periphery - harry/louis, liam/louis - standalone [3/3]
Title: periphery
Pairings: Harry/Louis, Liam/Louis
Genre: AU, Angst, Paranormal
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character death
Summary: After a car accident, Louis goes on pretending that nothing ever happened.
Louis sits in front of his computer and hovers his fingers over the keys, tapping them lightly now and then to get the ideas flowing, but he’s too distracted and his eyes glaze over his report, the first page barely half-filled and the blinking text line’s starting to get on his nerves. Filling up three bloody pages on a bloody sales report was never an issue for Louis, always got it done days before it’s due, done it a billion times and it’s almost second-nature, really, but he can’t get the thought of walking out on Liam out of his head, and he leans back in his chair and heaves a deep sigh.
It’s never escalated to that, never sensed the hostility he felt when he heard Harry’s voice in the restaurant and it scared him because that’s not Harry, Harry doesn’t feel like winter’s clutching at his heart in a vicegrip, doesn’t feel like metal scraping against his tongue. This is new, Louis thinks, how Harry felt so cold and distant, and he wonders if Liam had something to do with it.
He stands up and presses the power button on his monitor, having lost all will to keep writing, and he pulls off his pants and sits on the bed, keeping his eyes on the wall and pulling himself back to the day of the accident.
He can see himself tugging furiously at his seatbelt in the passenger’s seat, blood rushing to his head until he can hear his heart hammering in his ears. The car’s completely turned upside down, just off the road where the other car had dragged them along for several feet before breaking away and smashing through the safety railing and plummeting into the waters below. He manages to free himself and his forehead collides with the windshield, and through the piercing headache, he pulls himself upright and desperately shakes Harry’s shoulder to get him to open his eyes.
Everything’s in flashes after that, doesn’t really flow in his head as smoothly as the others and he has to think harder to put them together, to make sense of it all.
There’s Zayn pulling Harry out of the car. Harry on the ground, face bloodied and beaten, a scar across his forehead. Zayn on a stretcher, howling in pain. Harry on a stretcher, eyes shut, dried tears on his cheeks. Louis holding his hand, Harry squeezing tight. The ambulance door closes and there’s nothing after that.
He rubs his eyes and falls back on his bed, exasperation filling his veins at his lapse in memory and it frustrates him to no end how it all just fades into black, like some part of his brain’s been cut out and locked away but he knows it’s there, he can feel in it his bones, and all he needs is the key.
“Why can’t I remember?” he whispers, trying to claw his way out of the ambulance doors but it’s always just him lying on the bed with his head wrapped up in bandages and needles stuck in his skin.
It’s like it never happened at all.
“There’s no need to remember.”
Louis’s body tenses and he slowly lifts himself and sits up, eyes looking around the room.
“I need to, Harry. Please.”
He waits and feels a draft come in from the window, prickling his skin. He closed that window.
He feels a hand running through his hair, fingers twisting around the strands, nails pressing lightly against his scalp and he breathes unsteadily, muscles frozen, eyes open wide, and he inhales sharply when Harry’s finger traces the outline of his scar.
“It should have been you.”
Louis hears skull cracking against glass and his scar starts to burn.
-
Louis presses the phone closer to his ear and he smiles when he hears Liam’s laughter from the other end.
Liam is considerate as considerate can be, and Louis was beginning to think that maybe chivalry isn’t exactly dead, just a rare occurrence nowadays like finding good music that didn’t involve getting drunk or getting into someone’s pants, or like Zayn remembering to do his laundry every two weeks.
Liam didn’t mind that he up and left the restaurant, stayed clear of it, in fact, when he decided to give him a call two days after, telling Louis that he didn’t want to bother him when there’s clearly a lot going on in his head and that he understands his need for space, and Louis can’t help but grin to himself against the hall and lean his head on the wallpaper when Liam asks him out for a drink.
“I mean, you know, if you want,” Liam adds quickly. “If you’ve already got plans, it’s cool with me.”
“Liam, stop it,” Louis says, smile spreading, and he peels himself off the wall and makes his way to the living room in slow, steady steps, sliding his hand in his back pocket. “It’s not a very desirable attitude to give up so quickly before you got an answer, you know. Why don’t you try harder?”
“Am I not already?” Liam says around a chuckle, and Louis chuckles back but it’s more like a titter, really, like he’s just been tickled, and Louis knows he’s right, Liam’s been trying, trying really hard to connect with Louis and it’s not like it’s all in vain, that Louis isn’t responding because he is, responding to him more than he ever did with anybody else, he thinks, and he’s surprised himself how comfortable he is around Liam, a bit like he is with Zayn but without the constant need to resort to insults because that’s the only way they can show their love for each other.
“You are, actually. I’m sorry.”
Liam laughs. “Now who’s the one giving up so quickly? Hypocrite.”
“Oh, lay off it,” Louis says, smile now ear to ear, and he jumps on the sofa and brings his knees to his chest, arm pulling his legs close. “I’ve already apologized, haven’t I?”
“You don’t have to apologize to me, Louis.”
Louis bites his lip.
“You don’t think I’ve been bang out of order lately? Not answering your calls and walking out on you and that?”
Liam sighs from the other end and Louis slides down the length of the sofa, gazing up the ceiling.
“Why on earth would I think that? You’ve got a life and I’ve got one too. And it don’t matter what I think. I just want to know if that’s a yes.”
“Yes on what?”
Liam laughs and he slowly reiterates, dramatically articulating each syllable.
“Would. You. Like. To. Get. A. Drink. With. Me.”
It’s Louis’s turn to laugh and he runs his hand through his hair, letting each strand fall softly around his fingers, and he waits for a moment and bites the inside of his cheek, listening to Liam’s faint breathing and he can almost feel it brushing against his skin, like he’s sitting right next to him, and at first, he thinks it’s because he’s got the phone too close to his ear or Liam’s just really anxious to get an answer out of him, and he almost laughs it off because it’s so absurd, but when he opens his mouth to reply, he feels it again, stronger this time, and before he can pull the phone away from him to see if he left a window open, he hears it loud and clear, whether it was in his ear or in his head, he’s not completely sure.
