a break from a long vacation as a checkout boy with his half-derelict flat and ceaselessly stupid friends. He feels like he’s treading on something that isn’t his anymore, shirking his responsibilities, leaving his real life behind for a week of fantasy. He supposes he might be growing up, just a little, now that he’s twenty-three. He can’t help but miss Harry for the entire week, Harry who is part of his real life instead of this fantasy where his mum cooks for him every night and his sisters hang onto his every word.

When he drives home against the high-pitched protests of the girls and his mum’s teary embrace, he goes straight to Harry’s. He lets himself in with his copy of the key, and there’s Harry, hunched over a textbook at the kitchen table with a paper coffee cup and a half-eaten container of lo mein next to him. He looks up from his book and grins, standing up to hug Louis tightly. “Missed you,” he mutters into the top of Louis’ head.

“Missed you too, Haz,” Louis says. “What can I do for you?”

Harry pulls away, frowning. “Cook me a four-course meal? Transfer the entire contents of this textbook into my brain?”

“I asked what I can do for you. Operative word can.”

Harry kisses his nose. “I know. You can put on the TV and call me in an hour when it’s time for me to take a break from property law.”

Louis puts on the kettle and takes his steeping red mug of tea into the living room, shrugging Harry’s woven green blanket over his shoulders. There’s nothing really on, so he uses the TV as background noise, scrolling through his Twitter feed. Zayn and Liam have had a fight, in public, on Twitter, and he rolls his eyes both at the argument and at the subsequent sappy “I love you to the moon and back x” from Zayn and “never forget how much i love youuuuu :)” from Liam.

Harry doesn’t join him an hour later, nose still buried in his textbook. Louis waits another two hours, barely paying attention to the blaring TV, and then they shower together and Harry takes him to bed and Louis thinks that tomorrow they’ll lie about lazily eating takeaway straight from the containers.

But tomorrow, of course, Louis has to stand behind Lane 5 for ten hours, smiling through his gritted teeth and dropping change into outstretched hands and typing in codes for vegetables he’ll never eat in his life.

Force of habit has Louis going to the bakery for his lunch every day. It’s not the same without Harry. He knows the people there, and they know that he’ll buy a croissant and take it to the deli for cold cuts that Niall doesn’t charge him for. But it just isn’t the same when Harry’s not there to make a stupid joke or ask if Louis has enough change in his till or let him wipe cocoa powder off his chin.

Then there’s a new girl. Amanda. Two and a half years and there’s Amanda, laughing loudly and slipping day-old cookies across the counter for him and calling him “love” in an accent that’s even more extravagantly northern than Zayn’s. She’s the complete opposite of Harry: loud and northern and lewd. She makes Louis laugh and she gives him free food, but she’s no replacement for the tall boy with the slow voice and soft eyes.

Suddenly Harry has his last exam ever and Louis has an invitation to a party at Amanda’s and Harry is telling Louis, “No, it’s fine, go,” and Louis is saying, “Come with me, Haz,” and Harry is frowning from the kitchen table and saying, “You know I have to study.”

He brings Niall, because Niall is always good for a laugh at a party. Predictably, he’s befriended everyone at Amanda’s house within minutes of stepping through the door. Nobody seems terribly concerned when he announces he’s going to juggle three empty beer bottles, and then there’s barely a fuss when all three drop to the ground and shatter. Everyone just laughs, because Niall’s always a good time. Louis lets Niall ply him with drinks, and then he doesn’t really recall any transitions, the in betweens of point A and point B, just that he’s in the living room taking shots and then on the deck watching Niall flip patties on the grill, then huddled on cold tile between the toilet and bathtub.

It’s Amanda who finds him, stopping dead in the doorway. He’s drawn up into himself, as small as possible. His nose is running and his head is spinning and all he wants is Harry. Her outline glows, her face an indistinguishable shadow. “Right, love,” Amanda says. Her voice threatens to crack his skull in half. “I’ll get Niall.”

Years pass before the door creaks open gently. Niall sits across from Louis, legs crossed, and takes his hands. He’s silent for a very, very long time. Louis thinks he might never speak again, but then he opens his mouth. “What the hell is this about?”

And that’s all the permission Louis needs to unleash the flood that’s rising up his throat. “Harry had a stupid fucking exam and he’s finished it now, he’s done, and I’ll never be done,” Louis says. “Howard’s going to fire me one day, probably. Harry’s exam is over.”

“It would be, yeah. I don’t think they give exams at midnight.”

“He’s done his degree,” Louis says. The wall presses hard against his back and Niall’s eyes soften. It’s pity, that’s all it is, and Louis hates pity.

“Go see him, Lou.”

“But I brought you here.”

“I’m doing okay, yeah?” Niall says. He pushes himself up off the ground and extends a hand to Louis. Upright in the bathroom with Niall brushing the dust off his arse, everything seems clear. He has to go find Harry. Niall will break more beer bottles and make more friends and tomorrow he’ll be hungover at the deli counter and Louis will be hungover on the express lane and everything will be the way it always is.

It’s cold for June, and Louis is drunk, and he fumbles with Harry’s number under the streetlight outside of Amanda’s house. Harry picks up on the second ring. “Lou? What’s going on?”

“My fingers are so cold,” Louis says. “Remember when I told you I loved you? They were so cold then too.”

“Are you okay, babe?” Somewhere in the background, a book slams shut.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says. “I shouldn’t have gone. I should have been with you. You’re finished your exam.”

“Finished it several hours ago, yeah.” There’s a smile in Harry’s voice like there always is. Louis wants to keep his voice in a drawer he wants to kiss his voice he wants to see Harry right now.

“Can I come over?” Louis asks, because Harry isn’t understanding what he’s saying.

“Aren’t you at Amanda’s party?”

“I shouldn’t have gone,” Louis repeats. Does Harry understand anything?

Harry exhales into his ear. “Okay,” he says finally. “Yeah. Come over.”

Legally Blonde is on TV, and Harry laughs and lets Louis lick his nose even though he’s trying to pay attention. They eat chocolate cake that Harry baked in an exam-fuelled stress frenzy, and when Harry pulls the duvet over them and their breathing slows, Louis thinks this is how it should be.

Amanda gives him four extra cookies on Monday. She could be fired for that, honestly, Louis would know, he’s an expert on being fired or coming dangerously close, but he accepts the offering gracefully. Yes, Harry’s great, he tells her, yes, your party was great, yes, I just had a bit too much to drink.

“Wicked hangover,” Niall yells from the deli counter. “Really nice smoked turkey breast today. Is your head fuckin’ pounding?”

Louis peels the plastic wrap off the sliced turkey, inspecting it carefully. “A lady never tells.”

Niall snorts. There’s blood on his apron, his blonde hair is flat, there are dark circles under his bright blue eyes. Nobody goes harder than Niall Horan, and nobody wears a hangover quite like him either. “A lady also doesn’t take it in the ass from Harry Styles.”

Louis stalks away clutching his turkey and croissant, stopping only to flip Niall off once he’s a safe distance from the deli.

That night, he takes Harry out for dinner to celebrate the end of his degree. It’s a farce, and they both know it. Harry makes more at his internship than Louis makes in his dead end job, and he can’t really afford this place with its Italian menu and maître d’ and tiny exotic appetizers that they both laugh trying to pronounce. They both know how utterly ridiculous this is, but neither mentions it. Instead of feeling like a kindness, it makes Louis uneasy. How many other things will they never talk about?

“My face is so warm,” Harry says after his fourth margarita. “I love alcohol.”

They split an order of tiramisu for dessert, and Louis has to put it on his credit card because he definitely does not have enough money in his account to afford this indulgence. Zayn’s just leaving for the bar when they get in, and he shouts, “Do not fuck on the kitchen table again, I don’t care how much Windex you used on it,” and Louis just laughs and laughs and laughs.

The next morning, he Skypes Jay and the girls with Harry waving in the background. “Come to Doncaster,” Jay insists. “I want to see my favourite boys.”

“Come here,” Harry responds. “We’ll give you a tour.”

Louis snorts. “That’ll take approximately four to six seconds.”

“Hey.” Harry pinches his arm. “If we show them the Slip N Slide it’ll take at least twelve.”

They could be a family, he thinks when they go to the supermarket together that afternoon. Harry pushes the cart and Louis fills it up with things that surely can’t be good for him. The enthusiasm Louis feels for this act of complete domesticity should perhaps be alarming, but then Harry reaches for a box of Cheerios and his shirt rides up to expose a strip of flesh and the waistband of his pants. This is it, Louis thinks. Harry’s it.

VIII

What time should we be at Niall’s show??

