(no subject)
The wind is as restless as his thoughts are. There are at least twenty photographers all lined up outside the door of his flat. All shouting and demanding answers for things that Harry doesn’t even understand yet himself. Management had sent a car, a driver, everything is in place and waiting for him, all that he has to do is get in the car and wait. He bustles by the photographers, half-smiling and mumbling barely sincere greetings. There is a carousel in his head, a skipping record of thoughts, of fears - what if nothing slips back into place?
Liam’s arms are the first around him. The warmth of his chest is almost the only thing glowing and warm in the boardroom. Harry is terrified that when he pulls away the ice coming from the corner of the room where he hasn’t dared look yet would freeze him.
“It’s so good to see you, mate,” Liam says, reluctantly pulling away after what seems like ten minutes.
The other lads soon crowd around, exchanging hugs and blessings that are all coming three years too late. It is Liam, Zayn, Niall and then Louis. Louis slides his shoes across the floor, as if the earth is trying to drag him away from Harry again. Harry can sense the hesitation that is hiding behind his smile.
“Missed you.” Louis says, lowly. His arm brushing against Harry’s as if he is afraid to touch him. Afraid to let his skin leave a mark, afraid to let Harry really feel him.
~
The meeting is quick and more or less painless. They sign some contracts, talk about the dates for the upcoming tour. If it wasn’t for the tired tension that is hanging in the air, it would have felt like nothing had changed at all.
Louis is sitting opposite him and Harry spends most of the meeting with his head down, avoiding and fighting any urge to look up and stare. He hasn’t been this close to him in so long. He wants to examine him, he wants to see what has changed, wants to run his fingers over the newly formed laughter lines on Louis’ face. He wants to see if his skin would play back the sound of all the laughs that he’d missed.
Their hands brush against each other once as they both reach for the same pen. They both flinch back, as if their bodies are still clocked to the same time-zone, even after all this time. They are still in sync with each other, still ticking to the same undying need to touch each other, still ticking even though they tried to pull apart.
They’re left alone afterwards. No more suits, no more obnoxious business talk, no more contracts. They are just five lads who knew each other once. Five lads who shared something that resembled what family was supposed to be like.
“Well, I’m starving so what do you say we all grab some food?” Niall says, trying to break through whatever tension he can.
~
They shuffle to some family pub near the offices. They need drinks, hard drinks and Niall keeps mouthing on about how pub food was the best food so they let him win. The rest of the tension lifts after they down a few pints. Liam sits beside Zayn, happily sipping on a coke and hanging off every word that is slurring from Zayn’s lips. They talk about old times, they talk about new times, they talk about future times. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the three years they’d all gained, Harry wouldn’t have noticed much of a difference.
“You’re still my brothers,” Zayn bellows. Harry watches as Zayn dangles his arm around Liam’s shoulder, he watches as he shoots a smile in Liam’s direction. He watches their fingers intertwine, watches as Zayn playfully kisses Liam’s cheek. Nothing has changed for them.
Harry can feel Louis’ body uncomfortably shifting next to him and Harry knows, he knows what Louis is feeling. It’s like watching a mirror image of what they used to be. Their fingers intertwined, their legs bumping off each other, the stolen kisses Harry made sure looked liked whispers. Everything that they’d wasted was on replay.
“I gotta rush, lads. Sorry,” Louis stands up, “I’ll see you at rehearsal?”
He twists around, almost tripping over a barstool that is blocking him. Harry reaches out his hand, grabbing onto Louis’ arm and holding him steady.
“Thanks.”
Louis’ eyes still burn, still hold everything, still cantell Harry stories in a language only the two of them can speak.
The night ends soon after that, they head off their separate ways, in separate cabs. They are all going back to their separate lives, these things they’ve constructed alone.
~
Maybe Harry should have chased after him. Maybe he should have walked out of the pub with him, stopped him and said that he understood. He understood why left. Maybe he should have chased him the first time.
Nightmares are things that appear in the darkness, they creep inside you, take the place of your dreams. But, Louis wasn’t a nightmare, Louis appeared at all times. Louis was his dream. Louis had always been his dream. He carried Louis everywhere, put in him in the empty spaces where he should have been.
Harry isn’t sure how to carry someone who came back. He isn’t sure if the list of things growing inside him would ever come thundering out.
There is a cinema clocking into overtime in Harry’s head. Replaying Louis’ atlantic eyes like he is Harry’s favourite movie. He knows every line. He’s seen this so many times. Their secrets, their smiles, their signals. The times when they couldn’t say “I love you,” so they held up a lonely hand gesture in the air, they were always reaching for each other, even when the world was fighting to keep them apart. Sometimes love just doesn’t win the war. Sometimes it doesn’t even come close.
