break me down [1/1]
title: break me down
author: leira17
ships: harry/louis
rating: nc-17
word count: ~3300
warnings: self-harm (mutilation/eating disorder), suicidal thoughts, roughsex, etc
summary: His voice is low in your ear and the wind is blowing strands of his hair onto your cheek and the moon is somewhere above you and you can hear laughter through an open window in the nearest building and you think this wouldn’t be a bad place to die.
notes: I’m really sorry this exists. unbeta’d because neither I or laurencake are in the right state of mind.
“I wonder how high up we are,” you say, stepping onto the very edge of the roof. It’s silly, because you know how high you are -- you can see, very clearly, cars weaving in and out of each other some hundreds of feet below. Still, you hear his laugh behind you, carefree and ridiculous, because he doesn’t know how close you are to falling forwards, letting the wind pull you to the concrete ground and lower, lower, ‘til you reach the seventh circle of hell. He doesn’t know, but his fingers twist in the back of your shirt anyway, because he worries, always worries, even if he can’t possibly know the things that go through your head at night.
“Pretty high,” he says. He’s closer, now, pressed along your back like you’re some kind of two-headed demon.
His voice is low in your ear and the wind is blowing strands of his hair onto your cheek and the moon is somewhere above you and you can hear laughter through an open window in the nearest building and you think this wouldn’t be a bad place to die.
You’re contemplating that when he says, “We should find the others,” and the moment is broken. He spins you and pulls you in, to safer ground, and you try not to be disappointed by the security his arms give you.
He never fucks you like you’re going to break, but it’s never quite enough, even with teeth on your collarbone and hips slamming mercilessly into yours. The headboard hits the wall over and over and you just know that whoever is staying in the room on the other side -- Zayn, you think, unless that was last week -- is going to give you shit for it in the morning, but you can only dig your heels into the small of his back and urge him on.
Winter is a good season, you think.
It means time off and Christmas decorations all throughout London; cocoa at Liam’s while you snuggle close to watch the Doctor Who special; Harry’s cracked lips pressing icy kisses into your skin until you’ve melted through completely. Generally, winter brings snow and presents and laughter and too much wine, and you remember once you went ice-skating with your sisters and one of the blades on Lottie’s skates had grazed your forearm. She’d apologised again and again, helping you bandage the cut and kissing it better with tears in her eyes.
She didn’t want to hurt you, you remember, and the idea makes you laugh.
Winter is also good because it means jumpers, long sleeves, and nobody is the least bit suspicious that you never roll them up, because the chill outside seeps under your doors and windows and keeping warm is a necessity.
“Happy birthday,” says Harry, smile soft in the dark of your room. Or possibly it’s his room -- neither of you really remember, or care, which door you’re supposed to be behind every night. Your stuff is strewn about, in any case, and you’re at least seventy percent sure that the blanket bunched around your ankles is yours, but it’s not all that important, anyway.
You smile down at him and whisper a thank you before he swallows you whole.
Sometimes you wonder how drowning would feel; something closing around your throat and constricting until you can’t breathe, can’t feel anything but the water filling you up, and you reach for something to hold onto but nothing is quite solid enough, until finally you give in to the inevitable.
You look across at Harry, over the heads of dozens of milling fans, and it feels like someone’s punched you in the stomach, how beautiful he is.
This happens often, because he is beautiful often, and you tell him as much whenever you get the chance. During breakfast, before a sound-check, into the curve of his hip, breathing the words you’re beautiful so that nobody else can hear even if it’s only the two of you. These are things for him and him alone. Sometimes you’ll call him cute, hot, fuckable, gorgeous, in front of other people, but it’s different because beautiful makes him flush all down his neck and chest like nothing else, and that’s yours yours yours.
Sometimes you wonder how drowning would feel, and you think you must already know, because falling for him isn’t all that different in the end.
