generator first floor, harry/louis
Generator First Floor
2.333 words, pg-13
No one important has ever lived here.
In the morning, the high ceiling makes him say, let’s pretend that people lived here.
Harry is pouring cocoa puffs into his cereal and he doesn’t look up from his bowl.
People did live here.
Yes well. Yeah. Louis leans against the window, arms crossed over his chest, the glass cold against his temple. He can see the reflection of one of his eyes staring back at him.
That’s not exactly what I meant.
The day is bright outside but it’s also bright inside, it’s the high ceiling, it’s the large windows, and this place doesn’t feel closed off, he doesn’t feel like he should get outside to breathe. He still wants to. He could never tolerate four walls for too long.
He twists around to look at Harry, but Harry’s back is turned and he’s walking away.
There is one tiny sofa in the middle of the room, in front of the fireplace. Back home, it would be in front of the TV. They don’t have a television here and Harry doesn’t know about the laptop in the bottom of Louis’ suitcase, wrapped in one of his sweaters.
Harry sits on the sofa and pulls his feet up, rests the bowl on one of his knees. There’s space enough for Louis to sit next to him, but Harry didn’t leave it consciously for him.
~
New York is a busy city. Always moving, constantly buzzing. Think of it as a beehive. Louis does. Louis’ metaphors aren’t that original.
He feels safe here, pulling on a woolen cap and walking the streets with his hands in his pockets. Forgetting that the cars are going the wrong way, constantly dodging prams and bumping shoulders, tripping over small dogs, smiling apologies. Yes, he’s elegant, Harry always said so, look at you Lou, it’s like you’re not even trying, but he does, actually. Try, that is, and in New York, he stops trying. It’s easy to lose yourself in the crowd, and Louis stops paying attention to his limbs and his surroundings and sometimes he crosses the street on a red light and when the cars honk, he feels his heart race and his feet lose their certainty.
He likes that.
He remembers Harry’s hand on the crook of his arm once, pulling him hard as a cab whizzed past, the swearing from inside barely audible, and Harry laughing nervously with wide scared eyes, patting him down like he’d just been shot, Jesus Christ Louis you’re gonna get yourself killed and then what will I do.
It wasn’t too long ago.
Harry walks with him, needs some prodding and bribing but in the end always goes exploring and jumping fences with Louis no matter where they are. This time it’s different. This time he doesn’t get off the couch and Louis doesn’t ask. Louis keeps quiet and tries to understand, to comprehend how Harry can hold on to him so tight at night and not even look at him in the morning.
Last time they were here, the one time, Harry dragged his feet on the wet pavement and they bought their coffees from a shop round the corner. They sat on a bench and every time they spoke their tongues flashed red and their breaths were visible white clouds. This time Louis gets his coffee in a Styrofoam cup when he goes, and buys Harry’s on the way back, so it’s still warm when he hands it to him.
~
Harry sings in the shower. Louis shaves over the sink. He wants to tell Harry, you’ve got me worried; you’ve brought me to the point where I count your shower singing as a win. Harry’s singing a song they have covered enough times. It has lost its gloss, but it hasn’t lost its importance, and Louis shivers, just a little.
He drops the razor and holds on to the sink with both hands. Overdramatic, sure, but what of it. What if he wants to be over the top, what if he wants to pretend his life is a movie. None of this makes sense anyway. He’s in Manhattan and he’s in love, he’s in New York and he’s miserable, he’s in an old bathroom with groaning pipes and the love of his life is singing a song about youth like it’s breaking his heart.
He picks up the razor again, spreads the foam more evenly on the sides of his face, and pulls the corners of his mouth up into a grimace that is not a smile.
~
Harry has found a voice coach here, and he says she’s one of the best. He’s at the door, in his jeans and hoodie and he’s telling Louis that they don’t have an appointment today, but he needs to say goodbye. Who knows how long it will be before he comes back.
Louis is leaning against the wall with a mug of tea in his hand, aching to pull the drawstring of Harry’s hoodie from his mouth where he’s chewing on it, tell him Lesson One: Enunciate.
He doesn’t. It’s not the right time. He nods, waves something awkward.
Take care.
He’s left alone in the house, with the lonely couch and the marble fireplace, the high ceilings and the wooden floors, and though he could go out, would rather go out, even, today he just walks around barefoot and hums under his breath, liking the way the sound vibrates in the empty rooms.
He follows the traces of Harry, of what’s been Harry’s life for the past month, the books on the floor next to the bed, the folded clothes still in his suitcase, like he never even bothered to unpack, the bar of soap in the loo. He counts the teabags in the kitchen and the little packets of ketchup; he thumbs through Harry’s notebooks in the second bedroom, only catching a word here and there in passing. He doesn’t mean to intrude. He simply misses Harry’s words.
They could write songs here, he thinks, dragging his thumb across the aged plaster in the hallway. There’s enough space and enough light and people have lived here, they can sit in a circle in the living room and pretend they can hear their ghosts. They can scare Niall at night. It’s been less than a week and he already misses the sound of Zayn’s laughter.
He climbs onto the kitchen counter, sits on the spot where Harry pours milk into his cereal every morning and pulls his bare feet up. Harry hasn’t bought curtains yet, and the view through the large windows is almost scary beautiful, the city glimmering in the last warm light of the day, breathing slow. The kind of thing that makes Louis want to turn away, like Harry with his hair in his eyes and his smile wide, one afternoon by the river.
They’re leaving tomorrow, and the thought is making him strangely sad, strangely hungry.