All he knows is it’s Harry’s voice.
“Don’t.”
“What?” Louis whispers as he sits himself up, voice unsteady.
“Oh, come on, don’t take the piss out of it, Lou,” Liam says but Louis isn’t listening.
He looks over his shoulder at the hallway and squints his eyes, trying to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary, but he doesn’t see anything. There’s never anything. No sign of his hair, his hands, his green, green eyes.
His heart starts to race.
“Lou? You alright? Can you hear me?”
Louis’s breath hitches in his throat and he shuts his eyes, trying to ignore the hand coming around his neck, long fingers slowly closing around his skin and he can hear the sound of plastic beads hitting each other but it doesn’t offer the promise of safety that he’s used to, that nothing’s ever going to happen to him while Harry’s there.
“Stop it Harry. Stop,” he says, voice shaking, and the hand’s grip gets tighter. He takes a sharp breath when he feels nails digging into his skin.
“What-Harry? Lou, what’s going on? Lou?”
Liam’s voice is reduced to a dull murmur and the only thing Louis can hear is his breath, growing more erratic and desperate as the seconds tick past, and he tightens his hold around the phone when he feels the sharp sting of nails breaking skin.
“Harry, please.”
The phone clicks off and he hears the dial tone. Louis feels a tear rolling down his cheek.
“Come with me.”
He hears Zayn screaming and he can’t see anything but red.
-
The loud banging on the door wakes Louis up and he slowly opens his eyes, still groggy, sleep clinging around his eyes.
The sun’s barely shining through his curtains and it takes him a few seconds to get up and rub his eyes, would have taken longer if it weren’t for the incessant pounding on his door like there’s a fire and he didn’t hear the bell, but he knows there’s only one other person he knows who has a spare key to his flat and he doesn’t smell anything burning, so he hopes Zayn has a pretty damn good reason for waking him up at this ungodly hour.
Sliding his legs across the bed and reaching his toes to the floor, he slowly drags himself towards the door.
“Alright already, I’m coming, you bleeding psycho,” Louis grumbles, scratching his head and pulling the door open.
Zayn stands on the other side with hard features and narrowed eyes, and Louis stares at him for a moment, trying to decipher his expression, before standing aside and gesturing inside with a flick of his hand.
Zayn walks past him without a word and makes his way to the bed, and Louis can feel tension hanging in the room, thick as snow, and Louis closes the door and leans against the wood, crossing his arms and watching Zayn with careful eyes.
“Not even a good morning?” Louis asks half-jokingly, trying to lighten the mood, but it goes over Zayn’s head and Zayn only looks at him with clenched jaws and a stony gaze.
Louis doesn’t attempt to figure out what’s wrong because he knows him, knows him better than anyone, and it’s not uncommon for him to get moods like this and it’s usually something pointless, something with a simple solution that he’s too angry to figure out himself but still he knows he has to walk on glass because a happy Zayn means that he can get back to sleep.
“What is it?” Louis asks after waiting a while for him to respond, tone getting more annoyed, and to his surprise, Zayn gets to his feet, biting his cheek like there’s a million things going on in his mind.
“I’ve asked you to stop loads of times, Louis, I did,” Zayn starts sharply and Louis drops his arms to his sides, taken aback, and he watches Zayn with widening eyes. “I asked as nicely as I could and I used ‘please’ and every goddamn synonym I can find in the fucking dictionary and I hoped the least you could do was try.”
“What are you on about?” Louis asks, confused, and Zayn scoffs and turns away shaking his head.
“This is what I fucking mean, Lou. Every time we get into a fucking conversation about it, you pretend like you have no idea what I’m talking about, like I’m speaking in another fucking language.”
“Zayn, you’re making me uncomfortable,” Louis says, his muscles starting to tense.
“Well, so bloody what?” Zayn replies, voice booming against the walls, and Louis starts at the sound, his chest starting to pound. “What makes me uncomfortable is that Liam’s practically throwing himself at you like a desperate fucking puppy and you don’t even have the decency to turn him down politely. Why do you insist on leading him on if you’re not interested, Lou? Why use Harry as a fucking excuse when you can just say ‘no, sorry, I’m not interested’? That’s fucked up, Louis, and you know it is, you know better than anyone that what you’re doing is fucking out of line.”
Louis doesn’t realize his mouth had been open the entire time Zayn was speaking and he closes it shut and clenches his jaw, heart thrashing in his ribs, the tension around them tangible now and he can feel it constricting his throat, like a snake coiling around its prey, and he takes a step forward and looks Zayn in the eyes.
“How dare you come in here and start preaching to me about something you have no fucking idea about!” Louis says incredulously, eyes flashing red. “Contrary to your fucking opinion, I like the guy, alright? I’m not fucking leading him on or playing him or whatever the fuck you think I’m doing.”
He walks up to Zayn until their noses are an inch from each other and, jabbing a finger to his chest, he says with blades in his tongue, “And don’t you ever bring up Harry again, Zayn. Don’t you dare.”
“What, you think you’re the only one who suffered after the accident?” Zayn says, scowling. Louis keeps his ground. “Have you any idea how guilty I felt when I woke up in that hospital bed? How every fucking waking moment of my life, I blamed myself because I dragged you both out there and if we’d never went, everything would be peachy fucking keen and everything would be alright and things wouldn’t be like this? But this isn’t about me, is it? It’s about you using Harry as a fucking crutch when you want out of something and it’s ‘Harry said this’ and ‘Harry did that’ and I indulged you for a while and left you alone because you were distraught and I wanted you to feel better so you can move on with your life but this, Louis? This is not fair to him and it’s not fair to Liam!”
It takes Louis five seconds to try to hold himself back but his anger gets the best of him, and before he can stop it, he lands a blow across Zayn’s face and Zayn catches himself on the edge of the bed, a hand already coming up to cover the afflicted area, and Louis stands over him with his heart racing, the skin on his fist lit with fire. He’s never struck Zayn nor he Louis and the way Zayn’s picking himself up and rubbing his jaw makes his skin crawl and his eyes well up because this isn’t him, never solves his problems with his fist because it never settles anything, just creates more problems, but Zayn doesn’t give him a chance to apologize because the next second, he reciprocates the action on Louis’s face and Louis stumbles backwards, back hitting the wall, and when he lifts his eyes to meet Zayn’s, he tastes blood in his mouth.