You don’t remember the first time either of you said I love you, because you must have said it a hundred times in the first week of being introduced. That’s the sort of people you are, the kind that hand over a beer and get an I love you in return, the kind that say anything but in the quiet moments after coming down, wrapped so closely together it’s impossible to tell where he begins and you end.
“I,” he says, and it’s shaky, and you don’t want him to say it now, when it’ll mean something, so you bring him into a harsh kiss and ignore the resilient pounding of your heart.
Winter means hiding from the other boys, from the rest of the world, but there is no hiding from Harry.
He’ll step in the shower with you and trace his calloused fingers down the raised scars like he doesn’t totally understand why they’re there, but he never preaches at you, never says you shouldn’t, so you don’t stop.
“I wonder what it would feel like to jump,” you muse, staring out the window of the helicopter. Niall laughs and cracks some joke that you don’t quite catch, because Harry’s fingers are digging into the crook of your elbow and you turn, surprised, to see a rather more serious expression than you were expecting.
“Don’t,” he says, he pleads, and you say, “It’s not like I was going to,” but Harry’s grip slides to press against tender skin and you suck in a breath.
Liam hums, not paying attention to anything but his current mission of getting Zayn’s hair to stick straight up while the other boy snoozes on his shoulder, and Niall snaps a photo for Twitter, and it’s all so normal but something in the set of Harry’s jaw tells you something’s off, something neither of you have ever voiced, and for the first time since jumping feet-first into this mockery of a relationship you feel uncertain about what’s going to come.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Harry says, following the curve of a recent line with his tongue. “I wish you’d stop.”
“All right,” you whisper. “I’ll stop.”
He sucks a bruise into the unmarked skin beneath your wristbone and very purposefully doesn’t acknowledge the lie. You lie so often you think it must hurt him, because this boy knows you better than you’ve ever known yourself, but he’s never once called you out on it.
Your bucket list is nonexistent, but when asked about it you will always smile and say you’d like to skydive. Nobody, not even Harry, is ever able to tell that you long to add without a parachute to the end of it.
The snow melts, and with it you stop taking a knife to your skin. You won’t be able to hide it in short-sleeve weather, and you need to give the scars there time to fade, else you want the rest of the world knowing how you do this to yourself. It’s almost like a game; what should you do instead? After years and years of feeling this way you’ve perfected the art of self-destruction, but it’s a hell of a lot more difficult with so many pairs of eyes on you at all times.
Harry notices one morning, when you’re curled up watching cartoons. He brushes his fingers down your arm and gasps a little, holding it up to the light to see the faint white lines for himself.
“You,” he says, turning a brilliant smile on you, “actually stopped. I -- I’m so proud of you, Lou.”
He kisses you then, and there’s no way you can tell him that this is only temporary, practical, because he’s pushing you down into the cushions and murmuring endearments into your skin, and you don’t see the harm in letting him believe it.
You stop eating, instead.
It’s easy when you’re swept away on tour, because there’s no Harry making three meals a day and sitting across from you while you force it down, and nobody notices if you give Niall your ‘extra’ bagel or don’t order anything at McDonald’s. Not even Liam, who is so attuned to anything inherently wrong in the band, picks up on the strangeness of it, and that makes you feel powerful.
“None for me, thanks,” you smile winningly at the waitress, and she giggles before walking away, swinging her hips in an obvious manner. Harry snorts a laugh and you exchange the look you always do when one of you is flirted with.
“You two could probably be more obvious,” Zayn says. “If you were shagging on the buffet counter.”
“Don’t do that,” says Liam before you can even make the joke.
Their food is brought out; nothing fancy because they’re not exactly in the nicest of places, but the smell roils your stomach, overwhelming.
“Sure you don’t want any?” Liam asks. He’s paused with a slice of pizza halfway to his mouth like he just realised he should be polite. That’s Liam, you think, all manners and dorkiness wrapped up in a puppy. You wave your hand in a casual sort of way, and he shrugs, lifts the slice to his mouth and bites. Probably eating shouldn’t look so disgusting to a regular person, but just watching the grease smear on his lips makes you want to vomit. Niall is even worse, the way he’s digging into his chili dog, and you excuse yourself to the loo without causing a scene.