Three years and the flat becomes filled with reminders that Louis’ friends are real adults. Tax forms filled out in neat block letters, aftershave that costs more than £14.99 on the bathroom counter, Liam’s practical, utilitarian jacket hung neatly on the back of the chair. Their exposed living room bulb, once burnt out for months, is now covered with a tasteful lampshade, and Ruttiger’s favourite window gets its first cleaning since they moved in.

Three years and Louis learns how to cook pasta. He blows all his savings when Ruttiger gets sick, and Harry takes pity on him and cleans the flat. Zayn and Liam announce that they’re not, like, engaged exactly, but they’re going to get married someday. Niall releases an album, finally, and Nick fucking Grimshaw plays the lead single on Radio 1, plucking him from obscurity and launching him into the world of signings and fans and royalty cheques.

Louis is the only one left at the supermarket. He’s turning twenty-four in two months and he’s been working at the same supermarket for nearly five years and everyone else has moved on to bigger things. Zayn’s doing a degree in English literature, Liam’s a foreman with a construction company, Niall makes his entire living playing shows, Harry’s got an entry-level job at a law firm. Harry never once says a word about any of it, and somehow that hurts more.

He doesn’t know how to set things in motion, is the thing. Every day that passes he feels more frozen in time, like the harder he resists the sooner the quicksand that is his life will swallow him. It’s better to just accept it, he decides. He’s Louis the checkout boy at Howard’s Grocery Market, Louis the checkout boy with a nice arse and a sick cat and friends who are amounting to something.

Three years and unflinching yeses turn into frequent “No, I’m tired”s or “Not tonight, babe”s or “I have to work late”s. Louis just cherishes the time they have together, gets excited when Harry says yes of course I’ll come to Niall’s show I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Louis is used to smoke-filled bars with Niall fighting to be heard over all the conversation. He’s used to sitting at the bar and ordering a scotch and giving Niall thumbs up from across the room. He’s not used to approaching security, saying, “We’re on the list,” showing his ID, being ushered into an auditorium with a capacity of five hundred. He’s not used to hundreds of people being here specifically for Niall, giving him their undivided attention. He’s not used to not being the only person in the room who cares about Niall.

They’re front row, hands intertwined, Liam and Zayn next to them. They’re swaying with the slow songs and jumping up and down to the fast songs and singing along with everything, shouting back the words along with all these strangers. This, to Louis, is the oddest part: he knows what every song is about, but these people don’t, yet they’ve still found something in the words to cling to, something that touches them and makes them believe in a certain kind of magic. Some of these people even seem jealous when the four of them duck backstage after the show. Niall has fans, real actual fans. It’s not that Louis can’t believe it, because Niall is talented and hardworking and he deserves every second of fame he has. It’s just that, well, he can’t believe he knows someone who’s regularly played on Radio 1.

The mini-fridge in the dressing room is filled with beer, the sofas are spongy, and there’s fresh fruit in a glass bowl on the coffee table. “Swanky,” Louis says, sinking into the sofa. “Some might say excessively so.”

“Some might say you’re a tosser,” Niall says.

“It’s hardly swanky, is it?” Liam casts a glance at the stark white walls and the stain on the carpet. Liam just has to be contradictory.

“Have you seen Lou’s flat, though?” Harry drops down next to Louis, an arm around his shoulder.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Louis snaps. “Just because you’re practically a lawyer you think you’re all fancy?”

Harry opens his mouth to respond, brows knitting together, but Zayn cuts in first, reaching across the table to pat Louis’ hand. “Babe,” he says, and that’s it. That one word communicates everything: you’re being an idiot, this is Harry, you love him, you know he’d never think something like that.

“Sorry,” Louis mumbles, sinking into Harry’s touch. “Sorry.”

This is the first time he ever feels victimized by their relationship, like there’s something wrong that they can’t smooth over with a kiss and a dinner out and a nose nuzzled against a collarbone. Liam and Zayn and Harry talk to Niall about his show, and Niall nods modestly and says, “Yeah, I felt really good, thanks so much for being here,” and Harry’s saying something about how Louis was Niall’s original fan and looking at him expectantly, and all he can do is plaster a smile on his face and nod like he cares.

Louis knows so many things about Harry. He loves indie music; he’s terrible at football and also any task at all that requires coordination or fine motor skills; art galleries are his happy place; he takes his coffee with two packets of cream; he had a penpal from Wales when he was a kid; he never does up all the buttons on his shirts because it’s too much of a hassle; his favourite tattoo is the ship on his bicep. Louis knows what he looks like when he sleeps and when he wakes up early and when he’s just been laid. He knows how jittery he gets before exams, how he can’t just walk past a display of skinny jeans, how he wishes he were good at art. He knows so many things.

Half the time Harry looks like he belongs in a fashion magazine, swathed in black skinny jeans and leather boots and patterned t-shirts. Other times he ties his hair back with a bandanna and wears plaid shirts three sizes too big for him with the buttons undone all the way to his bellybutton, and Louis wonders what he ever saw in him. One day he buys a black mesh sweater. Louis is in the midst of telling him that nobody wants to see his extra nipples that badly when Zayn walks into the living room, pauses, bursts out laughing, and turns back around. Harry returns the sweater the next day.

Harry’s really good with his money. He likes to invest. Ever since landing a proper adult job, he’s been collecting antiques and instruments. Nothing exorbitantly expensive, just a few hundred pounds here and there, but Louis can’t believe it. Harry is twenty-one years old and he has an antiques collection. (Of course, Louis is twenty-three and he has nothing but a smock with his name embroidered on the breast pocket and a cat who hates all of humanity.)

It’s October and Harry is at work and Louis is on the floor of Harry’s living room flipping through his poetry books. They’ve all got cracked spines and a million pages dog-eared, some lines screaming at him under a layer of yellow highlighter and some underlined more subtly with blue ballpoint pen. One of the volumes is bookmarked with a grocery list, Yorkshire tea scrawled across the top and underlined three times.

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

and

They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!

and

kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

and

I stood up in a cafe and screamed

I’M IN LOVE

He tastes the unbidden tears before he feels them rolling down his cheek, wet and salty on his tongue. God, he’s pathetic. Wiping them off violently with the back of his hand, he shoves the  Bukowski volume back onto the bottom shelf and picks himself up off the floor.

Three years and he loves Harry so fucking much, and he wonders if Harry even realizes the effect he has on him. He wonders if Harry understands that he feels drenched in awe at the fact that Harry wants him, Louis Tomlinson. He wonders if Harry thinks of him when he’s filing papers and greeting clients the way Louis thinks of him when he’s waving tins of beans in front of the scanner.

Harry gets home from work and Louis is at his table with the takeaway Thai, portioned onto plates so they can pretend they’re civilized. His tears have dried, he’s about to be full of pad sew, he doesn’t really care for poetry anyway. His iPod is docked on the counter, blaring Katy Perry, and Harry drops his messenger bag and smiles for twenty seconds straight before gathering Louis into a hug and kissing his eyelids. “I’m starved,” he breathes. “You’re a saint.”

Louis lets Harry hook his phone up to the speakers once the dishes are done. As always, he has precious little knowledge of the music that floats around them, but he doesn’t mind. He’s always loved pop music, and Harry’s always loved indie alternative folk experimental, and that’s just the way it is. Harry smiles when Louis shimmies to fast beats and sunny lyrics, and Louis loves how introspective Harry is about his music, how he can talk about it for hours.

As the sun sets, casting shadows over their faces, Harry pulls Louis close, swaying with him to the music. “It’s Neil Young,” Harry whispers into his ear, because he knows Louis will never know that, shameful as it is. These are the moments Louis would like recorded on stereoscopic film, so he can never forget what they felt like. These are the moments he feels slipping away even as they happen.

Three years and one month and Harry forgets to pick Louis up after work one day. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s as if Harry’s choosing the law firm over Louis. When Louis texts him from the dim little flat that Harry insulted just a few weeks ago, he responds immediately, tripping over himself to apologize in a series of rapid-fire messages. There’s a pounding at the door twenty minutes later, and Harry’s on the other side in the pea coat Louis loves, clutching a cardboard box.

“You stopped by the bakery?” Louis asks incredulously, unburdening him of the box. He takes it into the kitchen and peels off the plastic seal to reveal two chocolate tarts.

Harry lumps his coat on the arm of the sofa. (Louis and Zayn aren’t the sort of people to have hooks, though Liam has been threatening to install some.) “It’s just not as good as when I worked there.”

Louis opens the cutlery drawer with such force he’s surprised it doesn’t come off its tracks. “Maybe you should work there,” he snaps. “It’s probably a lot more fucking productive than getting Starbucks for a bunch of lawyers who’ll only ever see you as their bitch.”