~
The press has been going crazy. The fans are all back in full gear, all ready to buy tickets. Liam takes charge of the interviews, he talks about how eternally grateful they felt to have people who stuck by, who still loved them. He doesn’t lie once. He never has to.
Rehearsals start three weeks later. Louis is in his element, it is like being in theatre was this new limb that he grew over time. Zayn spends most of his time messing with him, trying to incorporate his own dance moves into what Louis has spent so long trying to perfect.
They sing together and everything blends back, like their voices have been stitched together by some invisible god, everything fits. They eat lunch together. They play games. They tweet stupid pictures. Niall is Niall. Louis is Louis. Zayn is Zayn and Liam is Liam. They are all the same and Harry hasn’t felt so comfortable since the last time they’d been together. This is what he was meant for, this is the way his life should have been.
The seventh day of rehearsals are close to madness. They’re all tired, it is Monday. Nobody really wants to do much work so they don’t. They deserve a break. Niall bunks off to spend some time with a cousin who’s in London. Zayn and Liam go shopping together. It’sjust him and Louis.
“We should explore the building,” Louis announces.
“It’s mostly empty rooms, there’s nothing to explore.” Harry sits back and taps on the cover of the book in front of him to indicate that he already has other plans. It’s not that he doesn’t want to explore with Louis, it’s just that he isn’t sure if his heart can properly manage being totally alone with him.
“Come on, Harry. Where’s your sense of adventure?” Louis urges, grabbing onto Harry’s sleeve and pulling him out of the door with him. “We did this sort of thing all the time, remember?”
‘Remember’ falls off Louis’ tongue like a whisper. He knows, they both know that Harry remembers. Of course he does, as if he could ever forget. So, he gives in and let’s Louis drag him through the corridors.
“See, adventures are always fun even when you’re old,” Louis’s laugh echoes into the empty room that they’re peeking into.
“We’re not old,” Harry protests.
Harry can’t even imagine being old, not anymore. He used to have this clear plan of what life would be like. He thought that maybe he’d settle down with Louis, that they’d grow old together. It was foolish, of course. That’s what everyone dreams of when they’re eighteen and in love. Nobody thinks that it’s going to end until it does and still, there’s always a part of that which Harry clings to. There’s always this tiny sliver of hope that he can never fully shake.
“Toucé, Styles. Older then,” Louis’ hand slips to Harry’s as he pulls him to the next door, “Do you think that they’ll still make me wear braces?”
“You’re twenty six not sixty six. You’d still look-” Harry stops himself, “There’s nothing in any of these rooms, Lou.”
“I’d still look good, eh?”
Louis is holding his hand. Not holding it like he used to but they’re both smiling and Harry thinks that this could be enough.
~
The first time that Louis let go of his hand was somewhere in the middle of their first American tour. They’d been too careful, too open, too honest about loving each other. The press were heating up, more people were noticing it, more questions were getting fired their way. They couldn’t answer things honestly and then play it off as innocent joking between two friends anymore. They were too obvious, it was too real and management had been on their back throughout the whole tour. Every day was another day when they were told to cool it down more and more. Harry could feel Louis flinch under the flashes of the cameras, there were too many eyes watching them. The first time Louis he pulled away, he apologised, he looked into Harry’s eyes and Harry knew, he understood.
It was fine for a while, they didn’t cool it down like management had wanted, they were just a little more subtle or at least they thought they were being subtle. The thing about Harry and Louis was that, what they had, whatever it was, it could never be hidden. A person would have to be blind not see it. Their eyes, their bodies, everything screamed it.
The second and third times Harry didn’t think too much of it. They were just doing what they were told to do. They were trying to cool it down, trying to keep themselves out of the papers. It’s not like they were even really dating, they just had a thing. Harry was sure that whatever they had ran deeper than labels, they didn’t need to label it. They loved each other, they were together and they were happy - at least behind closed doors. Then Louis started to let go more, started to hold onto other peoples hands a little tighter until he stopped holding onto Harry’s altogether, even when the doors were locked.
Harry tried to convince himself that it wasn’t that Louis didn’t want to hold his hand, it was that he couldn’t. But he knew, that maybe all the time spent up until the day he finally let go was time spent falling in love and maybe they just weren’t falling anymore. Maybe there was nothing to fall for.
~
And then Louis let go again. It’s like he’s had a momentary lapse in judgement, like he’d got caught up in the moment, in the excitement of the reunion and he’d suddenly realised that they were young anymore. They weren’t anything anymore.
Harry can start to feel him slip away all over again.
part three.