You’re sick even though nothing really comes up, and when Harry comes in a few minutes later to fuss and smooth your hair back and ask if you’re feeling alright, you just shake your head.
No, you don’t feel alright at all.
Somehow the hunger pangs become entangled with your libido, because nothing feels better than getting off on an empty stomach. You can’t explain why it is -- jokes about being hungry for Harry’s dick aside -- except that when you come after fasting for a solid twenty hours you see stars, and fuck, you feel like you’re floating.
It’s all so crazy, too, being on tour with your four best friends. Sometimes you just have to stop and catch your breath at the ridiculousness of it all, that thousands upon thousands of people pay actual money to hear you sing.
You’ll laugh and cheer with the boys after every show, and that’s when you feel most alive, the sweat running down your back and the rush from all the screaming pounding through your veins. It’s almost easy to feel normal then, happy, and for a while you get to be outside of your own head and just live.
“You’re looking a little skinny, aren’t you, Louis?” the interviewer says. She prods at your ribs which, all right, do stick out a little more than they did before, but she’s definitely overstepping a boundary here. You feel rather than see Harry’s stormy look that’s caused by anyone who dares to touch you, and you can practically hear Paul sigh when he reaches out to bat her hand away. She takes it as a joke, thankfully, and laughs. “Is Harry not feeding you enough?”
“Yeah,” you laugh, too, sliding a casual arm around Harry’s shoulders. “He’s been seriously neglecting his housewife duties as of late. Pretty soon I’ll wither away!”
It’s all played off as a laugh, but you see Niall looking at you in this careful sort of way, and that’s worrying.
You’ve never wanted the other boys to know about this, to worry. If you had it your way Harry would’ve never found out, either, but there’s not a lot you can do to hide things like scars and addictions when you live and sleep and breathe with someone every second of every day.
Niall is on your other side, and he places the palm of his hand on your ribs while everyone else is distracted by a question. You know he can feel your heart pounding through your shirt, and he grimaces at the feel of your bone.
“Louis,” he says in this warning sort of tone, quiet enough that the mics won’t pick it up.
You sigh and say, “I know,” because you do.
Niall must talk to Harry, because Harry is furious.
He shouts at you, the words harsh in a way you didn’t know he was capable of, until he starts crying, chest heaving like it’s taking physical effort for him to call you out on all your bullshit, and you just stand there and take it. He needs this, needs the outlet, and it’s not like his anger is unfounded.
You deserve it, you know. You deserve every word, and when he leaves to spend the night in his own hotel room for once, you don’t even try to stop him.
It’s alright, though, because you knock on Zayn’s door and say, “Been a while since we hit a club together, hasn’t it, Malik?”
Clubs are kind of your favourite places in the world. You’ve never felt the way you do anywhere else, all insignificant and unknown and in control all at once. Zayn has long ago disappeared onto the dance floor with a pair of pretty American girls, and you join him after a couple of shots of something -- you don’t even check to see whose they are let alone what they are -- letting yourself be grinded on by some scantily-clad girl wearing far too much eye makeup. The music is loud enough to drown out most of your thoughts, and the pill on her tongue does the rest. The best part is that Zayn doesn’t judge; he just keeps a close enough eye on you that you won’t be kidnapped or anything. Sometimes you think you should be fucking Zayn, because at least then you wouldn’t have all these stupid feelings wrapped up in it all, and as you snog some random girl under the strobe lights, you remember the way Harry looked when you first met him, all dimples and innocence, and you feel the pounding bass through your whole being.
You crawl into bed with Harry in the wee hours of the morning, having bribed Paul into getting you a room key while he helped Zayn into his own room. He doesn’t stir at all, even when you press a sloppy kiss to his curls.