They share shocked glances for a minute and Louis is the first to break, and he lowers himself on the floor, hugging his legs, as he sobs into his knees, back shaking and chest heaving. He feels a hand on his shoulder and he takes a sharp breath, feels his stomach drop and he’s scared, but in a second he realizes there’s no malice in the touch, not like before, and he slowly lifts his head up and comes face-to-face with Zayn, eyebrows furrowed, a bruise already starting to spread on his cheek.
Louis drops his eyes to the floor and wipes his face with the back of his hand, and Zayn brings his own hand to Louis’s face and rubs his thumb across his cheek, Louis wincing slightly when it touches the tender area around his jaw.
“I can still hear him, Zayn,” Louis starts, voice cracked and fragile. “I can hear him loud and clear like he’s right there standing behind me.”
He looks at Zayn and Zayn looks back, eyes glassy and ringed with red, and he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
“At first, it’s like everything was normal, you know? That he came back home with us from the hospital and we were fine and we could pick up where we left off and everything would be as it was. I believed it, too. Thought he was there, like it was all a dream, that it never happened at all. But lately, it’s like… When I start thinking about Liam, it’s like he’s angry at me, like I’ve stolen something from him, something I can’t give back.”
He pauses and he feels Zayn move over to sit next to him, and he wraps his arm around Louis and pulls him close.
“Listen to me, Lou. Harry’s dead. There’s no bringing him back now. The sooner you can accept it, the sooner you can move on.”
Louis can feel tears falling down his cheek and he presses his palms against his eyes.
“I loved him, Zayn. I loved him so much.”
Zayn shushes him and brings a hand to wipe his cheeks.
“I know you did, Lou.”
Louis takes a breath and closes his eyes.
-
There’s the beeping of machines and a man in a white coat.
“We’ve done all we can. I’m sorry.”
A white rose falls on Harry’s face.
Louis swears he can hear his laugh.
-
Louis comes back from the fridge with ice wrapped up in a towel and sits opposite Zayn across the dinner table, and they both share a smile before Zayn reaches a hand and closes his fingers on the fabric.
It’s always amazed him how he and Zayn can make up faster than it took to create the problem, like it’s impossible to stay angry at each other because it creates some sort of cosmic imbalance in the world and when the day comes that they’ll drift apart, it’ll be the last day on Earth and Louis figures that if he could spend an eternity with someone, it’s going to be with Zayn like it’s always been, like it always will be.
“Sorry about… you know,” Louis says, pointing at Zayn’s face, and Zayn shakes his head and presses the towel on his jaw, hiding the ugly purple blotch that Louis knows won’t disappear for weeks.
“Forget about it,” Zayn replies, closing his eyes and breathing through his teeth. “Just glad you didn’t break anything. Didn’t know you can hit like that.”
Louis grins. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.”
“Apparently. Anyway, it’s gonna be fucking boring without going to the club for a while.”
Louis furrows his brows. “Are you going somewhere?”
Zayn shakes his head. “Like fuck I’m going to the club looking like this. And besides, shouldn’t you be clapping for joy right about now? Isn’t it your life’s purpose to get me to stop going to clubs or something?”
“Oh, get off it. I only want you to stop bring different guys home every night. I mean, is it really that hard to stick to the same guy for one week?”
Zayn laughs. “You don’t know how the club scene works, do you? And here I thought you were my best mate. How pathetic is that?”
“Shut up,” Louis says, slapping Zayn’s arm and sending ice scattering on the table. “Not everyone was born beautiful, alright?”
Zayn scoffs and puts a hand on his chest. “I take offense to that, you know. I worked my fingers down to the nub to get like this. But you ugly people won’t understand anyway so why bother explaining.”
“Dick,” Louis says with a grin, picking up an ice cube and throwing it at Zayn’s face, catching him in the forehead before he could duck out of the way.
“Oh, speaking of the male reproductive organ,” Zayn says as he wipes off the wetness with the back of his hand. “Liam called me yesterday.”
Louis looks up at the name and guilt spreads in his chest. Zayn notices this at once, can always tell what’s going on with Louis by his eyes, and he shakes his head and leans back in his chair, locking his fingers on the table.
“Don’t worry, he’s not upset. Told me about, you know, the whole Harry thing and asked me to make sure you were alright.”
“That why you came today?”
“Yeah.”
Louis picks at his fingernails. “He say anything else?”
Zayn shifts in his seat. “Said he understands and he’ll give you space to breathe.”
“I don’t know why he’s so nice to me,” Louis says with a sigh, and he can see Liam’s face in the back of his head, smile permanent. “I’ve been shit to him lately and, you’re right, it is fucked up.”
“Well, you must be doing something right,” Zayn replies, and Louis looks up and finds Zayn’s eyes, a smile pulling on the corners of his lips. “Why else would he keep trying?”
Louis’s smile grows to a full-blown grin because Zayn’s being uncharacteristically nice and he doesn’t remember the last time they had a talk like this, a heart to heart, and he can’t help but feel a lightness blooming in his chest.
“Also,” Zayn adds, leaning across the counter, and Louis’s ears prick up, interested. “He asked me to tell you that he has a week off from work starting the day after tomorrow and, if you were up for it, he’d like to take you on a road trip, just you and him.”
Zayn’s viper smile makes a reappearance and Louis stretches his lips from ear to ear, and he pushes back his chair in one quick motion and reaches for the mobile in his pocket.
-
Rain pours on Louis’s car in sheets as he makes his way to Zayn’s flat and he grips the wheel tight until his knuckles turn white.
He hasn’t been too keen on driving under severe weather conditions after the crash because it’s traumatized him somewhat, dread rising up in his chest knowing that he doesn’t have complete control of the vehicle, that any little thing can happen and he’d wind up in the hospital just like last time, or even worse, just like Harry. He tried to make Zayn drive him places if it wasn’t far or avoided it altogether, but this time he doesn’t have a choice because Zayn called him up to tell him he’s caught a fever and he can’t get out of bed.