In the ensuing silence, he wishes he could drop to his knees and gather the words off the floor and stuff them back into his mouth. He’s staring at the open box of tarts, heart pounding, and he can’t bear to raise his eyes to meet Harry’s.

It feels like a decade before Harry responds. “What the fuck, Lou?” His voice wavers; whether it’s with anger or hurt or something else entirely, Louis couldn’t say.

The air is heavy and Louis forces himself to look up, knife clutched tightly in his hand. Harry’s a tiny island in the sea of the living room, straight and tall and confused. “What is this about?” he says quietly.

Louis stabs the knife into one of the tarts and exhales deeply. “Nothing,” he says. “I’m sorry. I – look, maybe you shouldn’t stay here tonight.”

 Harry stands stock still, beautiful as always even when there’s sorrow etched across his features. Finally, he nods. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

Louis wants to tell him he’s changed his mind, but his feet are glued to the ground of the kitchen and his tongue is sandpaper and all he can do is watch Harry gather up his jacket and leave, door clicking shut softly behind him.

As hard as he tries to tell himself that it will blow over, Louis feels a definitive shift. With two sentences, everything has changed. Or maybe it was already changing, maybe he just expedited the process. Either way, he doesn’t know how he’s meant to live with himself. When was it that this started building up inside of him? When was it that Harry stopped being perfect and started having glaring flaws?

He doesn’t fall asleep until six in the morning, thoughts of Harry clouding his mind.

They make up the next day. Harry tells Liam and Liam tells Zayn and Zayn cuffs Louis’ head and says, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He’s stretched out on the sofa, napping after work, and it takes him by surprise. Rubbing the spot that Zayn’s just savagely mauled, he sits up. “What are you talking about?”

Zayn’s hovering over him, rolling his eyes. The disdain wafts off him noticeably. Louis is the only person on the planet who does scorn better than Zayn Malik. “What do you think I’m talking about, you massive twat? Jesus Christ. Are you really going to make me waste caloric energy explaining such a fundamentally simple concept?”

Louis shakes out his hair. He really fucking hates Zayn sometimes. Worst flatmate ever. “Could you slow down with the polysallabic words, Mr. English major?”

“Actually, that was science,” Zayn says. “You need to talk to Harry.”

Zayn’s not satisfied until he pulls Louis’ phone out of his pocket, which really shows a shocking lack of respect for his basic human dignity, dials Harry’s number, and shoves it into Louis’ hands.

They’re both aware of the fact that Louis could hang up. It’s within the realm of possibility. But they both know that he’s not going to do that, and that he’s going to let it ring, and that when Harry picks up with a raspy “Hello?” Louis is going to say, “Harry? I’m sorry.”

And the three of them, Zayn and Louis and Harry, know Harry’s going to forgive him, and that soon it will be three years and two months. They know that the next night Louis will lay his head on Harry’s bare chest and tell him he just gets insecure sometimes, about how everyone’s moving on without him and Harry has a proper job and he’s so smart and talented and ambitious, and that Harry will stroke his hair and assure Louis that he’ll never leave him behind.

And they’re okay, because the next week Louis invites everyone over and cooks them honey-garlic chicken out of that recipe book he bought for a pound a million quadrillion years ago. He doesn’t tell anyone what he has planned, except then he has to tell Zayn because he needs to know how much oil to put in a pan if he wants to sauté onions, and then Zayn calls Liam at work and says, “Lou is cooking tonight, Li. Might want to bring money for takeaway,” so it’s really only Niall and Harry who are surprised. (Also, Zayn remains the worst friend ever. “Ye of little faith!” Louis calls to him over the sizzle of garlic and onion. “I heard that!”)

The entire flat is filled with the unmistakable aroma of garlic by the time Harry arrives, curls windswept and cheeks pink. “What smells so good?” he asks.

“Louis cooked for us,” Zayn says. He and Liam are cuddling on the sofa, and Louis is poking the sponge cake Niall brought for dessert and trying not to gag at how fucking cute they are, and they’re getting married even though they’re not, like, properly engaged or anything.

“Louis cooked for us?” Harry’s voice is an amused drawl. He bends down to take off his boots, smiling. “Louis Tomlinson? You’re not hiding another Louis in one of the bedrooms, are you?”

“I used a cookbook,” Louis shouts from his post in the kitchen. It’s very important that he stays here. He’s monitoring the chicken (safely in the oven) and the cake (safely in its bakery-issued cardboard box), and the burden of responsibility dictates that he absolutely cannot move. “That one I bought when you bought the Babysitter’s Club books, remember?”

Harry lines his boots up neatly (for Zayn’s benefit, Louis supposes, as his own shoes are currently strewn about the floor in no particular arrangement at all), then straightens. “I remember. Yeah. Can’t believe you managed to work out, like, how to read a recipe.”

“That’s a fair comment,” Louis says haughtily, “but I’d rather you fuck off.”

Harry just laughs, because that’s the kind of person he is.

When it’s time to plate the food, he hovers. “Do you have any parsley? Little sprigs of parsley look classy.”

“Jesus, Harry, it’s a miracle I’ve cooked something without burning it, do we really have to worry about the aesthetics of the food?”

“No, yeah,” Harry says, stepping back. “You’re right.” (Louis feels bad, and he doesn’t know why.)

Although Louis generally thinks very highly of himself, he isn’t about to pretend that his honey garlic chicken is the best meal ever. It’s delicious, and it came out better than he ever could have hoped, and even the extra pieces get wolfed down, but he’s not going to brag about it.

Popping a neat square of chicken into his mouth, Harry says, “This is actually really good, Louis.”

“I detect more than a hint of surprise in your tone, and I resent that.”

“Mmm.” Harry darts his head towards Louis’ and kisses him on the cheek.

“This flat is so gay,” Niall remarks, the cutting acidity of his astute observation somewhat muffled by all the food he’s managed to stuff into his mouth.

“Only, like, one of us is gay,” Harry says. “And you’re disgusting.”

“See if you get you backstage passes to my next show,” Niall says – not before he swallows, Louis notes with satisfaction.

Zayn jabs his fork at Niall violently. “Ooooh, my next show. Getting too big for us, Nialler?”

Banter, beer, and his favourite boys, and everything’s normal. Niall leaves, Harry stays, they hear more from Zayn and Liam than they want, and they’re rolling around in bed laughing. “Can you imagine Liam trying to talk dirty?” Harry whispers.

“Who do you think tops?”

God bless his soul, Harry looks like he’s really considering it, eyebrows drawn in concentration. “You’ve stumped me, Lou,” he finally says. “You really have.”

Louis falls asleep satisfied, then wakes up half an hour later to Zayn’s shouts. Against his head, he feels Harry’s chest rising and falling with his silent laughter.

IX

When are you free? We need to talk

Liam adopts a dog and Louis and Harry walk her on a brisk day in December. Louis is afraid of dogs and Harry doesn’t know how to make her walk in the proper direction, so they give up after ten minutes and sit on a park bench kissing while she runs around barking at toddlers and generally being a menace to society.

Louis turns twenty-four and he invites Amanda to his party and later when Harry says, “Yeah, she’s really nice,” it doesn’t feel like approval. Harry wants Louis to come to Holmes Chapel for Christmas but Louis can’t, he has to see Jay and the girls, and Harry says, “No, right, that makes sense,” and Louis thinks he’s somehow failed him.

It’s the new year and Niall throws a party and there are actual famous people there, not really famous but kind of famous, and Louis kisses Harry sloppily when the clock ticks over to midnight.

They shag in the backseat of Louis’ car in the supermarket parking lot as the sun sets through the back window, and Louis wonders when they turned into teenagers. Harry’s fingers leave burning tattoos on his thighs, and he thinks his pulse will never stabilize.

Harry says they need more us time and they plan a date, but then he’s offered overtime and he has to cancel, leaving Louis to walk home from work disappointed and empty, the January air biting at his exposed nose. It’s three years, two months, and twenty-two days, and they don’t talk for another three. Harry’s planning his twenty-second birthday party, Louis takes on extra shifts at work, Harry walks the stupid dog with Liam, Louis goes bowling with the guys from the deli section, Harry has to be out of town for the weekend for professional development, Louis goes out clubbing with Niall and some guy with a podcast. Harry is busy and Louis tells himself he is too.

Then it’s three years, two months, and twenty-six days and Harry’s back from his conference and there’s a text in Louis’ inbox that’s going to blow up his phone. Nothing good has ever come of those four words. Nothing good has ever come of a Harry Styles text that ends without punctuation, without a smiley face, without a sappy little “.x”. It takes him three hours to type back Yeah how about tomorrow? I’ll come to yours? and then he feels like he’s going to throw up.