“I’m sorry,” you tell his sleeping form. “I’m so sorry. I love you so fucking much.”
When Harry does wake up, it’s because of the way your throat is convulsing around his dick, and even though he’s still angry he’s too close to the edge to pull you off. He fucks up into your mouth with one hand cupping the back of your head, pretending not to care when you choke, and the drugs in your system make it hard for you to do anything but let him. You want to let him, anyway; you want to let him ruin you.
“Louis,” he spits out your name like a cuss when he comes, and it’s the hottest thing you’ve ever heard.
The rawness of your throat is so obvious, in the next day’s interviews, and you tell them you’re on vocal rest, let Niall and Liam do the talking. It turns you on, though, especially since Harry keeps giving you this intense look whenever the cameras are pointed elsewhere.
It doesn’t help that this, the feeling of swallowing hard, the dryness, the memory of Harry glaring down at you, is better than anything you’ve experienced in your twenty-odd years of life. It’s better than the knife, the drugs, everything, and it scares you a little. It’s one thing to self-destruct but it’s another completely to want somebody else to do it for you, and it’s not like you know how to ask Harry for it in any case.
The thing you’ve forgot, though, is that Harry knows you better than anyone else ever has. Better than you know yourself.
“Will you eat again?” he asks, voice dangerous, three fingers already inside of you. “Will you start eating if I fuck you into the mattress?”
“Yes,” you say, arching down to meet his hand. It’s hardly surprising that he uses his free hand then to hold your hips down, but the stony expression on his face as he does so is new, and it makes you whine. This is what you want -- you want him to hate you, to hurt you, to stop looking at you like you’re the greatest thing in the world.
He adds a fourth finger, barely giving you time to adjust before he’s thrusting it in you again. The sound you make at that is loud enough that you’re sure Liam will give you both a Talk before tomorrow’s show, but fuck if you care right now. Harry hisses a yes and curls his fingers, rubbing down too-hard on your prostate. A sob is wrenched from you, and you want to wrap your hand around your cock, but you don’t think that’s allowed. Except maybe, if you try, he’ll be rougher and you think, yeah, that’s what you want.
“I’ll eat,” you promise. “I’ll eat and I’ll stop hurting myself and I won’t even drink anymore if you don’t want me to, Hazza. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. Please, please -- just fuck me?”
Suddenly Harry’s fingers are gone and you whimper at how empty you feel without them, but the head of his dick is pressing against you instead, and there’s no way that can be a bad thing. Very slowly, he holds your wrists above your head with one of his hands, using the other -- the one that had been inside you -- to guide himself in.
It’s nothing new whatsoever. You can’t even count the number of times Harry’s fucked you, or you’ve fucked him, or you’ve fucked around with each other because it’s been going on for so long now you barely remember when it started. So the feeling itself is familiar, but Harry’s never given you that disgusted look for pleading before, never dug his nails into your hip when he’s fully sheathed just for the sake of hurting you, and it’s so much better, so good, you never even knew to ask for this but fuck if you’re going to stop it now.
Harry says, “You’re fucking sick, Louis,” and the venom dripping from his voice makes you even harder. Then he’s moving, thrusting into you with no regard for your well-being whatsoever.
He’s never fucked you like you’re breakable, but this is something else, like he wants to break you, and when you look up into his fierce eyes you remember how innocent he was at sixteen, how he opened his heart and let you make a home there, and the idea that you’ve ruined him is too much, too much, and you’re coming within seconds. He keeps pounding into you, using you for his own end, and when it finally comes and he collapses onto you, you say, “I love you.”
With a snort, Harry raises his head from your chest. “Sure you do,” he says, all sarcasm.
You do, though, you love this boy that you’ve broken so fucking much, and you don’t even know how to show him so you kiss him, all teeth and tongue and not at all sweet, like you can undo everything with it.