Louis keeps his eyes to the road, the windshield wipers working overtime, the radio’s volume on low, and he tries not to think of anything but the street names and stoplights, and it works for a while, the music offering a subtle distraction when his mind would wander off, but when he reaches the halfway point to Zayn’s place, a four-way stoplight, a chill runs down his spine, and he doesn’t really know if he imagined it or not (he’s been imagining so many things lately it’s difficult to differentiate them from reality), but for a split second, right before the light turned green, he thinks-no, he knows he saw Harry standing on the other side of the road.
Just standing there, like a statue, hair undisturbed by the downpour, and even in the distance, Louis could see his eyes staring straight right at him, the expression behind them hard to pinpoint.
Ever since the accident, he’s never seen Harry.
He’s felt him, heard him, even smelled him at times, but the last time he saw Harry was when they lowered his casket in the ground, the make-up doing its job well hiding the cuts and bruises, and if Louis didn’t know any better, he would have thought he was just sleeping there, cheeks a soft pink color like it’s winter, tiny breaths hidden by the layers of his tuxedo.
Why he decided to show up now of all times both confuses and scares Louis, that maybe he was right when he told Zayn that he’s losing his mind, but he can’t shake the feeling that it’s all boiled down to this, all the times he thought Harry was there, slowly growing more and more malicious like weeds threatening to strangle him in his sleep. The reason’s far from crystallized in his mind, and he knows that the sensible thing to do is to forget about it and continue straight to Zayn’s flat like nothing ever happened, but there’s a reason why he saw him, he can feel it burning in his skin.
Louis presses lightly on the gas pedal and, taking a deep breath, he turns right and heads for the cemetery.
-
Louis crouches in front of the tombstone soaked through and shivering, and he holds his jacket close to his body. His breath comes out ragged and he feels the mud seeping into the knees of his pants. There’s a tree behind it, tall but not fully grown, and the leaves do little to protect him from the rain.
It’s empty in the cemetery and the winds swirl the raindrops until they look like mist, and Louis brings a reluctant hand to touch the stone, running his fingers along the rough edge and inspecting the words HARRY STYLES etched on the surface.
He remembers the funeral clearly as if it happened yesterday, can still hear people around him, sniffling and trying to hide their sobs in their chests, can still see the look of despair in his parents’ eyes when they lowered his coffin, can still feel Zayn’s arms around his shoulder holding him close, telling him that it’ll be alright, that they can make it through this together. He remembers coming home that night after Zayn dropped him off and crying on his bed for hours, staining the picture of them held in his hand with his tears. He remembers staying up to talk to Zayn over the phone because he didn’t want to be alone and not sleeping until five in the morning.
He remembers when he heard Harry for the first time before he closed his eyes to sleep.
“Hey, Lou.”
Louis pulls his hand back and stands up.
His heart starts to race and he looks around, trying his best to keep his eyes open through the spray.
He looks past trees, over tombstones, down the path leading to the entrance, and he rubs his eyes and looks harder, scanning the area around him for any sign of him because he’s convinced he didn’t just imagine the sound, that he felt the familiar breath brushing against his ear and he knows Harry’s there.
“Where are you?” Louis says, voice shaky, laced with fear, and he stands still for a moment, adjusting his ears to the heavy sound of rainfall and listening for footsteps or the snapping of twigs or anything that might indicate that there’s someone there with him.
“Come with me.”
Louis’s breath hitches when he feels a hand coming around his neck and he freezes in place, every muscle in his body tight like they’re being pulled at each end, fiber by fiber. He tries to say something but all that comes out is a whimper, like he’s suddenly lost the ability to speak, and through his open mouth, he can feel the cold raindrops hitting his tongue like knives.
“You-you’re not here,” Louis finally manages to say, shutting his eyes when he feels another hand sliding across his chest. “You’re not real.”
“I’m all you need.”
Louis eyes begin to sting and Harry’s hand closes over his heart.
His breath starts to shake.
“You’re suffocating me.”
Ice water fills his lungs and there’s the sound of Harry’s laughter.
-
“Give me the wheel, Harry.”
Harry smiles.
“I got it, Lou, don’t worry.”
Louis reaches for the wheel.
“But you’re drunk.”
Zayn laughs.
“We’re all drunk, you idiot!”
Harry grabs his hand.
“Trust me, alright?”
Louis squeezes his hand.
“Are you sure?”
Harry squeezes back.
“I’ll get you home safe. I promise.”
Zayn takes a swig from his bottle.
“How long ‘til we get there? I’m about to piss my pants.”
Louis laughs.
“Soon, I think.”
Harry turns the wheel.
“Yeah, just a few more-”
There’s the deafening sound of metal hitting metal.
Harry’s head crashes against the windshield.
The only thing Louis can see is red.
-
Louis looks up at Liam’s face and snuggles closer, burying his face in his collarbone and inhaling his scent with a smile.
It’s been a productive week and their last stop before they go back home is the beach. They went to restaurants, rode every ride in an amusement park, went shopping for clothes and things to bring back home to Zayn, rode elephants and saw a detailed exhibition of the human body at a fair, and now, they’re lying on a blanket spread across white sands, listening to the crashing waves and watching the sun throw brilliant shades of yellow and orange against the clouds as it sets over the horizon.
“Did you have fun?” Liam asks, looking down at Louis, and Louis nods with a grin.
“Best time I’ve had in a while.”
Liam kisses his forehead and pulls him closer.
“I’m really glad you came.”
Louis traces geometric patterns on Liam’s stomach and watches a couple walking past, hand in hand.
“Me too.”
He looks up and stares in Liam’s eyes for a moment, drinking in the brown until it’s all he can see, and with a smile, he pushes himself up on his elbow and presses his lips against Liam’s, and Liam pulls him up until Louis is on top of him and they kiss until the sun’s swallowed by the sea.
When they pull away, there’s a smile on Louis’s face, and he watches as Liam stands up and begins collecting their things.
He hasn’t heard Harry in a week.