He’s come to expect little kisses and gentle touches and soft smiles when Harry’s door opens. Today, the day he promised Harry they’d talk, he gets nothing, just a stony face and eyes impassively dull. “Hi,” Louis squeaks.

“Tea?” Harry asks, and he’s already put the fucking kettle on, already has a teabag in Louis’ mug. The clock above the sink ticks loudly as Harry pours water into the mug and hands it to Louis wordlessly.

Harry takes him to the bedroom. This used to be Louis’ favourite place in the word, this cozy room with its grey jersey sheets and noisy radiator. Now he’s drowning in his own dread. He sits on the edge of the bed, back straight, trying to still his jittery foot. Harry’s in the doorway, nearly a silhouette because of the way the light hits him. His arms are crossed over his chest, he’s wearing this awful shirt that looks like it came straight from the seventies, and he says, “What happened to us?”

There it is. He knew this monumental truck of a sentence was coming, but it doesn’t hurt any less when it hits him. “Harry,” he says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. He leans over to put his mug on the floor. There’s no way it’s going to be touched, not today, not when this is happening.

Louis has always prided himself on his more than proficient vocabulary, but now it’s as if all his words have escaped him. Or maybe, he thinks, maybe there are just no words in the English language suitable for this discussion. He feels like Harry’s waiting on him with his unwavering green gaze, staring from the doorway at Louis sat on the bed, tiny and insignificant. The silence wraps around them and settles between their bones, and there’s nothing nothing nothing to be said, and the weight of everything unsaid hanging between them.

Harry crosses the room, drops down next to Louis. Suddenly the crooked tree in the yard seems like the most interesting thing in the world, and Louis turns away. He still feels Harry’s gaze on the back of his neck.

Glaciers cross North America and entire species become extinct before they talk. It’s not that there’s nothing to say – it’s that there’s too much. The task is monumental. Louis thinks maybe, just maybe, he can hold Harry off for so long that things will go back to normal.

But he feels Harry looking at him no matter how long he steadfastly stares at the window, and the idea that Harry, his Harry, is being so goddamn stubborn is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Harry has never been stubborn in his life. Louis feels like he’s shattering.

“You cancelled our fucking date,” he says finally. “Us time. You cancelled it.”

Harry sighs, his thigh pressing against Louis’. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I’m… I wish I could prove to you how sorry I am about that. But. Louis. You know that, like. This isn’t about that. It’s bigger than that.”

“Harry.” The name tastes strange on his tongue, like he doesn’t deserve to say it anymore. Harry was his, and now he’s slipping away. He doesn’t belong to anyone, Louis thinks.

Harry’s hand finds his, gives a little squeeze. Louis recoils as if he’s just been electrocuted, and he doesn’t even give any thought to what that means. “Please, Louis. I need an answer. What happened to us?”

If there were a cliff available, Louis would definitely be hurling his body off it right now. It’s better than this conversation, better than the outcome he sees creeping up on them. At least he’d be dead, at least it would be over, at least he wouldn’t have to live a horrible, miserable, pathetic existence.

He doesn’t answer.

Harry gives him what feels like an hour before his hands fist in his curls and he says, “Okay, then. Well. I think… I guess that sort of says it all, doesn’t it?”

“This isn’t happening,” Louis says to his hands. Maybe if he pretends he’s having this conversation with random parts of his body it won’t hurt as much. Maybe it won’t even be real. Maybe this is just some kind of maniacal, awful nightmare, and he’ll wake up in six hours and Harry will love him and take him on a date and sleep in his bed.

“You resent me, Lou,” says Harry, and that’s what it boils down to.

Louis wants to scream in protest, but it’s true, and he owes Harry the truth. Harry deserves more than a big fat selfish lie. He says nothing.

“I love you so much, okay? When you said it to me that time in the alley, I just. I couldn’t believe it, because, Lou? I loved you so much, and you looked so beautiful with the snow in your hair, and I just… I loved you so much. And I still love you now. But, fuck. We can’t do this, can we?”

Looking at his beautiful, gorgeous, cruel face, Louis is torn between letting the searing pain rip through his body and shutting off his emotional faculties. “You couldn’t believe it?” he whispers. “You couldn’t fucking believe it, Harry? This is happening the way it was always going to happen. It was always going to be you doing this to me. This was inevitable, wasn’t it? And you couldn’t fucking believe I loved you.”

“That’s part of the problem.” There’s anger in Harry voice like he’s never heard before, and that’s when Louis truly knows: it’s over. “You don’t think you deserve me, and, like. You never will, will you? You’ll never think I want you just as much as you want me. We can’t live like this.”

“Don’t I get any say in this?” He’s patently aware of how pathetic it makes him sound, and he knows the answer before it comes, but he has to ask. “Don’t we get to talk about our problems and then try to fix them?”

“Lou.” It hurts how gentle Harry’s being. He’s a good fucking person, and that’s the problem. He’s taking great care to bubble wrap Louis’ feelings, he’s doing everything he can to make this hurt as little as possible, and Louis just wants to scream and pound on the bed and hate Harry, but he can’t. How can he hate him? He’s spent all this time loving him, and he’s not going to stop now. “Please don’t do this.”

Louis is throwing things out wildly, the edge of the bedframe pressing into his legs and his panic pressing into his chest. “We’re not even going to try to make this work?”

“We tried. We tried for three fucking years. But it’s not working, is it?”

Louis’ foot moves involuntarily and then there’s tea all over the fucking floor. Neither of them move to sop it up. That’s it, then: a few awful words and tea seeping into the rug. “I can’t fucking do this,” he says finally. “I don’t know how to do this, Harry.”

Three years, two months, and twenty-seven days separate that first desperate kiss from Louis’ body hunched over on the edge of Harry’s bed, Harry’s arm folded around him as if it wasn’t a crime against humanity for him to be touching Louis. Three years he spent chasing after an ideal that never materialized. Three fucking years of his life believing in love and it wasn’t meant to be.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says quietly, and Louis believes it. “You know this isn’t what I wanted. But you were never going to do it, were you?”

Of course he wasn’t. Louis was never going to do it, it wouldn’t have even occurred to him to do it, Harry was always going to do it, Louis was always going to foolishly assume that they would be together forever.

His silence is all Harry needs. “I love you, okay? I care about you a lot. But this isn’t working, and it’s not fair for either of us.”

“No.” Louis stands up. He looks at the bedside table, at the brown boots piled on top of each other on the braided rug. He looks everywhere but at Harry. “You don’t get to break up with me and still say you love me.”

He’s vaguely aware of the fact that Harry is calling for him as he crosses the room, door slamming behind him, but it doesn’t stop him for even a second. Nothing can stop him from leaving. If it hurts Harry, good. That makes two of them.

There are certain things that make more sense early in the morning when faint sunlight strains through the windows and the first birds begin to chirp. Louis rolls over instinctively to tuck his body against Harry’s, but there is no Harry, because Harry is gone. It’s five-thirty in the morning and for the first time in three years, two months, and twenty-seven days, his love is unrequited.

Here’s what makes sense: Harry is gone. Harry was never his to keep. Harry was always going to move on, and Louis was always going to be left behind.

He wonders if Harry slipped through his fingers because he was never meant to hold him in the first place.

It’s cold, it’s January, and he’s huddled on their shitty little balcony with a blanket draped over his shoulders and one of Harry’s beanies pulled over his head. A cigarette filched from Zayn dangles between his fingers, ash dropping into the yard below. Regret washes over him like a tidal wave. His lack of ambition, all the times he opened up to a person who was always going to break his heart, leaving home because he couldn’t deal with the divorce. He regrets everything, and he hates himself, and Zayn finds him at seven in the morning with his tears frozen onto his cheeks.

He doesn’t remember how he made it onto the sofa with every blanket in the flat wrapped around him and breakfast television blaring in the background, but then Zayn is pressing a mug of hot tea into his numb hands and dropping down next to him. His slender fingers comb through Louis’ hair, and he’s saying Shh, shh, I love you, Lou.

He doesn’t ask what’s wrong, and Louis doesn’t want to say it. If he says it, it’s real, and he’s afraid Zayn will confirm his fear: that he deserved it, that it was inevitable.

He’s like a pathetic baby with his legs curled under him and his head tucked under Zayn’s chin. His head feels like it’s going to split in half with fatigue and mourning and self-loathing.

“Babe,” Zayn says finally, fingertips brushing softly at the nape of Louis’ neck. “What happened?”

“Does loving Liam hurt, ever?” Louis’ voice is nasal.

Zayn’s fingers still for a moment before resuming their circular motion. “Not really, no. He’s just... I don’t know. He makes me happy.”

“How do you know he’s right for you?”

“What’s this about, Lou?”