You wanted to know what it was like to drown, and now it’s like you’re bringing Harry to the bottom with you without a chance of resurfacing.
author: leira17
ships: harry/louis
rating: nc-17
word count: ~3300
warnings: self-harm (mutilation/eating disorder), suicidal thoughts, roughsex, etc
summary: His voice is low in your ear and the wind is blowing strands of his hair onto your cheek and the moon is somewhere above you and you can hear laughter through an open window in the nearest building and you think this wouldn’t be a bad place to die.
notes: I’m really sorry this exists. unbeta’d because neither I or laurencake are in the right state of mind.
“I wonder how high up we are,” you say, stepping onto the very edge of the roof. It’s silly, because you know how high you are -- you can see, very clearly, cars weaving in and out of each other some hundreds of feet below. Still, you hear his laugh behind you, carefree and ridiculous, because he doesn’t know how close you are to falling forwards, letting the wind pull you to the concrete ground and lower, lower, ‘til you reach the seventh circle of hell. He doesn’t know, but his fingers twist in the back of your shirt anyway, because he worries, always worries, even if he can’t possibly know the things that go through your head at night.
“Pretty high,” he says. He’s closer, now, pressed along your back like you’re some kind of two-headed demon.
His voice is low in your ear and the wind is blowing strands of his hair onto your cheek and the moon is somewhere above you and you can hear laughter through an open window in the nearest building and you think this wouldn’t be a bad place to die.
You’re contemplating that when he says, “We should find the others,” and the moment is broken. He spins you and pulls you in, to safer ground, and you try not to be disappointed by the security his arms give you.
He never fucks you like you’re going to break, but it’s never quite enough, even with teeth on your collarbone and hips slamming mercilessly into yours. The headboard hits the wall over and over and you just know that whoever is staying in the room on the other side -- Zayn, you think, unless that was last week -- is going to give you shit for it in the morning, but you can only dig your heels into the small of his back and urge him on.
Winter is a good season, you think.
It means time off and Christmas decorations all throughout London; cocoa at Liam’s while you snuggle close to watch the Doctor Who special; Harry’s cracked lips pressing icy kisses into your skin until you’ve melted through completely. Generally, winter brings snow and presents and laughter and too much wine, and you remember once you went ice-skating with your sisters and one of the blades on Lottie’s skates had grazed your forearm. She’d apologised again and again, helping you bandage the cut and kissing it better with tears in her eyes.
She didn’t want to hurt you, you remember, and the idea makes you laugh.
Winter is also good because it means jumpers, long sleeves, and nobody is the least bit suspicious that you never roll them up, because the chill outside seeps under your doors and windows and keeping warm is a necessity.
“Happy birthday,” says Harry, smile soft in the dark of your room. Or possibly it’s his room -- neither of you really remember, or care, which door you’re supposed to be behind every night. Your stuff is strewn about, in any case, and you’re at least seventy percent sure that the blanket bunched around your ankles is yours, but it’s not all that important, anyway.
You smile down at him and whisper a thank you before he swallows you whole.
Sometimes you wonder how drowning would feel; something closing around your throat and constricting until you can’t breathe, can’t feel anything but the water filling you up, and you reach for something to hold onto but nothing is quite solid enough, until finally you give in to the inevitable.
You look across at Harry, over the heads of dozens of milling fans, and it feels like someone’s punched you in the stomach, how beautiful he is.
This happens often, because he is beautiful often, and you tell him as much whenever you get the chance. During breakfast, before a sound-check, into the curve of his hip, breathing the words you’re beautiful so that nobody else can hear even if it’s only the two of you. These are things for him and him alone. Sometimes you’ll call him cute, hot, fuckable, gorgeous, in front of other people, but it’s different because beautiful makes him flush all down his neck and chest like nothing else, and that’s yours yours yours.
Sometimes you wonder how drowning would feel, and you think you must already know, because falling for him isn’t all that different in the end.