He can breathe properly again.
← part two ♕ part three •
Pairings: Harry/Louis, Liam/Louis
Genre: AU, Angst, Paranormal
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character death
Summary: After a car accident, Louis goes on pretending that nothing ever happened.
Louis sits in front of his computer and hovers his fingers over the keys, tapping them lightly now and then to get the ideas flowing, but he’s too distracted and his eyes glaze over his report, the first page barely half-filled and the blinking text line’s starting to get on his nerves. Filling up three bloody pages on a bloody sales report was never an issue for Louis, always got it done days before it’s due, done it a billion times and it’s almost second-nature, really, but he can’t get the thought of walking out on Liam out of his head, and he leans back in his chair and heaves a deep sigh.
It’s never escalated to that, never sensed the hostility he felt when he heard Harry’s voice in the restaurant and it scared him because that’s not Harry, Harry doesn’t feel like winter’s clutching at his heart in a vicegrip, doesn’t feel like metal scraping against his tongue. This is new, Louis thinks, how Harry felt so cold and distant, and he wonders if Liam had something to do with it.
He stands up and presses the power button on his monitor, having lost all will to keep writing, and he pulls off his pants and sits on the bed, keeping his eyes on the wall and pulling himself back to the day of the accident.
He can see himself tugging furiously at his seatbelt in the passenger’s seat, blood rushing to his head until he can hear his heart hammering in his ears. The car’s completely turned upside down, just off the road where the other car had dragged them along for several feet before breaking away and smashing through the safety railing and plummeting into the waters below. He manages to free himself and his forehead collides with the windshield, and through the piercing headache, he pulls himself upright and desperately shakes Harry’s shoulder to get him to open his eyes.
Everything’s in flashes after that, doesn’t really flow in his head as smoothly as the others and he has to think harder to put them together, to make sense of it all.
There’s Zayn pulling Harry out of the car. Harry on the ground, face bloodied and beaten, a scar across his forehead. Zayn on a stretcher, howling in pain. Harry on a stretcher, eyes shut, dried tears on his cheeks. Louis holding his hand, Harry squeezing tight. The ambulance door closes and there’s nothing after that.
He rubs his eyes and falls back on his bed, exasperation filling his veins at his lapse in memory and it frustrates him to no end how it all just fades into black, like some part of his brain’s been cut out and locked away but he knows it’s there, he can feel in it his bones, and all he needs is the key.
“Why can’t I remember?” he whispers, trying to claw his way out of the ambulance doors but it’s always just him lying on the bed with his head wrapped up in bandages and needles stuck in his skin.
It’s like it never happened at all.
“There’s no need to remember.”
Louis’s body tenses and he slowly lifts himself and sits up, eyes looking around the room.
“I need to, Harry. Please.”
He waits and feels a draft come in from the window, prickling his skin. He closed that window.
He feels a hand running through his hair, fingers twisting around the strands, nails pressing lightly against his scalp and he breathes unsteadily, muscles frozen, eyes open wide, and he inhales sharply when Harry’s finger traces the outline of his scar.
“It should have been you.”
Louis hears skull cracking against glass and his scar starts to burn.
-
Louis presses the phone closer to his ear and he smiles when he hears Liam’s laughter from the other end.
Liam is considerate as considerate can be, and Louis was beginning to think that maybe chivalry isn’t exactly dead, just a rare occurrence nowadays like finding good music that didn’t involve getting drunk or getting into someone’s pants, or like Zayn remembering to do his laundry every two weeks.
Liam didn’t mind that he up and left the restaurant, stayed clear of it, in fact, when he decided to give him a call two days after, telling Louis that he didn’t want to bother him when there’s clearly a lot going on in his head and that he understands his need for space, and Louis can’t help but grin to himself against the hall and lean his head on the wallpaper when Liam asks him out for a drink.
“I mean, you know, if you want,” Liam adds quickly. “If you’ve already got plans, it’s cool with me.”
“Liam, stop it,” Louis says, smile spreading, and he peels himself off the wall and makes his way to the living room in slow, steady steps, sliding his hand in his back pocket. “It’s not a very desirable attitude to give up so quickly before you got an answer, you know. Why don’t you try harder?”
“Am I not already?” Liam says around a chuckle, and Louis chuckles back but it’s more like a titter, really, like he’s just been tickled, and Louis knows he’s right, Liam’s been trying, trying really hard to connect with Louis and it’s not like it’s all in vain, that Louis isn’t responding because he is, responding to him more than he ever did with anybody else, he thinks, and he’s surprised himself how comfortable he is around Liam, a bit like he is with Zayn but without the constant need to resort to insults because that’s the only way they can show their love for each other.
“You are, actually. I’m sorry.”
Liam laughs. “Now who’s the one giving up so quickly? Hypocrite.”
“Oh, lay off it,” Louis says, smile now ear to ear, and he jumps on the sofa and brings his knees to his chest, arm pulling his legs close. “I’ve already apologized, haven’t I?”
“You don’t have to apologize to me, Louis.”
Louis bites his lip.
“You don’t think I’ve been bang out of order lately? Not answering your calls and walking out on you and that?”
Liam sighs from the other end and Louis slides down the length of the sofa, gazing up the ceiling.
“Why on earth would I think that? You’ve got a life and I’ve got one too. And it don’t matter what I think. I just want to know if that’s a yes.”
“Yes on what?”
Liam laughs and he slowly reiterates, dramatically articulating each syllable.
“Would. You. Like. To. Get. A. Drink. With. Me.”
It’s Louis’s turn to laugh and he runs his hand through his hair, letting each strand fall softly around his fingers, and he waits for a moment and bites the inside of his cheek, listening to Liam’s faint breathing and he can almost feel it brushing against his skin, like he’s sitting right next to him, and at first, he thinks it’s because he’s got the phone too close to his ear or Liam’s just really anxious to get an answer out of him, and he almost laughs it off because it’s so absurd, but when he opens his mouth to reply, he feels it again, stronger this time, and before he can pull the phone away from him to see if he left a window open, he hears it loud and clear, whether it was in his ear or in his head, he’s not completely sure.
