I have no excuse for this
Today instead of doing anything productive, I channeled all of my Louis feels into a Louis/Harold-the-frightened-associate tumblr not-fic. YES YOU CAN ALL JUDGE ME A LOT.
OKAY SO LIKE. HYPOTHETICALLY. What if Louis needed a cat sitter because reasons-new cat, needs to be socialized, Louis can’t spend too much time with it at work so he foists it off on Harold, who is predictably failboaty about the whole thing
like, within six hours he loses the cat twice, bribes it with cheetos to come out from under the cupboards in the associates lounge, tries to take it on walks with a special kitty leash because Louis said it needs exercise, and the whole time BREAKING OUT IN HIVES BECAUSE HE’S SO ALLERGIC
and later Louis finds him huddled in Louis’s office doped to the gills with antihistamines with the cat sleeping on his shoes, and even though Louis does very well not giving a shit about Harold (or so he tells himself) he does recognize this is not an ideal cat sitter, and also that Harold really will just stay here and drool all night if Louis doesn’t help him home.
So Louis rolls his eyes and gets Snoogums Tchaikovsky into its carrier, drives Harold home, drags Harold’s babbling, giggling, touchy-feely, overly-grateful ass up to his apartment…and it’s basically empty. Because Harold is REALLY overpaying, like, so much he can’t afford furniture or a bed that’s better than a blow-up mattress. It’s really kind of sad, and looks really, really lonely, but even doped up Harold is so proud of it, like, showing off the view (an alley) and the too-little dishwasher and the fridge that only works on Tuesdays, and Louis Litt’s heart grew three sizes that day.
From then on there is a marked difference in how Louis treats Harold, everyone is noticing and commenting on it and Harold is like, “Oh no, what did I DO?” all flustered and blushing, tells Louis, “If you’re going to fire me could you tell me so I can go looking for a job? I saw McDonald’s is hiring on my walk over this morning…”
And Louis sighs and says, “No, you were actually doing really good work despite the extra tasks assigned to you, and I thought I would give it a week to see if that performance exponentially increases without the aforementioned distractions. Yuuup that’s definitely what happened.”
NATURALLY, HAROLD NOW BELIEVES THEY ARE FRIENDS.
Thing is Harold only knows how to be friends like a nine year old, all enthusiasm all the time, bringing Louis little things the way Snoogums Tchaikovsky brings him bits of lint and stray buttons (because that’s how Harold rolls, remember Rachel’s stapler?). So he brings Louis, like, the extra Reese’s Cup the vending machine accidentally gave him and Louis’s favorite kind of gum he got from the paper guy down the street, and sometimes he just pops his head in and says, “Thanks for the advice on the Winkley case! WE WON! :DDD *FISTPUMP* \O/”
And Louis is…very annoyed, he is, he…is so secretly annoyed that he can’t even be bothered to feel the annoyance himself, just projects it around him in a sort of aura that doesn’t phase Harold in the least. And then one day Harold asks him out for a drink. Well, sort of.
“…What?” Harold kind of croaks after Louis stares at him for an entire minute, and he’s been so happy recently that it takes Louis a second to realize his expression is sheer terror. “You-you did once, I was in the hall and you said, ‘Hey! Harold! 9:30, tequila shots, you and me, sharp, be there!’ So I, I was, but I guess you had something more important come up.”
And ohh, shit, Louis does really vaguely remember that offer, right after the Stable Shelters case, before Louis saw Harvey stealing credit-or not, as it turns out-for the win. Everything after that moment had gone spectacularly dark.
“It’s okay,” Harold squeaks out now, ears bright red against his floppy hair, “I understand. I get that a lot.”
“No,” Louis says with a decisive hand against his desk, “We are going to do shots. Tonight. Right now. It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
“I love that song!” Harold says, brightening instantly.
“If it’s country, don’t talk to me,” Louis says, saving their burgeoning relationship with a talk-to-the-hand.
Harold trips cheerfully after him as they strut down the hall.
SO THEN THEY GET DRUNK.
Harold introduces Louis to the amazingness that is a Cosmopolitan, and Louis teaches him how to look manly drinking it because if James Bond can drink out of a martini glass then SO CAN THEY.
And they start shooting the shit, talkin’ ‘bout conquests (of which they have like, sooo many) and how it’s so weird that a lot of times they have way more fun on dates than the women do-like one time Louis took a woman he liked to see Nixon and China and she SLEPT THROUGH IT, and Harold is like ‘fuck yeah i know that feel bro’ because one time he took this girl he liked to the midnight premier of a superhero movie and she kept putting her face in the way of the screen, like, trying to kiss him which was surprising and awesome but Harold really kind of wanted to see the movie too and he dressed up like Agent Coulson and everything and Louis is like “no you do not know that feel NIXON AND CHINA.”
and he tries to explain the finer points of ballet to Harold, makes him stand up and shows him how to plié, and it’s really too bad the bar is dimly lit because they’re both pretty badass at it after the fifth Cosmo.