You don’t remember the first time either of you said I love you, because you must have said it a hundred times in the first week of being introduced. That’s the sort of people you are, the kind that hand over a beer and get an I love you in return, the kind that say anything but in the quiet moments after coming down, wrapped so closely together it’s impossible to tell where he begins and you end.
“I,” he says, and it’s shaky, and you don’t want him to say it now, when it’ll mean something, so you bring him into a harsh kiss and ignore the resilient pounding of your heart.
Winter means hiding from the other boys, from the rest of the world, but there is no hiding from Harry.
He’ll step in the shower with you and trace his calloused fingers down the raised scars like he doesn’t totally understand why they’re there, but he never preaches at you, never says you shouldn’t, so you don’t stop.
“I wonder what it would feel like to jump,” you muse, staring out the window of the helicopter. Niall laughs and cracks some joke that you don’t quite catch, because Harry’s fingers are digging into the crook of your elbow and you turn, surprised, to see a rather more serious expression than you were expecting.
“Don’t,” he says, he pleads, and you say, “It’s not like I was going to,” but Harry’s grip slides to press against tender skin and you suck in a breath.
Liam hums, not paying attention to anything but his current mission of getting Zayn’s hair to stick straight up while the other boy snoozes on his shoulder, and Niall snaps a photo for Twitter, and it’s all so normal but something in the set of Harry’s jaw tells you something’s off, something neither of you have ever voiced, and for the first time since jumping feet-first into this mockery of a relationship you feel uncertain about what’s going to come.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Harry says, following the curve of a recent line with his tongue. “I wish you’d stop.”
“All right,” you whisper. “I’ll stop.”
He sucks a bruise into the unmarked skin beneath your wristbone and very purposefully doesn’t acknowledge the lie. You lie so often you think it must hurt him, because this boy knows you better than you’ve ever known yourself, but he’s never once called you out on it.
Your bucket list is nonexistent, but when asked about it you will always smile and say you’d like to skydive. Nobody, not even Harry, is ever able to tell that you long to add without a parachute to the end of it.
The snow melts, and with it you stop taking a knife to your skin. You won’t be able to hide it in short-sleeve weather, and you need to give the scars there time to fade, else you want the rest of the world knowing how you do this to yourself. It’s almost like a game; what should you do instead? After years and years of feeling this way you’ve perfected the art of self-destruction, but it’s a hell of a lot more difficult with so many pairs of eyes on you at all times.
Harry notices one morning, when you’re curled up watching cartoons. He brushes his fingers down your arm and gasps a little, holding it up to the light to see the faint white lines for himself.
“You,” he says, turning a brilliant smile on you, “actually stopped. I -- I’m so proud of you, Lou.”
He kisses you then, and there’s no way you can tell him that this is only temporary, practical, because he’s pushing you down into the cushions and murmuring endearments into your skin, and you don’t see the harm in letting him believe it.
You stop eating, instead.
It’s easy when you’re swept away on tour, because there’s no Harry making three meals a day and sitting across from you while you force it down, and nobody notices if you give Niall your ‘extra’ bagel or don’t order anything at McDonald’s. Not even Liam, who is so attuned to anything inherently wrong in the band, picks up on the strangeness of it, and that makes you feel powerful.
“None for me, thanks,” you smile winningly at the waitress, and she giggles before walking away, swinging her hips in an obvious manner. Harry snorts a laugh and you exchange the look you always do when one of you is flirted with.
“You two could probably be more obvious,” Zayn says. “If you were shagging on the buffet counter.”
“Don’t do that,” says Liam before you can even make the joke.
Their food is brought out; nothing fancy because they’re not exactly in the nicest of places, but the smell roils your stomach, overwhelming.
“Sure you don’t want any?” Liam asks. He’s paused with a slice of pizza halfway to his mouth like he just realised he should be polite. That’s Liam, you think, all manners and dorkiness wrapped up in a puppy. You wave your hand in a casual sort of way, and he shrugs, lifts the slice to his mouth and bites. Probably eating shouldn’t look so disgusting to a regular person, but just watching the grease smear on his lips makes you want to vomit. Niall is even worse, the way he’s digging into his chili dog, and you excuse yourself to the loo without causing a scene.