Louis says nothing, and Zayn sighs and says, “Because we make each other happy and we never fight and we communicate well. I don’t know, there’s no formula for it. We just work.”

Another five minutes pass. Zayn extracts himself from Louis’ grip and goes into the kitchen. When he returns it’s with another mug of tea.

Hands curled around the mug, Louis chokes out, “Harry broke up with me.” The world keeps spinning and he’s still regrettably alive.

“Oh, babe.” Zayn takes the mug, setting it on the floor between their feet, and gathers Louis up in his arms. All Louis can think of is Harry standing in his bedroom cradling Dusty, the window framing him in the golden August light. “Lou Lou.”

“I don’t know how I can survive this, Zayn,” Louis says tearfully. A patch of Zayn’s jumper is wet against his cheek. “He was the one. He was unprecedented. There’s nobody in the world like him, like, if I’m not with him who am I ever going to be with?”

Zayn senses that there’s nothing to say, stroking Louis’ ear and hair and rubbing his back and saying “Shh” after every shuddering sob that Louis thinks will break his body.

“I feel like a failure,” Louis whispers into the crook of Zayn’s arm. “I wasted so much time on him.”

“Babe, just because you didn’t end up together doesn’t mean you failed. You loved each other. You had a good three years.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, “but now it’s over, so what’s the point?”

There’s a silence as Zayn adjusts the blankets on Louis’ shoulder, kissing his cheek softly. Louis hates how nice Zayn is, his pity, the gnawing feeling that he doesn’t deserve this kind of comfort. “How the fuck does anybody make a relationship work?” he asks.

Zayn squeezes Louis’ bicep and smiles softly. He’s beautiful, so beautiful, not even in how his skin glows in the early morning light but in how he’s the best friend Louis could ask for. “I think,” he says finally, “all you can ever do is love and try your hardest.”

“And if that’s not enough?” Louis whispers.

“Then it’s not enough.” Zayn’s shrug is a little too nonchalant for Louis’ liking, considering they’re only talking about his entire life ending.

“Do you think it wasn’t meant to be?”

“What’s meant to be, Lou? Things either are or they aren’t, it’s not written in the stars. And this wasn’t. Not wasn’t meant to be, just... wasn’t.”

“Just,” Louis says, “was it always going to end, or did we ever have a chance?”

“Nobody knows, Lou. But you’re going to have to let go of him. Will you let me make you breakfast?”

“No,” Louis says, but they end up in the kitchen anyway, Zayn looming over a frying pan.

“Oh, god.” Zayn casts a concerned glance over to Louis, who’s standing next to the sink. The smell of the bacon and sausage is making him ill; he doesn’t think he could stomach so much as a saltine. “I just remembered,” he says. “The last time we had sex was in my fucking car. I can’t believe it.” He thinks he might throw up, clutching the edges of the sink so tightly he can feel the blood flow stopping at his knuckles. In the end, he just dry-heaves while Zayn rubs his back.

He has to admit that he feels a tiny fraction of a percentage better with a belly full of eggs and breakfast meats. Zayn does the dishes and then calls the supermarket to say Louis can’t possibly come in, he’s woken with a stomach flu and currently has his head in the toilet, and they crawl into Louis’ bed together until noon.

When Louis wakes up with a warm body next to him, he thinks it’s Harry for a third of a second before he remembers. Zayn smells different, anyway. Harry smells like laundry and cinnamon. Zayn smells musky and sexy.

Zayn changes the sheets because they smell of Harry. Most of Louis wants to say No, leave them, but it’s so pathetic and Zayn will probably have him committed. He stands in the corner and watches Zayn bent over his bed, smoothing and tucking. When he’s finished, he straightens and smiles. “When was the last time your bed was made?”

Louis doesn’t answer.

It’s Liam Payne, of all people, who tries to talk to Louis that evening. It’s officially been twenty-four hours without Harry, and the world hasn’t ended. It should, Louis thinks bitterly. Fuck the fucking world for spinning on its fucking axis after everything that’s happened.

He supposes he can’t be too shocked that Liam is worried. He’s sitting on the living room floor folding socks. He hasn’t folded socks or even put his laundry away since he moved out of his mum’s house. He doesn’t even wear socks. It’s the mundane tasks that keep him sane, though, so he’s sitting next to a veritable mountain of neatly folded footwear.

If Louis has to choose, he prefers Liam’s concern over anyone else’s. Zayn’s is too close to pity and Niall’s is too loud and Irish.

A shadow is cast over his socks and his sorrow, and he looks up to see Liam staring with a very concerned expression on his face. “What are we doing then, Louis?” he asks.

“Folding socks,” says Louis. He’ll never admit it, but Liam’s condescending worry is soothing.

“Want some help with that?” Liam drops to the floor, reaching for two matching socks. “How’re you doing, mate?”

“I’m sure Zayn’s kept you in the loop about the state of my pitiful life, which means you know the answer to that question.”

“That bad?”

Louis can’t bear to look at Liam’s face. He’s possibly the most expressive person to exist in all of England, maybe even the world; there’s no way he isn’t staring at Louis with some horrible combination of pity and intense concern.

“Stupid question.” Liam delicately places his folded socks on top of the pile. They’re much neater than any of Louis’ attempts, which isn’t even remotely surprising. “I guess it must be pretty bad.”

“Just a bit, Li. I’ve only been in love with him for the past three years.”

Liam pats his hand and reaches for another pair of socks to fold. “You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do, yeah?”

“Of course, yeah,” Louis says. (He won’t. He’ll never ask anybody for anything, least of all Liam.) He picks up the last two unfolded socks, lets out a deep breath. “Did you always feel like you had a direction with Zayn? Like you knew you wanted to marry him?”

He has no choice but to raise his eyes to meet Liam’s now that the socks are all folded. Liam’s deep in thought, staring a bit past Louis’ shoulder. “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, it takes work. But yeah, I think we both just felt it. Why? Didn’t you feel that with Harry?”

And Louis has no choice but to whisper, “No.”

Liam reaches out and pats him on the back awkwardly. “Really? I would’ve thought… sorry.”

Louis shakes his head and sniffles. He is not going to cry in front of Liam. Absolutely not. He may have had his heart absolutely trampled, but he’s retained some miniscule shred of dignity. “No, I mean… I still think, like, he’s it, I’ll never find someone better than him. But I don’t think we ever really had the future in mind. We weren’t ever thinking about getting married or moving in or adopting a dog together. We always just lived in the moment.”

“But you didn’t see it ending, did you?”

“Not at first.” Louis is fiddling with a balled-up pair of socks now. He can’t look at Liam, can’t let him see his eyes. If Liam sees his eyes he’ll see his heart, and if he sees his heart he’ll see his pain. “But I guess part of me knew it was bound to happen. Like, things were pretty bad near the end.”

“But d’you know what?” Liam asks, standing. “He hated Turkish food, so now you can finally order it again. I’ll go get the menu.”

Sometimes Louis really likes his friends.

(It isn’t fair how easy it’s always been for Zayn and Liam. It was a bloody nightmare at the beginning, when Liam was just the bloke at the bar for a bachelor party who stayed up front all night drinking water instead of participating in the festivities. Zayn was especially practiced in talking to drunk people at his bar, but Liam wasn’t drunk, and Zayn fell hard for him the way he does. Then there were weeks of agonizing over him, pouring over every public aspect of his Facebook profile and moaning, “I think he’s the one that got away.”

As in most things in life, Louis deserves all the credit for the eventual realization of Zayn’s Wolverhampton-bred dream. Zayn was on his laptop and Louis said, “Did you see that video Niall posted on Facebook? Shove over.” He grabbed the computer and went to Liam’s profile and hit the “request friend” button before Zayn even knew what hit him. Zayn protested (“Oh my god, what kind of bartender friend requests a customer who didn’t buy any alcohol three weeks later?”), but he couldn’t very well cancel the request. Liam accepted it in minutes.

Then there were at least six weeks of them Facebook chatting and texting, punctuated by Zayn’s insistence that Liam wasn’t interested. One day Zayn met Louis after work so they could go out for Chinese before Zayn had to be at the bar, and Louis may or may not have deliberately taken them on an unnecessarily long route past a construction site. Through the layer of dirt on his face, Liam turned red at the sight of Zayn, and they stumbled through a conversation in a way that could only indicate mutual attraction.

It took another two weeks for Louis to convince Zayn to ask Liam out. Zayn panicked at the last minute and dragged Niall along, at which point Louis had no choice but to give him a stern talking-to about the efforts he’d expended orchestrating this whole thing. Zayn called Liam the next day and told him I didn’t really want Niall there I just freaked out what I really wanted was a date with you will you go on a date with me? Liam said Yes of course I thought it was a date and Niall threw me off I thought maybe you were dating and scoping me out for a threesome. (Niall will probably never not burst into painful-sounding laughter at this thought.)