But someone notices and snickers and points and Louis puffs right up, says, “HEY, SO WHAT IF WE WERE, THIS IS A FREE GODDAMN COUNTRY, I CAN PRACTICE BALLET WITH MY MAIN MAN HAROLD HERE IF I WANT, WANNA FIGHT,” and Harold’s all, “Aw it’s okay, I’m sure they didn’t mean anything too mean.”
at which point Louis feels the need to sit Harold down because he’s worried, okay, he really is, what if Harold doesn’t have it in him to be a cold hard dictator?
Harold blinks a bit, then says, “Well, that’s okay.”
“No, no it’s not, Harold,” Louis says, shaking his head and kind of clutching Harold’s hands, “If you aren’t mean, they’ll take advantage of you. They’ll knock you down, make you hurt.”
And Harold says, “But. Being a cold hard dictator…that sounds kind of lonely.”
“It is,” Louis says, sagely, “It is lonely at the top. But it’s also safe.”
“Oh,” says Harold, swaying on his seat a little while he thinks about it. “Oh, okay. Can I just hang out at the top with you? That way you wouldn’t be lonely and I wouldn’t be cold or dictator-y, and you could let me know if people are taking advantage and I could let you know if you’re being kind of grouchy and then nobody would be lonely and everyone would be safe?”
And it’s kind of mind-boggling, really, how Harold can seem so dumb but he says these things and Louis is pretty sure they’d be smart even without the alcohol. “Harold,” he says, and bring their heads together, forehead to forehead, “you’re a genius.”
And then he kisses him.
And he backs off already giving rambling excuses, “Yeah, I’m going to blame that on the alcohol, what the hell is even in a Cosmo, you know that kissing has been a time-honored way to seal deals since like the Feudal era right? So it’s a thing.”
And when he finally shuts up long enough Harold just says, “…oh.”
He sounds kind of sad and tragic, even for Harold standards. “No, no, I mean,” Louis says, looking everywhere that isn’t Harold in this bar, “I mean I couldn’t even if I wanted to because, because it’s a thing, right, no inter-workplace relationships, and I’m your boss so it’d be weird-”
“Not that weird,” Harold says and Louis finds himself nodding on autopilot, “Right, not that-wait, not that weird?”
“Well,” Harold says, “not weirder than Mike and Harvey, right? I mean, those two. Get a room.” He scoffs a little, trying to be suave and debonaire and all Louis can think it he looks sort of hopelessly adorable while he does it, slurping the dregs of his drink with the stirring straw.
“Yeah those two are probably fucking like bunnies, actually,” Louis says, resting his chin on his hand, super casual about glancing at Harold underneath his eyelashes.
Harold gasps as an idea strikes. “What if I had, like, a veto card! Like if I thought you were giving me special treatment, or, like, if I ever felt like I had to be with you because you might fire me if I didn’t, I could hold up the card and be like-VETO.”
He beams hopefully, and Louis feels his own cheek dimple underneath his hand. “Maybe,” he says. “So…does that mean you would like to? If, I mean, unless you’re feeling pressured, which, just, tell me right now, I never want to be that guy.”
“No, no, I don’t-I don’t think you’d ever treat me special,” Harold says, and Louis knows he doesn’t mean it meanly but it stings just the same. He takes Harold’s hand.
“I would treat you…like a very special person,” Louis says, “Not at work-I couldn’t at work-but the rest of the time…yeah. Because you are special, and you deserve to be treated right.”
“Really?” Harold squeaks. “You really think so?”
“Yes. You have a good heart.” Louis gets his Lannister face on. “And I would do everything in my power to keep that heart from getting broken.”
Harold looks a little wild-eyed and slack-jawed, but then he grabs Louis by the ears and kisses him, really kisses him, the kind of kiss Louis has never really been on the receiving end of before. The kind of kiss that urges him to sweep Harold closer, tip his head back as Harold stands on the bottom rung of his bar stool. A nobody-puts-baby-in-the-corner kind of kiss. A kiss for the ages.
“Hey,” Harold says when they break for air, his blond hair wild and his lips kissed red, “do you maybe want to see The Avengers with me on Saturday? I’ve seen it eighteen times now so I don’t mind if you want to make out in the movie theater.”
“Only if you come with me to the ballet on Sunday and hold my hand during the death scenes,” Louis counters, eyes carefully narrowed.
“I find your terms to be agreeable,” Harold says, and smiles.
Later, Louis will write, date, and sign a promissory note on a bar napkin that Harold can use as his Veto. But for right now, he’s content to kiss him again and plan.