You’re sick even though nothing really comes up, and when Harry comes in a few minutes later to fuss and smooth your hair back and ask if you’re feeling alright, you just shake your head.
No, you don’t feel alright at all.
Somehow the hunger pangs become entangled with your libido, because nothing feels better than getting off on an empty stomach. You can’t explain why it is -- jokes about being hungry for Harry’s dick aside -- except that when you come after fasting for a solid twenty hours you see stars, and fuck, you feel like you’re floating.
It’s all so crazy, too, being on tour with your four best friends. Sometimes you just have to stop and catch your breath at the ridiculousness of it all, that thousands upon thousands of people pay actual money to hear you sing.
You’ll laugh and cheer with the boys after every show, and that’s when you feel most alive, the sweat running down your back and the rush from all the screaming pounding through your veins. It’s almost easy to feel normal then, happy, and for a while you get to be outside of your own head and just live.
“You’re looking a little skinny, aren’t you, Louis?” the interviewer says. She prods at your ribs which, all right, do stick out a little more than they did before, but she’s definitely overstepping a boundary here. You feel rather than see Harry’s stormy look that’s caused by anyone who dares to touch you, and you can practically hear Paul sigh when he reaches out to bat her hand away. She takes it as a joke, thankfully, and laughs. “Is Harry not feeding you enough?”
“Yeah,” you laugh, too, sliding a casual arm around Harry’s shoulders. “He’s been seriously neglecting his housewife duties as of late. Pretty soon I’ll wither away!”
It’s all played off as a laugh, but you see Niall looking at you in this careful sort of way, and that’s worrying.
You’ve never wanted the other boys to know about this, to worry. If you had it your way Harry would’ve never found out, either, but there’s not a lot you can do to hide things like scars and addictions when you live and sleep and breathe with someone every second of every day.
Niall is on your other side, and he places the palm of his hand on your ribs while everyone else is distracted by a question. You know he can feel your heart pounding through your shirt, and he grimaces at the feel of your bone.
“Louis,” he says in this warning sort of tone, quiet enough that the mics won’t pick it up.
You sigh and say, “I know,” because you do.
Niall must talk to Harry, because Harry is furious.
He shouts at you, the words harsh in a way you didn’t know he was capable of, until he starts crying, chest heaving like it’s taking physical effort for him to call you out on all your bullshit, and you just stand there and take it. He needs this, needs the outlet, and it’s not like his anger is unfounded.
You deserve it, you know. You deserve every word, and when he leaves to spend the night in his own hotel room for once, you don’t even try to stop him.
It’s alright, though, because you knock on Zayn’s door and say, “Been a while since we hit a club together, hasn’t it, Malik?”
Clubs are kind of your favourite places in the world. You’ve never felt the way you do anywhere else, all insignificant and unknown and in control all at once. Zayn has long ago disappeared onto the dance floor with a pair of pretty American girls, and you join him after a couple of shots of something -- you don’t even check to see whose they are let alone what they are -- letting yourself be grinded on by some scantily-clad girl wearing far too much eye makeup. The music is loud enough to drown out most of your thoughts, and the pill on her tongue does the rest. The best part is that Zayn doesn’t judge; he just keeps a close enough eye on you that you won’t be kidnapped or anything. Sometimes you think you should be fucking Zayn, because at least then you wouldn’t have all these stupid feelings wrapped up in it all, and as you snog some random girl under the strobe lights, you remember the way Harry looked when you first met him, all dimples and innocence, and you feel the pounding bass through your whole being.
You crawl into bed with Harry in the wee hours of the morning, having bribed Paul into getting you a room key while he helped Zayn into his own room. He doesn’t stir at all, even when you press a sloppy kiss to his curls.