He’d like to be one of the people that lived here, he thinks. He’d like to find his place in Harry’s flat, leave his trace, become one of its ghosts. He’d like to stay, stay and try to push Harry’s sadness into the cracks between the floorboards and out the window until it’s all gone. He doesn’t want to pack it in their bags and fly it back to Britain.
~
Harry comes back with red eyes and a bag of Chinese, which he sets on the kitchen counter and spends the next five minutes staring at it.
The light’s long gone by the time he gets back, and Louis is fresh out of the shower, smelling of mint and lime and just a dash of rum that he found in the fridge. The human mojito, he thinks to himself, and runs a hand down the length of Harry’s spine when he stands next to him, starts taking the food out of the bag.
They eat off trays, balanced on their knees at the couch in front of the fireplace. Louis doesn’t tell him about the call from management, and Harry talks a little about his voice coach, about her pronunciation and her black hair and her son that plays the piano in the next room sometimes. Louis interrupts only a little, he hums and nods and is jealous, and when Harry leans back and goes quiet, he goes quiet too.
~
Harry isn’t quiet because he’s angry, he doesn’t do the passive aggressive thing, that’s. That’s Louis, okay, Louis is the one with the silences and the locked bathroom doors, he’s the one that leaves for the night to see if Harry will come after, if Harry will run and seek him out in his favorite dark pub and pull him outside to the sobering shock of cold air, tell him you look like shit and please come home .
Harry doesn’t do passive aggressive, so when he called and said I am sad and tired and lonely, Louis packed his bags and landed in JFK to fix the one thing he could, and thought together they’d work on the rest.
~
Harry fits himself into the contours of Louis’ body that night, he’s naked and warm and Louis loves holding him, loves him. Harry snakes his hands under Louis’ shoulders and breathes into his t-shirt, and says he’s sad and tired and he’s sorry, Louis, I’m so sorry.
Louis drags a hand over Harry’s hair, rests the other one at his hot nape and he says, forget the last one, never say that to me again. We’ll work the rest out, love, I swear.
~
Harry’s still in his bed when Louis wakes up. They are not touching, but he can hear him breathing, deep and even and Louis doesn’t dare move for fear of jostling the mattress, scaring him awake. He waits, and he looks at the cracks on the ceiling, thinks absently that if Harry stood on his shoulders, perhaps he’d reach the ceiling then, feel the cracks with the tips of his fingers.
He feels Harry’s fingers climb up the warm skin of his shoulder, creep under his shirt, and his voice is so quiet when he says, Lou.
Louis turns his head on the pillow, facing Harry now under the mess of his hair, two full lips and that lovely nose and half a green eye staring at him. Hey Haz, he says, voice low, their pet names a secret in the small space between their mouths, whispered into the mattress.
Harry’s fingers are still on Louis’ shoulder, under his sleeve, moving in slow circles. Harry’s blinking slow, dreamy, and Louis fights the impulse to babble, now that Harry’s eyes are finally on him, however unfocused. He wants to tell him I miss you and I miss waking up next to you and I want you to stand on my shoulders and see how tall you really are.
Harry speaks first. I was thinking, he says, when you talked about people living here, you meant like. Important people. Singers and actresses and stuff.
Louis is startled; Harry remembers, Harry wasn’t looking at him and didn’t ask but he kept it, that tiny comment, and it’s stupid, figuring out your worth out of something that small but it’s the right way to go. The big stuff, the fireworks, Louis figures it’s all just for show.
He nods. Yeah, he says. Seems like that sort of place. All wood and marble. I could see Audrey Hepburn living here, walking around in her sunglasses.
Harry smiles, and breathes out through his mouth in a way that makes his curls dance on his forehead. I don’t think she wore the glasses all the time, Louis.
All the time, Louis grins. In the shower and everything.
Harry closes his eyes. Louis doesn’t. He shuffles a little bit closer, just enough to feel Harry’s body heat more clearly. They kicked the duvet away during the night, but Harry burns like a furnace and Louis is from Doncaster, he doesn’t mind a little cold.
I asked, Harry hums after a while, hooking his fingers into the shoulder of Louis’ shirt. The doorman, Will, he said a family lived here for years and years. No-one important has ever stayed in this building.
Louis frowns and reaches over to card his fingers through Harry’s hair, push it back from his forehead. It’s slightly damp, but he doesn’t mind. You’re important, Harry Styles, he says simply, dragging his thumb down Harry’s forehead, over the bridge of his nose, pulling away when he reaches his lips because that would be too much.
Harry grins, but it’s nothing, just a pull of his muscles telling his lips to tilt upwards because that would appease Louis, because that’s what Louis would want.
Louis does touch Harry’s lips this time, pulls the corners of his mouth downwards with his index finger and thumb, until he’s not smiling anymore and Harry’s eyes open to look at him strangely.
Let’s stay here, Louis breathes. Harry’s eyes widen and Louis grabs him, the back of his neck and the thick curls- not hard, just grounding, here, here, here, and says it again, let’s stay.
Harry swallows, and his hand goes to Louis’ wrist. He presses his thumb against Louis’ pulsepoint. Until? he asks.
Until?
Until they come here to drag us back, Louis tells him, and puts his hand over Harry’s where he’s holding on to his own wrist, like an oath, a ridiculous pledge. He feels silly, they weren’t made for stuff like this. He looks at Harry, and he might be pleading, with his eyes and his face and his stupid sweaty hand, and he doesn’t know what he’s pleading for but he knows he wants it.
A beat, or two, just silence, and then Harry nods, once, twice, and draws closer, presses them together where they’re warm and where they’re shaking, and speaks into the hollow of Louis’ throat.
Yes, he says, I’d like that.