THE. END.
IIIIII am going to the special hell.
OKAY SO LIKE. HYPOTHETICALLY. What if Louis needed a cat sitter because reasons-new cat, needs to be socialized, Louis can’t spend too much time with it at work so he foists it off on Harold, who is predictably failboaty about the whole thing
like, within six hours he loses the cat twice, bribes it with cheetos to come out from under the cupboards in the associates lounge, tries to take it on walks with a special kitty leash because Louis said it needs exercise, and the whole time BREAKING OUT IN HIVES BECAUSE HE’S SO ALLERGIC
and later Louis finds him huddled in Louis’s office doped to the gills with antihistamines with the cat sleeping on his shoes, and even though Louis does very well not giving a shit about Harold (or so he tells himself) he does recognize this is not an ideal cat sitter, and also that Harold really will just stay here and drool all night if Louis doesn’t help him home.
So Louis rolls his eyes and gets Snoogums Tchaikovsky into its carrier, drives Harold home, drags Harold’s babbling, giggling, touchy-feely, overly-grateful ass up to his apartment…and it’s basically empty. Because Harold is REALLY overpaying, like, so much he can’t afford furniture or a bed that’s better than a blow-up mattress. It’s really kind of sad, and looks really, really lonely, but even doped up Harold is so proud of it, like, showing off the view (an alley) and the too-little dishwasher and the fridge that only works on Tuesdays, and Louis Litt’s heart grew three sizes that day.
From then on there is a marked difference in how Louis treats Harold, everyone is noticing and commenting on it and Harold is like, “Oh no, what did I DO?” all flustered and blushing, tells Louis, “If you’re going to fire me could you tell me so I can go looking for a job? I saw McDonald’s is hiring on my walk over this morning…”
And Louis sighs and says, “No, you were actually doing really good work despite the extra tasks assigned to you, and I thought I would give it a week to see if that performance exponentially increases without the aforementioned distractions. Yuuup that’s definitely what happened.”
NATURALLY, HAROLD NOW BELIEVES THEY ARE FRIENDS.
Thing is Harold only knows how to be friends like a nine year old, all enthusiasm all the time, bringing Louis little things the way Snoogums Tchaikovsky brings him bits of lint and stray buttons (because that’s how Harold rolls, remember Rachel’s stapler?). So he brings Louis, like, the extra Reese’s Cup the vending machine accidentally gave him and Louis’s favorite kind of gum he got from the paper guy down the street, and sometimes he just pops his head in and says, “Thanks for the advice on the Winkley case! WE WON! :DDD *FISTPUMP* \O/”
And Louis is…very annoyed, he is, he…is so secretly annoyed that he can’t even be bothered to feel the annoyance himself, just projects it around him in a sort of aura that doesn’t phase Harold in the least. And then one day Harold asks him out for a drink. Well, sort of.
“…What?” Harold kind of croaks after Louis stares at him for an entire minute, and he’s been so happy recently that it takes Louis a second to realize his expression is sheer terror. “You-you did once, I was in the hall and you said, ‘Hey! Harold! 9:30, tequila shots, you and me, sharp, be there!’ So I, I was, but I guess you had something more important come up.”
And ohh, shit, Louis does really vaguely remember that offer, right after the Stable Shelters case, before Louis saw Harvey stealing credit-or not, as it turns out-for the win. Everything after that moment had gone spectacularly dark.
“It’s okay,” Harold squeaks out now, ears bright red against his floppy hair, “I understand. I get that a lot.”
“No,” Louis says with a decisive hand against his desk, “We are going to do shots. Tonight. Right now. It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
“I love that song!” Harold says, brightening instantly.
“If it’s country, don’t talk to me,” Louis says, saving their burgeoning relationship with a talk-to-the-hand.
Harold trips cheerfully after him as they strut down the hall.
SO THEN THEY GET DRUNK.
Harold introduces Louis to the amazingness that is a Cosmopolitan, and Louis teaches him how to look manly drinking it because if James Bond can drink out of a martini glass then SO CAN THEY.
And they start shooting the shit, talkin’ ‘bout conquests (of which they have like, sooo many) and how it’s so weird that a lot of times they have way more fun on dates than the women do-like one time Louis took a woman he liked to see Nixon and China and she SLEPT THROUGH IT, and Harold is like ‘fuck yeah i know that feel bro’ because one time he took this girl he liked to the midnight premier of a superhero movie and she kept putting her face in the way of the screen, like, trying to kiss him which was surprising and awesome but Harold really kind of wanted to see the movie too and he dressed up like Agent Coulson and everything and Louis is like “no you do not know that feel NIXON AND CHINA.”
and he tries to explain the finer points of ballet to Harold, makes him stand up and shows him how to plié, and it’s really too bad the bar is dimly lit because they’re both pretty badass at it after the fifth Cosmo.