“I’m sorry,” you tell his sleeping form. “I’m so sorry. I love you so fucking much.”
When Harry does wake up, it’s because of the way your throat is convulsing around his dick, and even though he’s still angry he’s too close to the edge to pull you off. He fucks up into your mouth with one hand cupping the back of your head, pretending not to care when you choke, and the drugs in your system make it hard for you to do anything but let him. You want to let him, anyway; you want to let him ruin you.
“Louis,” he spits out your name like a cuss when he comes, and it’s the hottest thing you’ve ever heard.
The rawness of your throat is so obvious, in the next day’s interviews, and you tell them you’re on vocal rest, let Niall and Liam do the talking. It turns you on, though, especially since Harry keeps giving you this intense look whenever the cameras are pointed elsewhere.
It doesn’t help that this, the feeling of swallowing hard, the dryness, the memory of Harry glaring down at you, is better than anything you’ve experienced in your twenty-odd years of life. It’s better than the knife, the drugs, everything, and it scares you a little. It’s one thing to self-destruct but it’s another completely to want somebody else to do it for you, and it’s not like you know how to ask Harry for it in any case.
The thing you’ve forgot, though, is that Harry knows you better than anyone else ever has. Better than you know yourself.
“Will you eat again?” he asks, voice dangerous, three fingers already inside of you. “Will you start eating if I fuck you into the mattress?”
“Yes,” you say, arching down to meet his hand. It’s hardly surprising that he uses his free hand then to hold your hips down, but the stony expression on his face as he does so is new, and it makes you whine. This is what you want -- you want him to hate you, to hurt you, to stop looking at you like you’re the greatest thing in the world.
He adds a fourth finger, barely giving you time to adjust before he’s thrusting it in you again. The sound you make at that is loud enough that you’re sure Liam will give you both a Talk before tomorrow’s show, but fuck if you care right now. Harry hisses a yes and curls his fingers, rubbing down too-hard on your prostate. A sob is wrenched from you, and you want to wrap your hand around your cock, but you don’t think that’s allowed. Except maybe, if you try, he’ll be rougher and you think, yeah, that’s what you want.
“I’ll eat,” you promise. “I’ll eat and I’ll stop hurting myself and I won’t even drink anymore if you don’t want me to, Hazza. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. Please, please -- just fuck me?”
Suddenly Harry’s fingers are gone and you whimper at how empty you feel without them, but the head of his dick is pressing against you instead, and there’s no way that can be a bad thing. Very slowly, he holds your wrists above your head with one of his hands, using the other -- the one that had been inside you -- to guide himself in.
It’s nothing new whatsoever. You can’t even count the number of times Harry’s fucked you, or you’ve fucked him, or you’ve fucked around with each other because it’s been going on for so long now you barely remember when it started. So the feeling itself is familiar, but Harry’s never given you that disgusted look for pleading before, never dug his nails into your hip when he’s fully sheathed just for the sake of hurting you, and it’s so much better, so good, you never even knew to ask for this but fuck if you’re going to stop it now.
Harry says, “You’re fucking sick, Louis,” and the venom dripping from his voice makes you even harder. Then he’s moving, thrusting into you with no regard for your well-being whatsoever.
He’s never fucked you like you’re breakable, but this is something else, like he wants to break you, and when you look up into his fierce eyes you remember how innocent he was at sixteen, how he opened his heart and let you make a home there, and the idea that you’ve ruined him is too much, too much, and you’re coming within seconds. He keeps pounding into you, using you for his own end, and when it finally comes and he collapses onto you, you say, “I love you.”
With a snort, Harry raises his head from your chest. “Sure you do,” he says, all sarcasm.
You do, though, you love this boy that you’ve broken so fucking much, and you don’t even know how to show him so you kiss him, all teeth and tongue and not at all sweet, like you can undo everything with it.
You wanted to know what it was like to drown, and now it’s like you’re bringing Harry to the bottom with you without a chance of resurfacing.