All he knows is it’s Harry’s voice.
“Don’t.”
“What?” Louis whispers as he sits himself up, voice unsteady.
“Oh, come on, don’t take the piss out of it, Lou,” Liam says but Louis isn’t listening.
He looks over his shoulder at the hallway and squints his eyes, trying to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary, but he doesn’t see anything. There’s never anything. No sign of his hair, his hands, his green, green eyes.
His heart starts to race.
“Lou? You alright? Can you hear me?”
Louis’s breath hitches in his throat and he shuts his eyes, trying to ignore the hand coming around his neck, long fingers slowly closing around his skin and he can hear the sound of plastic beads hitting each other but it doesn’t offer the promise of safety that he’s used to, that nothing’s ever going to happen to him while Harry’s there.
“Stop it Harry. Stop,” he says, voice shaking, and the hand’s grip gets tighter. He takes a sharp breath when he feels nails digging into his skin.
“What-Harry? Lou, what’s going on? Lou?”
Liam’s voice is reduced to a dull murmur and the only thing Louis can hear is his breath, growing more erratic and desperate as the seconds tick past, and he tightens his hold around the phone when he feels the sharp sting of nails breaking skin.
“Harry, please.”
The phone clicks off and he hears the dial tone. Louis feels a tear rolling down his cheek.
“Come with me.”
He hears Zayn screaming and he can’t see anything but red.
-
The loud banging on the door wakes Louis up and he slowly opens his eyes, still groggy, sleep clinging around his eyes.
The sun’s barely shining through his curtains and it takes him a few seconds to get up and rub his eyes, would have taken longer if it weren’t for the incessant pounding on his door like there’s a fire and he didn’t hear the bell, but he knows there’s only one other person he knows who has a spare key to his flat and he doesn’t smell anything burning, so he hopes Zayn has a pretty damn good reason for waking him up at this ungodly hour.
Sliding his legs across the bed and reaching his toes to the floor, he slowly drags himself towards the door.
“Alright already, I’m coming, you bleeding psycho,” Louis grumbles, scratching his head and pulling the door open.
Zayn stands on the other side with hard features and narrowed eyes, and Louis stares at him for a moment, trying to decipher his expression, before standing aside and gesturing inside with a flick of his hand.
Zayn walks past him without a word and makes his way to the bed, and Louis can feel tension hanging in the room, thick as snow, and Louis closes the door and leans against the wood, crossing his arms and watching Zayn with careful eyes.
“Not even a good morning?” Louis asks half-jokingly, trying to lighten the mood, but it goes over Zayn’s head and Zayn only looks at him with clenched jaws and a stony gaze.
Louis doesn’t attempt to figure out what’s wrong because he knows him, knows him better than anyone, and it’s not uncommon for him to get moods like this and it’s usually something pointless, something with a simple solution that he’s too angry to figure out himself but still he knows he has to walk on glass because a happy Zayn means that he can get back to sleep.
“What is it?” Louis asks after waiting a while for him to respond, tone getting more annoyed, and to his surprise, Zayn gets to his feet, biting his cheek like there’s a million things going on in his mind.
“I’ve asked you to stop loads of times, Louis, I did,” Zayn starts sharply and Louis drops his arms to his sides, taken aback, and he watches Zayn with widening eyes. “I asked as nicely as I could and I used ‘please’ and every goddamn synonym I can find in the fucking dictionary and I hoped the least you could do was try.”
“What are you on about?” Louis asks, confused, and Zayn scoffs and turns away shaking his head.
“This is what I fucking mean, Lou. Every time we get into a fucking conversation about it, you pretend like you have no idea what I’m talking about, like I’m speaking in another fucking language.”
“Zayn, you’re making me uncomfortable,” Louis says, his muscles starting to tense.
“Well, so bloody what?” Zayn replies, voice booming against the walls, and Louis starts at the sound, his chest starting to pound. “What makes me uncomfortable is that Liam’s practically throwing himself at you like a desperate fucking puppy and you don’t even have the decency to turn him down politely. Why do you insist on leading him on if you’re not interested, Lou? Why use Harry as a fucking excuse when you can just say ‘no, sorry, I’m not interested’? That’s fucked up, Louis, and you know it is, you know better than anyone that what you’re doing is fucking out of line.”
Louis doesn’t realize his mouth had been open the entire time Zayn was speaking and he closes it shut and clenches his jaw, heart thrashing in his ribs, the tension around them tangible now and he can feel it constricting his throat, like a snake coiling around its prey, and he takes a step forward and looks Zayn in the eyes.
“How dare you come in here and start preaching to me about something you have no fucking idea about!” Louis says incredulously, eyes flashing red. “Contrary to your fucking opinion, I like the guy, alright? I’m not fucking leading him on or playing him or whatever the fuck you think I’m doing.”
He walks up to Zayn until their noses are an inch from each other and, jabbing a finger to his chest, he says with blades in his tongue, “And don’t you ever bring up Harry again, Zayn. Don’t you dare.”
“What, you think you’re the only one who suffered after the accident?” Zayn says, scowling. Louis keeps his ground. “Have you any idea how guilty I felt when I woke up in that hospital bed? How every fucking waking moment of my life, I blamed myself because I dragged you both out there and if we’d never went, everything would be peachy fucking keen and everything would be alright and things wouldn’t be like this? But this isn’t about me, is it? It’s about you using Harry as a fucking crutch when you want out of something and it’s ‘Harry said this’ and ‘Harry did that’ and I indulged you for a while and left you alone because you were distraught and I wanted you to feel better so you can move on with your life but this, Louis? This is not fair to him and it’s not fair to Liam!”
It takes Louis five seconds to try to hold himself back but his anger gets the best of him, and before he can stop it, he lands a blow across Zayn’s face and Zayn catches himself on the edge of the bed, a hand already coming up to cover the afflicted area, and Louis stands over him with his heart racing, the skin on his fist lit with fire. He’s never struck Zayn nor he Louis and the way Zayn’s picking himself up and rubbing his jaw makes his skin crawl and his eyes well up because this isn’t him, never solves his problems with his fist because it never settles anything, just creates more problems, but Zayn doesn’t give him a chance to apologize because the next second, he reciprocates the action on Louis’s face and Louis stumbles backwards, back hitting the wall, and when he lifts his eyes to meet Zayn’s, he tastes blood in his mouth.