But someone notices and snickers and points and Louis puffs right up, says, “HEY, SO WHAT IF WE WERE, THIS IS A FREE GODDAMN COUNTRY, I CAN PRACTICE BALLET WITH MY MAIN MAN HAROLD HERE IF I WANT, WANNA FIGHT,” and Harold’s all, “Aw it’s okay, I’m sure they didn’t mean anything too mean.”
at which point Louis feels the need to sit Harold down because he’s worried, okay, he really is, what if Harold doesn’t have it in him to be a cold hard dictator?
Harold blinks a bit, then says, “Well, that’s okay.”
“No, no it’s not, Harold,” Louis says, shaking his head and kind of clutching Harold’s hands, “If you aren’t mean, they’ll take advantage of you. They’ll knock you down, make you hurt.”
And Harold says, “But. Being a cold hard dictator…that sounds kind of lonely.”
“It is,” Louis says, sagely, “It is lonely at the top. But it’s also safe.”
“Oh,” says Harold, swaying on his seat a little while he thinks about it. “Oh, okay. Can I just hang out at the top with you? That way you wouldn’t be lonely and I wouldn’t be cold or dictator-y, and you could let me know if people are taking advantage and I could let you know if you’re being kind of grouchy and then nobody would be lonely and everyone would be safe?”
And it’s kind of mind-boggling, really, how Harold can seem so dumb but he says these things and Louis is pretty sure they’d be smart even without the alcohol. “Harold,” he says, and bring their heads together, forehead to forehead, “you’re a genius.”
And then he kisses him.
And he backs off already giving rambling excuses, “Yeah, I’m going to blame that on the alcohol, what the hell is even in a Cosmo, you know that kissing has been a time-honored way to seal deals since like the Feudal era right? So it’s a thing.”
And when he finally shuts up long enough Harold just says, “…oh.”
He sounds kind of sad and tragic, even for Harold standards. “No, no, I mean,” Louis says, looking everywhere that isn’t Harold in this bar, “I mean I couldn’t even if I wanted to because, because it’s a thing, right, no inter-workplace relationships, and I’m your boss so it’d be weird-”
“Not that weird,” Harold says and Louis finds himself nodding on autopilot, “Right, not that-wait, not that weird?”
“Well,” Harold says, “not weirder than Mike and Harvey, right? I mean, those two. Get a room.” He scoffs a little, trying to be suave and debonaire and all Louis can think it he looks sort of hopelessly adorable while he does it, slurping the dregs of his drink with the stirring straw.
“Yeah those two are probably fucking like bunnies, actually,” Louis says, resting his chin on his hand, super casual about glancing at Harold underneath his eyelashes.
Harold gasps as an idea strikes. “What if I had, like, a veto card! Like if I thought you were giving me special treatment, or, like, if I ever felt like I had to be with you because you might fire me if I didn’t, I could hold up the card and be like-VETO.”
He beams hopefully, and Louis feels his own cheek dimple underneath his hand. “Maybe,” he says. “So…does that mean you would like to? If, I mean, unless you’re feeling pressured, which, just, tell me right now, I never want to be that guy.”
“No, no, I don’t-I don’t think you’d ever treat me special,” Harold says, and Louis knows he doesn’t mean it meanly but it stings just the same. He takes Harold’s hand.
“I would treat you…like a very special person,” Louis says, “Not at work-I couldn’t at work-but the rest of the time…yeah. Because you are special, and you deserve to be treated right.”
“Really?” Harold squeaks. “You really think so?”
“Yes. You have a good heart.” Louis gets his Lannister face on. “And I would do everything in my power to keep that heart from getting broken.”
Harold looks a little wild-eyed and slack-jawed, but then he grabs Louis by the ears and kisses him, really kisses him, the kind of kiss Louis has never really been on the receiving end of before. The kind of kiss that urges him to sweep Harold closer, tip his head back as Harold stands on the bottom rung of his bar stool. A nobody-puts-baby-in-the-corner kind of kiss. A kiss for the ages.
“Hey,” Harold says when they break for air, his blond hair wild and his lips kissed red, “do you maybe want to see The Avengers with me on Saturday? I’ve seen it eighteen times now so I don’t mind if you want to make out in the movie theater.”
“Only if you come with me to the ballet on Sunday and hold my hand during the death scenes,” Louis counters, eyes carefully narrowed.
“I find your terms to be agreeable,” Harold says, and smiles.
Later, Louis will write, date, and sign a promissory note on a bar napkin that Harold can use as his Veto. But for right now, he’s content to kiss him again and plan.
THE. END.
IIIIII am going to the special hell.