It was like pulling teeth, it was. After the debacle with the Niall-crashed date Louis was about ready to give up. Some things just aren’t meant to be. But apparently they were meant to be, and apparently he and Harry, who became one so easily, never were.)

X

Are you okay?

Insomnia, self-loathing, a panicked feeling in the pit of his stomach. This is Louis’ life now. He goes to work and smiles with only his mouth as he hands customers their change. He eats instant noodles in bed while watching Survivor on his laptop. He tries not to scream every time he sees Zayn and Liam touching, kissing, loving. His life is a paradox now: doing the same things feels like festering, more than it ever has, but the thought of changing his routine makes him nauseous. Repeating the same exact actions keeps him sane, but all the sameness drives him crazy.

It’s cliché, really, but he doesn’t realize how ubiquitous Harry was in his life until he’s gone. All the holes he’s left are impossible to ignore: the empty side of the mattress, the cleared off desk chair, the dearth of exotic spices in the cooking. Everything lacks Harry, and that makes Louis think of him.

Louis doesn’t think it’s fair, exactly, that the world can take a huge shit on his life and keep functioning essentially the same way. Birds still chirp, grass still grows, their upstairs neighbour still has loud sex in the middle of the night. Hell, even within his own flat things are much the same. Zayn’s books pile up on the kitchen table, he and Liam retire to bed together every night, Liam brings home Thai every Thursday. It’s only Louis who’s any different.

Everybody expects him to just get better. Three years, two months, and twenty-seven days and he’s supposed to move on like that. He doesn’t know how he can do it, how anybody does it, how to live a proper life after walking through a hurricane.

Niall keeps asking him to come out to a bar, or to one of his shows, or to some fucking house party in Manchester, and Louis doesn’t understand how he’s supposed to be able to do any of those things. Can’t you see I’m breaking? he wants to scream. Can’t you see little pieces of me are chipping away?

Liam tells him things like Chin up and Nice day, isn’t it? and You’ll be feeling right as rain in no time. It takes every ounce of willpower he possesses not to grab him by the collar of his plaid shirt and scream in his face All I want to do is fuck Harry and then kill him and then set myself on fire and then crawl under my bed never to resurface and, like, no, no, no, I’ll never feel right as rain again, how am I meant to do that, what does rain even feel like, how would you even know what this is like, who even are you?

Under the circumstances, there’s nobody he’d rather have than Zayn. Zayn can be cynical and self-righteous and too intelligent for his own good, but he’s a damn good friend when it comes down to it. He has a way of making Louis feel like the overwhelming compulsion to stick his head in the oven is temporary.

It’s pitiful, but he truly appreciates the stacks of Tupperware containers in the fridge, one portion each. He appreciates coming home from work to find his bed made and his pillows fluffed up. He appreciates the box of chocolates he finds wrapped in butcher’s paper on his bed, although that one might have hit a bit too close to home all things considered.

When Zayn’s not at the bar he’s at school, and when he’s out there are usually vestiges of his life strewn around the flat. A coursepack on the sofa, a study sheet taped to the bathroom mirror. And today, on the kitchen table, a small stack of books.

Curiosity fills the hollow concavity Louis calls a chest, and he can’t ignore it, not after all these weeks of his overriding emotion being numbness. He approaches the table to find a spiral-bound notebook, £0.69 at the pound shop, propped open on a volume of modernist poetry. Like he needs more fucking poetry, he thinks. Thanks a lot, Zayn. (I stood up in a café and screamed I’M IN LOVE, he thinks, then, No.)

The pages are filled with Zayn’s loopy writing, arrows connecting concepts and smaller text scrawled in the margins. At the bottom of the right hand page is written This is the way the world ends – not with a bang but a whimper.

Louis shuts the book and pours himself a glass of wine.

(Liam finds him sitting there clutching his glass tightly, wine stains on Zayn’s stupid fucking notes, and he says Is everything alright is there anything I can do for you and Louis says I’m fine of course I’m fine thanks Liam and Liam says Well I’m just heading out to work see you this evening maybe Zayn will cook us supper.)

Are you okay, are you okay, are you okay. The question stretches on, unanswered, and then a month has passed and Harry hasn’t asked again. Three more days and Zayn tosses a shirt and a box into Louis’ room before he leaves for the bar, and Louis lets them fester in the corner for another two before he musters up the courage to do anything about it.

It’s only because Zayn pops his head into Louis’ room, waving a paper bag from the bakery. The smile melts off his face when he sees that Louis is lying in bed, lights on and fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. “How’s Mr. Unparalleled Malaise?” he asks. The bag crinkles as he lowers it to his side. “Stupid question, I guess. Think you can force enough of an endorphin rush to get out of bed for four minutes so we can pig out on macadamia cookies?”

“Mmm,” Louis says non-commitally. The cracks in the ceiling are much more interesting than anyone gives them credit for, truly. “Pass them over.”

“You’ll get crumbs in the bed, Lou.”

“Since when have I ever cared about crumbs in the bed?”

“I care,” Zayn says, “so get your arse in gear before Liam and I eat them all.”

The only person he wants to talk to about his unmitigated suffering is Harry, but of course he can’t. And he doesn’t even only want to cry on his shoulder, he’s just struck with random urges to ask how work is, if he’s read any good poems recently, if he likes the new Bastille album. It’s just habit, and every time he realizes he can’t it’s like swallowing a dagger.

Can they ever be friends? It doesn’t feel like the pain will ever fade enough for any interaction with Harry to be possible. And even if it does, they were never friends. They were always together, and that’s all they wanted from each other. He supposes this thing really has run its course. He just doesn’t have Harry anymore.

He does, however, have Zayn and Liam and macadamia nut cookies, so he drags himself out of bed. The blood rushes to his head and he feels vaguely disoriented, but he makes it to the kitchen and practically rips the paper bag from Liam’s hands.

“So babe, how was work?” Zayn asks through a mouthful of cookies.

“It’s died down a bit.” Liam breaks off a chunk of cookie, because of course he does. Louis is viciously attacking his, devouring it whole in about two bites. “Which is good, really, because Eli’s been giving me a bloody headache.”

Louis tunes this out. He loves Zayn, and he’s secretly fond of Liam, but he just doesn’t care about the finer points of the construction industry. Or any points of the construction industry, really. He focuses on consuming as many cookies as humanly possible before anyone notices.

He’s reaching for his fifth when Zayn’s hand stops him. “Didn’t realize we’d invited Niall Horan over,” he says. “Cool it.”

“I’m in pain,” Louis says, slapping Zayn’s hand away and taking the cookie. There’s only one left; the optimal outcome is that Zayn and Liam both try to make the other eat it, and while they’re arguing Louis sweeps in and snaps it up.

“Speaking of your pain,” Zayn says, one eyebrow raised. He may never forgive Louis. Maybe he should rethink the whole eating-the-last-cookie plan. “Did you ever box up Harry’s stuff?”

Louis sighs three times with increasing intensity, mostly to avoid having to answer. Zayn, of course, is having none of this. His eyebrows are raised and he’s staring at Louis, waiting. This could legitimately turn into a several-hour staring contest punctuated by stubborn threats and Liam’s worried commentary, but Louis just doesn’t have the energy for that. “Fine,” he says. “No. No, I did not ever box up Harry’s stuff.”

There are plenty of outcomes Louis can anticipate, but the worst is what really happens: that Zayn’s face softens in pity, that he just collapses, that he’s thinking about how fucking pathetic Louis is. It’s been over a month and he can’t even put a few things into a box and drive it over to Harry’s flat.

Zayn slides the last cookie across the table, forcing eye contact with Louis. “Sustenance,” he says. “Go.”

A box. It’s just a box, a cardboard box filched from the goddamn grocery store. It was used to ship bananas in from some exotic location where a poor migrant worker harvested them for the benefit of Harry fucking Styles, banana connoisseur. It seems fitting that this is the box Zayn plucked out of obscurity to hold the last vestiges of Harry’s grip on his life.

A plaid shirt that he never did up all the way, an olive green sweater with a hole in the elbow, two records Louis pretended not to hate, a notebook filled with unintelligible scrawls, a bottle of boot polish, a creased bandanna, three dog-eared novels, a book on Greek philosophy, a cheap watch, a patterned water bottle, a tennis ball, a pair of earbuds. These are the things Louis finds in the crevices of his flat, tucked away under the bed, wedged between two sofa cushions, on top of the refrigerator.