They share shocked glances for a minute and Louis is the first to break, and he lowers himself on the floor, hugging his legs, as he sobs into his knees, back shaking and chest heaving. He feels a hand on his shoulder and he takes a sharp breath, feels his stomach drop and he’s scared, but in a second he realizes there’s no malice in the touch, not like before, and he slowly lifts his head up and comes face-to-face with Zayn, eyebrows furrowed, a bruise already starting to spread on his cheek.
Louis drops his eyes to the floor and wipes his face with the back of his hand, and Zayn brings his own hand to Louis’s face and rubs his thumb across his cheek, Louis wincing slightly when it touches the tender area around his jaw.
“I can still hear him, Zayn,” Louis starts, voice cracked and fragile. “I can hear him loud and clear like he’s right there standing behind me.”
He looks at Zayn and Zayn looks back, eyes glassy and ringed with red, and he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
“At first, it’s like everything was normal, you know? That he came back home with us from the hospital and we were fine and we could pick up where we left off and everything would be as it was. I believed it, too. Thought he was there, like it was all a dream, that it never happened at all. But lately, it’s like… When I start thinking about Liam, it’s like he’s angry at me, like I’ve stolen something from him, something I can’t give back.”
He pauses and he feels Zayn move over to sit next to him, and he wraps his arm around Louis and pulls him close.
“Listen to me, Lou. Harry’s dead. There’s no bringing him back now. The sooner you can accept it, the sooner you can move on.”
Louis can feel tears falling down his cheek and he presses his palms against his eyes.
“I loved him, Zayn. I loved him so much.”
Zayn shushes him and brings a hand to wipe his cheeks.
“I know you did, Lou.”
Louis takes a breath and closes his eyes.
-
There’s the beeping of machines and a man in a white coat.
“We’ve done all we can. I’m sorry.”
A white rose falls on Harry’s face.
Louis swears he can hear his laugh.
-
Louis comes back from the fridge with ice wrapped up in a towel and sits opposite Zayn across the dinner table, and they both share a smile before Zayn reaches a hand and closes his fingers on the fabric.
It’s always amazed him how he and Zayn can make up faster than it took to create the problem, like it’s impossible to stay angry at each other because it creates some sort of cosmic imbalance in the world and when the day comes that they’ll drift apart, it’ll be the last day on Earth and Louis figures that if he could spend an eternity with someone, it’s going to be with Zayn like it’s always been, like it always will be.
“Sorry about… you know,” Louis says, pointing at Zayn’s face, and Zayn shakes his head and presses the towel on his jaw, hiding the ugly purple blotch that Louis knows won’t disappear for weeks.
“Forget about it,” Zayn replies, closing his eyes and breathing through his teeth. “Just glad you didn’t break anything. Didn’t know you can hit like that.”
Louis grins. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.”
“Apparently. Anyway, it’s gonna be fucking boring without going to the club for a while.”
Louis furrows his brows. “Are you going somewhere?”
Zayn shakes his head. “Like fuck I’m going to the club looking like this. And besides, shouldn’t you be clapping for joy right about now? Isn’t it your life’s purpose to get me to stop going to clubs or something?”
“Oh, get off it. I only want you to stop bring different guys home every night. I mean, is it really that hard to stick to the same guy for one week?”
Zayn laughs. “You don’t know how the club scene works, do you? And here I thought you were my best mate. How pathetic is that?”
“Shut up,” Louis says, slapping Zayn’s arm and sending ice scattering on the table. “Not everyone was born beautiful, alright?”
Zayn scoffs and puts a hand on his chest. “I take offense to that, you know. I worked my fingers down to the nub to get like this. But you ugly people won’t understand anyway so why bother explaining.”
“Dick,” Louis says with a grin, picking up an ice cube and throwing it at Zayn’s face, catching him in the forehead before he could duck out of the way.
“Oh, speaking of the male reproductive organ,” Zayn says as he wipes off the wetness with the back of his hand. “Liam called me yesterday.”
Louis looks up at the name and guilt spreads in his chest. Zayn notices this at once, can always tell what’s going on with Louis by his eyes, and he shakes his head and leans back in his chair, locking his fingers on the table.
“Don’t worry, he’s not upset. Told me about, you know, the whole Harry thing and asked me to make sure you were alright.”
“That why you came today?”
“Yeah.”
Louis picks at his fingernails. “He say anything else?”
Zayn shifts in his seat. “Said he understands and he’ll give you space to breathe.”
“I don’t know why he’s so nice to me,” Louis says with a sigh, and he can see Liam’s face in the back of his head, smile permanent. “I’ve been shit to him lately and, you’re right, it is fucked up.”
“Well, you must be doing something right,” Zayn replies, and Louis looks up and finds Zayn’s eyes, a smile pulling on the corners of his lips. “Why else would he keep trying?”
Louis’s smile grows to a full-blown grin because Zayn’s being uncharacteristically nice and he doesn’t remember the last time they had a talk like this, a heart to heart, and he can’t help but feel a lightness blooming in his chest.
“Also,” Zayn adds, leaning across the counter, and Louis’s ears prick up, interested. “He asked me to tell you that he has a week off from work starting the day after tomorrow and, if you were up for it, he’d like to take you on a road trip, just you and him.”
Zayn’s viper smile makes a reappearance and Louis stretches his lips from ear to ear, and he pushes back his chair in one quick motion and reaches for the mobile in his pocket.
-
Rain pours on Louis’s car in sheets as he makes his way to Zayn’s flat and he grips the wheel tight until his knuckles turn white.
He hasn’t been too keen on driving under severe weather conditions after the crash because it’s traumatized him somewhat, dread rising up in his chest knowing that he doesn’t have complete control of the vehicle, that any little thing can happen and he’d wind up in the hospital just like last time, or even worse, just like Harry. He tried to make Zayn drive him places if it wasn’t far or avoided it altogether, but this time he doesn’t have a choice because Zayn called him up to tell him he’s caught a fever and he can’t get out of bed.