He packs them into the banana box with trembling hands, choking down the raw scream that’s building inside his chest. There’s a part of him that wants to cling to them forever, to slip on the ragged sweater and breathe in Harry’s scent. There’s another part that wants to smash the records and pour out the boot polish and set the books on fire.

But he numbly slots everything into the box, hoists it up with a tiny grunt, and packs it into his car.

He’s not going to break down, he tells himself as his knuckles turn white around the steering wheel. He’s going to drop the box off with steely determination and his best poker face and he’s going to go back home and watch the football match with Zayn. He believes it as he slams the door shut, leaving his car to idle because he’s going to be right back. He believes it as he pauses on the landing to catch his breath. He believes it as he raps on the door, box tight against his chest.

He stops believing it when the door swings open and there’s Harry goddamn Styles with his tousled curls and bow-shaped lips. He doesn’t believe anything anymore, doesn’t know that he’s ever believed a single thing in his twenty-four years of existence. Once again, Harry has the capacity to take precedence over everything else in his life.

Petty revenge really isn’t Louis’ style. He’s not looking for anything undue, honestly. It’s just that Harry’s going through a breakup too, and it seems unfair that he can still walk around looking like a miracle of human genetics when Louis is pale, sallow, gaunt, and clearly running on no more than four hours of sleep. He’s not asking for him to turn into a hideous beast. He just wouldn’t be dissatisfied if Harry looked even a bit like this is affecting him at all.

“Louis,” Harry says after what seems like an eternity.

“Yeah,” Louis croaks, heart slamming in his chest.

Harry’s gaze flicks to the box, and then he’s reaching out and taking it. “Right,” he says. “Okay. I guess... yeah.”

“Yeah,” Louis says again, and he wishes he were anywhere in the world but the dim hallway outside Harry’s flat with the flickering light above his head and the smell of garlic wafting out of Harry’s kitchen. He’d go to Iran or Syria or Lebanon or wherever is supposedly the worst place in the world just to avoid being here.

Harry’s resting the box on his left hip, arm wrapped around it, and with his free hand he hitches a thumb towards the kitchen. “Want to come in? Like. I’ve got some stuff of yours, too, I could gather it up. Put on the kettle. I’ve still got, like, several tonnes of Yorkshire tea.”

Louis nearly says, “No, that’s fine, just drop it off whenever,” but then he’s saying, his voice catching only slightly, “Sure, yeah. Sounds good, Haz.”

(He needs to stop calling him that, he thinks.)

Neither of them know the script for this, he realizes. Harry’s as lost as he is, unsure of the tone to take. Should they be formal? Familiar? How long before they both shift and make awkward excuses as to why Louis should leave?

Harry’s kitchen is warm and small and packed full of spices in jars and mismatched plates and stacked Tupperware containers. He puts the kettle on, waiting with his back to Louis, tapping the counter. Louis scrapes back a chair and sits, trying to stop the bile that threatens to rise in his throat at the memory of Harry bent naked over this table. “Where’s the clock, then?” he asks.

“Hm?” Harry turns, eyebrows raised.

“The clock.” Louis gestures to the wall above the sink, conspicuously absent of the Batman novelty clock Zayn had convinced a very drunk Harry to order off the internet.

“Oh.” The kettle clicks off, and Harry turns back to it. “Just thought it was time to retire it.”

Louis sips his tea alone as Harry bangs about the flat packing his things up. He’d reached down Louis’ mug, the bright red one with the chip in the handle, without even thinking about it. Louis wonders if he’s ever sat at this very seat drinking out of it and feeling morose. A drawer slams shut, floorboards creak, the closet door wrenches open.

Harry materializes with a canvas bag bursting at the seams. Setting it onto the chair opposite Louis, he offers a small smile. “I think that’s everything.”

Louis stands, deposits his mug in the sink. “Good,” he says. The smell of whatever Harry’s cooking is overwhelming. He misses home-cooked meals. “Great. I guess – good. I’ll be going, then.”

And then Harry’s hand is on his shoulder, and, Christ, he has no fucking business doing this to Louis, not here in his overcrowded kitchen with his mouth turned down and his jumper hanging loosely off his body. “Lou,” he says, and he has no right to that nickname, not after we need to talk I’m so sorry are you okay. “You don’t have to. You can stay, yeah? I heard there’s football on.”

Louis believed that he could shove that box into Harry’s big hands with their long fingers and be cleansed of the whole ordeal. He believed he could march up those steps and right back down and go home to the football match and Zayn’s soft sympathetic touches and a cold beer. But now he’s in Harry’s kitchen, mouth agape, and Harry says, “I’m making roast chicken, there’s enough for two,” and Louis’ mouth, his stupid traitor mouth that said “I love you, Harry” and “You’re all I’ve ever wanted” and “Wasn’t I ever enough?”, that idiot mouth of his is saying, “Well, I am quite famished.” Because Harry’s a solar system unto himself and Louis is just a measly dwarf planet, unable to resist his gravitational pull.

The canvas bag is relegated to the floor as Harry slides in across from Louis. The food is as good as Louis remembers, and, fuck, he shouldn’t be getting choked up over roast chicken, no matter how delicious it is. They talk about the football, because it’s the safest thing they have. Louis feels them both desperately clinging to the conversation, prolonging its increasingly mundane duration to avoid talking about everything that makes the air hang thickly around them.

Louis almost feels like he’s home free when they’ve finished, when he’s putting his plate on the edge of the counter and gazing out the window to the unforgiving concrete two storeys down. It’s time for him to make an excuse and go home to Zayn, he thinks, to go where he belongs and where he feels like he can breathe without his internal organs threatening to collapse in on themselves.

But then the stupid green-eyed boy who he loved for three years, two months, and twenty-seven days, who’s swathed in plaid and curls and magic fairy dust, then he says softly, “You alright, Lou?”

Harry always ruins things.

Louis is strong emotionally, that’s the thing. He’s resilient, he’s stoic, he’s guarded. There are three people in the world who have seen the adult Louis Tomlinson cry: his mum, Zayn, and Harry.

Harry’s like a magnet for his emotions, forcibly drawing them out no matter how tightly Louis locks them up. There’s no such thing as impenetrability when it comes to Harry, and try as Louis might to claw at his uncanny ability to see through the façade, he can’t hide anything from him.

Harry pulls him tightly against his chest just before the first tear falls, rolling down a plaid-covered shoulder. “I’m trying,” Louis whimpers pathetically. “I’m trying so hard to be okay.”

Harry’s hands feel impossibly big splayed across his back, and the smell of chicken is still hanging in the air, and when he feels his hair against his cheek Louis has the briefest flash to kissing Harry, his curls brushing against his temple. “I know, Lou,” he says. “It’s okay. It’ll... it’ll pass.”

“I just feel so foolish, Haz,” Louis says, withdrawing from the hug. It’s selfish, really, but he can’t make himself give up the nickname. “Like I believed in us when it was never true.”

“It was true.” There’s force behind Harry’s normally carefree voice. “We were good for a long time, we really were. It was, like, yeah. We were good.”

Louis raises his eyes. He can’t place Harry’s expression, his slightly narrowed eyes and parted lips. “What went wrong?”

Harry looks away. Louis tries and fails to remember a time when he evaded eye contact or denied anyone anything at all. “I don’t know,” he says. “I think we’ll drive ourselves crazy if we try to figure it out.”

“I just wish I understood why,” Louis says, eyes turned down to the checkered floor. The kitchen feels stifling now, the once-intoxicating scent making him nauseous. “I wish I had a reason.”

There’s a V between Harry’s eyebrows, his eyes dull and sad. “You know it’s complicated.”

Louis turns away.

“You know I didn’t want to,” Harry continues, and he’s pleading, Louis realizes, he’s trying to fill the rift that’s come between them by begging. “I tried so hard, Lou, but, like. You felt it too. We both knew. And I put it off for so long, because I loved you, but.”

“It wasn’t enough,” Louis whispers to a stain on the cream tile.

Was it ever enough? Or were they always pretending, each day chipping away at the lie to reveal the fact that it was never fucking enough?

“Louis.” Harry takes him by the shoulders, looking him square in the eyes. “Please tell me if there’s anything I can do.”

And he shouldn’t have said that, he shouldn’t be so nice, he shouldn’t be making it harder for Louis to detach cleanly. “I just,” Louis says, sniffling pathetically. (Harry won’t mind, Harry won’t think he’s the worst excuse for a human being on the planet, Harry will keep smiling and thinking the best of him.) “I just need to know that I actually did deserve you. I need to know that, like, someone as unprecedented as you can exist in my life without it being a fluke.”

And there it is, that urge to reach out with his thumb and smooth the creases that form on Harry’s forehead. He can’t, though, he can’t, that’s over. It’s over. “Of course, Lou,” Harry says, like he’s never considered the alternative. (Louis supposes he hasn’t.) “Of course it wasn’t a fluke. It was… I loved you. From the moment I met you, I thought you were smart and funny and… and interesting. And beautiful. And, like, Lou. This has nothing to do with any of that.” His eyes are watery when he says in a near whisper, “You deserve someone amazing.”

I had someone amazing, Louis almost says.

“Louis? Is there something you want to say to me?”

Here’s what Louis wants to say to him:

Your laugh gave me hope. Something as simple as a smile on your lips sent sparks shooting down my spine. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to merely be in your presence. I kissed your lips and your nose and your stupid tattoos a thousand times and it still doesn’t feel like enough. You were my favourite.

Instead, he makes a hasty excuse, shoulders the bag, takes the stairs two at a time. He ignores Zayn calling to him from the sofa when he gets in, tossing his keys onto his dresser and dumping the bag out onto his unmade bed.

A wrinkled button-up, his favourite black jeans, a pair of dirty white Keds, an iPhone charger, a book of poetry he’d meant to give to Zayn, an uncashed paycheque, a book of crossword puzzles, a Spider-Man action figure, a gift card to Topman with a balance of £12.72, a signed Beyoncé CD, a bottle of aftershave.

These are the marks he left on Harry’s life.

XI

You free for coffee tomorrow? .x

Louis has turned into an asshole. He told Zayn he was going to die young if he didn’t quit smoking and he told Niall it’s no wonder he’s not getting laid when he wears that stupid snapback every day and he tells Liam, wholesome foolish simple kind Liam, that he’s no fun at parties. Zayn gets mad and Niall laughs it off and Liam says, “Louis, mate, I know you’re going through a tough time, but you may want to tone it down.”

Louis was happy with his boring little life and then he met Harry and he wasn’t, and now Harry’s gone and he’s turned into the worst version of himself, all his negative traits exaggerated so that now he’s just an awful, awful caricature.

Zayn’s been avoiding him, studying in his room instead of the common areas and coming into the kitchen to fix himself a meal when Louis is in the shower. Louis feels this like a punch to the gut, because if he doesn’t have Zayn who does he have? Liam’s just been delicate around him, trying to skirt the issues even though Louis can tell he’s buzzing with the desire to baby him. And Niall’s been telling him Come to my show you need to go out you can meet Greg James from Radio 1.

He needs Harry to talk him down from this, but Harry’s the goddamn reason for it. Louis is in a bind, and he spends most of his time lying in bed or snapping at customers. Amanda still gives him cookies when she works, but it just reminds Louis too much of Harry filching pieces of slightly-stale cake for him after every shift. He usually brings home the cookies and puts them on the table as a peace offering to Zayn. By the next morning, they’ve always disappeared. Zayn still won’t talk to him.

Even now, after all these months, Harry’s making Louis feel inadequate. The bustle of people with their busy lives, the exotic scents of coffee beans and spices and freshly baked scones, the indie music pumping out of the speakers – all of it makes Louis feels like an impostor. He feels as though there’s a neon sign above his head pointing out all his flaws. He’s stagnant, he’s unfiltered, he’s stubborn, he cares too much about everything.

The walls are exposed brick and there’s black and white photography hung up and he stumbles over the pronunciation of his oversized coffee and he doesn’t fucking belong here. Harry belongs here.

He’s here because to turn Harry down was to admit defeat. It was to say that he’s still not over him, can’t just be friends, can’t even look at him without feeling like his muscles will atrophy. He’s here because the only option was to say yes.

Harry’s late, and Louis is tapping his foot anxiously and refreshing Facebook on his phone twenty-three times a second, and the radio switches from one song Louis could never hope to know to another, and then Harry’s standing in front of him in a peacoat and windswept curls, and he’s putting his bag on the empty chair and smiling and saying “I’ll be right back,” and Louis barely has time to process his arrival before he’s standing in line looking devastatingly attractive with his red-tipped nose and mile-long legs.

The opulence of their life together seems so clear to Louis now. Hours on end lying tangled in each other, laundry piling up for weeks, takeaway for nearly every meal. It’s excessive, it’s ridiculous, it something he can’t fathom now that they’re apart.

When Harry returns, he’s clutching two paper bags and a coffee, and he drops into the chair so easily, sliding one of the bags across the table. “Double fudge brownie,” he says with a smile. “Your favourite.”

He has no right to know these things about Louis and even less right to be so goddamn nice. He broke Louis’ heart, he shattered it into a million billion trillion pieces so fine that even with Crazy Glue it will never be whole again, and here he is being smiley and handsome and buying Louis a shitty fucking double fudge brownie and making it impossible, absolutely fucking impossible, for Louis to hate him.

Louis opens the bag and smiles weakly. “Thanks, Haz.”

Harry’s taking a sip of coffee, then he’s putting it down and frowning and saying, “So how’ve you been, Lou?”, and there’s this one curl that’s sticking out wildly, and Louis wants so badly to reach out and pat it down, and he says, “Okay.”

“Like, okay okay, or like I don’t want to tell you I’ve actually been shit okay?”

Louis smoothes out the paper bag. It’s deafening over the silence. “Mostly the first,” he says. “Sometimes the second.”

He hates how he can see Harry calculating his next words, running through them before he opens his mouth. He hates that he still knows Harry so intimately, that he recognize tiny things other people wouldn’t notice. “You know the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you,” Harry finally says.

How can Louis tell him the truth? How can he say Your brownie buying your renegade curls your impossibly green eyes your slow lazy voice your coathanger tattoo your general existence is excruciating?

“I know,” he says.

It’s not really silent, there are conversations and whispered lyrics and the hum of blenders, but between the two of them in the middle of the table is a stack of unspoken words, promises made and broken, things they remember but will never talk about. Harry reaches one hand across the table, and Louis flinches his away instinctively. Harry covers his hurt almost instantly, but Louis still sees it flashing in his eyes.

“Why did you ask me here?” he says suddenly.

Harry swirls his coffee cup around but doesn’t bring it to his lips. “Because I care about you.”

“You wanted to check up on me. You feel responsible for me. Well, mate, you can take me off suicide watch, I’ve got Zayn and Niall and Liam for that.”

“No, Lou.” Harry looks wounded, and Louis should feel satisfied, Harry is the reason for the gaping hole in his chest, Harry wasted three fucking years of his life, Harry handed him a canvas bag filled with everything he ever poured into Louisandharry, Harryandlouis. He doesn’t feel satisfied. He feels numb. “I just – we were together for three years, I don’t want it to just be over.”

“That’s not what you said that day in your flat,” Louis says. “Tell me, Haz. Was I ever going to be enough?”

Harry looks like he’s just been slapped, and the worst part is that Louis still aches from his beauty. “Louis. No. It’s not like that. It wasn’t about you not being enough, it was, like.”

Louis waits for an explanation, but it never comes. Harry just stares at him, forehead creased, gripping his paper cup tightly.

“You were it for me,” Louis says finally, slicing through the unfinished sentence savagely. “It was always you. Only you. You can’t just expect to march back into my life. You made your decision, okay?”

He stands, and Harry opens his mouth, and before he can say anything Louis says harshly, “Thanks for the brownie,” and then he’s gone.

He tried to make Harry his sanctuary, but it didn’t work. You can’t expect a person to be an anchor, because people aren’t static. If he’d known this then, would it have worked between him and Harry?

He wouldn’t know it without Harry, of course. Harry taught him the lesson he needed in order to maybe, possibly keep Harry. Louis tried to make Harry his rock, and they both changed, and now he’s gone.

It’s cold outside and Harry turned twenty-two without him and Louis’ hands are shoved deep in his pockets as his feet pound the concrete. Three years, two months, and twenty-seven days passed, and three years, two months, and twenty-seven days will pass again. Louis will turn twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, and Harry won’t be there to pop the champagne and warm his bed. Nobody will buy him double fudge brownies, his favourite, nobody will kiss his eyelids, nobody will stretch out his jumpers.

His heart still aches, but Harry was never a home. He was a changing human being, and they loved tried failed, and it’s over. It’s over it’s over it’s over and Louis accepts that. The pain is fading at the edges, receding, and he thinks there’s an end in sight. It hurts, but it’s not going to kill him.

It’s cold outside and his flat is warm and Zayn is probably sat on the sofa doing readings for his modernist poetry class and Louis owes him an apology.

Louis tried to make Harry his anchor, but it didn’t work. They were in love and now they’re not and Louis still has 8,921 text messages, a double fudge brownie, and a hole in his heart that’s slowly getting smaller.

On the bright side, his living room has a functioning lightbulb and he’s going to tell Zayn he’s sorry and they’re going to order more Turkish food than they know what to do with.