Louis keeps his eyes to the road, the windshield wipers working overtime, the radio’s volume on low, and he tries not to think of anything but the street names and stoplights, and it works for a while, the music offering a subtle distraction when his mind would wander off, but when he reaches the halfway point to Zayn’s place, a four-way stoplight, a chill runs down his spine, and he doesn’t really know if he imagined it or not (he’s been imagining so many things lately it’s difficult to differentiate them from reality), but for a split second, right before the light turned green, he thinks-no, he knows he saw Harry standing on the other side of the road.
Just standing there, like a statue, hair undisturbed by the downpour, and even in the distance, Louis could see his eyes staring straight right at him, the expression behind them hard to pinpoint.
Ever since the accident, he’s never seen Harry.
He’s felt him, heard him, even smelled him at times, but the last time he saw Harry was when they lowered his casket in the ground, the make-up doing its job well hiding the cuts and bruises, and if Louis didn’t know any better, he would have thought he was just sleeping there, cheeks a soft pink color like it’s winter, tiny breaths hidden by the layers of his tuxedo.
Why he decided to show up now of all times both confuses and scares Louis, that maybe he was right when he told Zayn that he’s losing his mind, but he can’t shake the feeling that it’s all boiled down to this, all the times he thought Harry was there, slowly growing more and more malicious like weeds threatening to strangle him in his sleep. The reason’s far from crystallized in his mind, and he knows that the sensible thing to do is to forget about it and continue straight to Zayn’s flat like nothing ever happened, but there’s a reason why he saw him, he can feel it burning in his skin.
Louis presses lightly on the gas pedal and, taking a deep breath, he turns right and heads for the cemetery.
-
Louis crouches in front of the tombstone soaked through and shivering, and he holds his jacket close to his body. His breath comes out ragged and he feels the mud seeping into the knees of his pants. There’s a tree behind it, tall but not fully grown, and the leaves do little to protect him from the rain.
It’s empty in the cemetery and the winds swirl the raindrops until they look like mist, and Louis brings a reluctant hand to touch the stone, running his fingers along the rough edge and inspecting the words HARRY STYLES etched on the surface.
He remembers the funeral clearly as if it happened yesterday, can still hear people around him, sniffling and trying to hide their sobs in their chests, can still see the look of despair in his parents’ eyes when they lowered his coffin, can still feel Zayn’s arms around his shoulder holding him close, telling him that it’ll be alright, that they can make it through this together. He remembers coming home that night after Zayn dropped him off and crying on his bed for hours, staining the picture of them held in his hand with his tears. He remembers staying up to talk to Zayn over the phone because he didn’t want to be alone and not sleeping until five in the morning.
He remembers when he heard Harry for the first time before he closed his eyes to sleep.
“Hey, Lou.”
Louis pulls his hand back and stands up.
His heart starts to race and he looks around, trying his best to keep his eyes open through the spray.
He looks past trees, over tombstones, down the path leading to the entrance, and he rubs his eyes and looks harder, scanning the area around him for any sign of him because he’s convinced he didn’t just imagine the sound, that he felt the familiar breath brushing against his ear and he knows Harry’s there.
“Where are you?” Louis says, voice shaky, laced with fear, and he stands still for a moment, adjusting his ears to the heavy sound of rainfall and listening for footsteps or the snapping of twigs or anything that might indicate that there’s someone there with him.
“Come with me.”
Louis’s breath hitches when he feels a hand coming around his neck and he freezes in place, every muscle in his body tight like they’re being pulled at each end, fiber by fiber. He tries to say something but all that comes out is a whimper, like he’s suddenly lost the ability to speak, and through his open mouth, he can feel the cold raindrops hitting his tongue like knives.
“You-you’re not here,” Louis finally manages to say, shutting his eyes when he feels another hand sliding across his chest. “You’re not real.”
“I’m all you need.”
Louis eyes begin to sting and Harry’s hand closes over his heart.
His breath starts to shake.
“You’re suffocating me.”
Ice water fills his lungs and there’s the sound of Harry’s laughter.
-
“Give me the wheel, Harry.”
Harry smiles.
“I got it, Lou, don’t worry.”
Louis reaches for the wheel.
“But you’re drunk.”
Zayn laughs.
“We’re all drunk, you idiot!”
Harry grabs his hand.
“Trust me, alright?”
Louis squeezes his hand.
“Are you sure?”
Harry squeezes back.
“I’ll get you home safe. I promise.”
Zayn takes a swig from his bottle.
“How long ‘til we get there? I’m about to piss my pants.”
Louis laughs.
“Soon, I think.”
Harry turns the wheel.
“Yeah, just a few more-”
There’s the deafening sound of metal hitting metal.
Harry’s head crashes against the windshield.
The only thing Louis can see is red.
-
Louis looks up at Liam’s face and snuggles closer, burying his face in his collarbone and inhaling his scent with a smile.
It’s been a productive week and their last stop before they go back home is the beach. They went to restaurants, rode every ride in an amusement park, went shopping for clothes and things to bring back home to Zayn, rode elephants and saw a detailed exhibition of the human body at a fair, and now, they’re lying on a blanket spread across white sands, listening to the crashing waves and watching the sun throw brilliant shades of yellow and orange against the clouds as it sets over the horizon.
“Did you have fun?” Liam asks, looking down at Louis, and Louis nods with a grin.
“Best time I’ve had in a while.”
Liam kisses his forehead and pulls him closer.
“I’m really glad you came.”
Louis traces geometric patterns on Liam’s stomach and watches a couple walking past, hand in hand.
“Me too.”
He looks up and stares in Liam’s eyes for a moment, drinking in the brown until it’s all he can see, and with a smile, he pushes himself up on his elbow and presses his lips against Liam’s, and Liam pulls him up until Louis is on top of him and they kiss until the sun’s swallowed by the sea.
When they pull away, there’s a smile on Louis’s face, and he watches as Liam stands up and begins collecting their things.
He hasn’t heard Harry in a week.
He can breathe properly again.
← part two ♕ part three •