just a mess with a name and the price.
just a mess with a name and the price
Harry/Louis. Harry falls into addiction and depression and Louis stays with him through it all.
warnings: drug addiction, depression, attempted suicide.
notes: This is pretty messed-up and probably doesn't make much sense. I'm really not an expert on any of this, so sorry for anything that's terribly unrealistic. (Also, listen to Constant Conversations, which is pretty much the inspiration for this whole thing, and Without You.)
can you picture it,
babe, the life we could've lived?
Sometimes, now, they're almost normal. They walk down the street holding hands on good days (and the somber whispers that follow them are so starkly different from the screams and camera flashes), they go shopping for sheets and blankets and end up getting all kinds of crap they don't need like a welcome mat with a cat wearing a bow tie that makes Harry smile (although no one ever visits), they still go to charity events sometimes (Louis mostly goes alone though, trying to avoid people's pitying looks).
Harry talks to his parents and sister in quiet mumbles about twice a month. He talks about visiting sometimes but it never happens. And Louis never pushes it (because he doesn't push anything, and he never will; he's forgotten how to demand things, from Harry, from himself, from life). Louis visits his mum and sisters as much as he can, but he doesn't ever leave Harry alone for too long.
Liam checks in with Louis every couple months. He hasn't spoken to Harry in about five years, and that - that's probably when he knew for certain, that it was over, that the battle was lost, that it was hopeless. That there was this split that could never be healed. That he broke the band and broke himself and broke all of them so irreparably. (Louis wonders sometimes if he only stayed, if he only stays, to create an illusion that it's not all broken. But they - the two of them have been broken in another way for a long, long time too.)
Zayn's the only one of them still making music, still trying to salvage something out of all of it. Louis thinks it's because that's all he could have done. He can't ever separate himself from it though, from them and their past. None of them can. Every interview, article, album review - they're all just painful reminders.
Niall comes around whenever he can. They play video games when they can coax Harry out of his room, and it almost feels like old times - with Niall's laughter and Harry accusing him of cheating - for a second, a minute, before Louis looks at Harry, all pale, pale skin and bones, permanent bags under his eyes, a smile that's gone wrong with unuse - and he remembers, remembers everything (the first accidental overdose, and the first suicide attempt, and the second - and the blood and the vomit and -). It's not fair, he thinks, it's not. It's not fair that he gets to be happy, for even a second, after all of this - when he should have been happy in the first place - when he should have - when he did this to them, to all of them, but mostly to him. When he stayed, when he'll stay forever, and it won't ever be enough to justify that.
*
He thinks about dying a lot. He thinks about Harry dying. He thinks about himself dying. He thinks about them both dying in this flat, ten years or one year or one month from now. He thinks about their bodies rotting. He thinks about himself just sitting there while Harry's body rots next to him, waiting for his turn. He wonders if that's what he's been doing all this time.
Liam would probably speak at the funeral - it would be a double funeral, of course, of course - and maybe he'd finally be able to move on and live his life. His kids won't have to ask him about things they read on the internet about people he used to be in a band with anymore. Maybe he could bury the past when he buried them. Their mothers will cry in the front row, and Zayn will sing, and Niall will tuck a picture of them when they were first put together into each of the caskets.
Only that won't happen, because they're both going to be cremated.
It'll be better that way, he thinks. They'll be truly free for the first time. Free of each other. Free of themselves.
*
The first time, they sit in a hospital waiting room and Niall holds his hand and he can't stop shaking and his eyes are red but he's not crying anymore because there are no more tears. He left them all in a puddle next to Harry's unconscious body on the bathroom floor.
He's never going back home, he thinks. Whether he - Whether it's alone or not. He's not. He's not - It seems important for some reason to say that, he keeps repeating it, "I'm not going back - I'm not -" (Not home, and not to any place he's ever been, not to any place Harry's ever been, not to any place that existed while they were alive and together and -) Liam's looking more scared than Louis could ever have imagined him looking. Zayn's standing in corner, like he can't even move, and he's not looking at any of them.
The doctor comes in. Liam leaps up first. Zayn's hands clench into fists as he moves closer stiffly. Niall's grip tightens.
He's alive. Barely.
Louis's still not going back. There's nothing to go back to now.
*
A year passes, and they move into a new place (smaller and darker and more confined, somehow both more and less like home), and he's been in and out of rehab three times, and they're on hiatus now, officially. It's December, and Harry hasn't been outside in weeks, and he goes to the shop to pick up some stuff (because Harry keeps telling him he wants waffles for breakfast, although he actually hasn't had breakfast in months, but Louis never, ever says no, not even now), and when he comes back, he knows something's wrong.
He finds him in the bathtub this time (and it's always him, always will be, and his constant presence doesn't mean Harry will be safer, it never has, it's never been enough, it just means that Louis will always, always find him first), wrists slashed, blood fucking everywhere.
*
This time, when he wakes up, it's not with a lot of crying and begging and empty promises like before.
He just says, "Do you hate me?"
And then when Louis says nothing, "Do you hate me more because I'm alive?"
Louis's been thinking about him being dead every day for a year, but he'd rather this, not so he has to deal with the pain, but so he can see that he's there, he'll always be there.
It's not enough though. It's never, ever enough.
*
He's never asked, not through the drinking and the women, not after the overdose. Not for six months after the first attempt.
"Why?" And it's a Sunday morning, they're watching footie, and Louis knows he's been using again for about a month, but he can't - can't stop it, can't say no, can't do anything. Because Louis doesn't ever do anything - all he does is find him passed out in clubs and he calls ambulances and cleans up after him and holds him while he cries and screams his way through withdrawal and he uses his mood as a gauge for when he's back on it (he can't even remember a time when Harry being happy, being bright and full of life and himself, didn't raise red flags). He doesn't do anything but let it happen.
He wants to know though, even if there's no real answer.
Harry knows exactly what he means as soon as he says it.
"What do you want me to say? That it's all about you - and us - and whatever this thing is between us. That it's your fault. That you could have fixed it. That you could have made it better."
And they both know that's exactly why he hasn't asked before. Why they never, ever talk about it. Why Louis has given up everything for him.
"It's not your fault," he says a second later, quietly. And his voice is still rough from lack of use; he hasn't said this much at once to anyone in months, maybe years.
"It's not anyone's fault." (And there's Liam, who's been blaming himself for not being strong enough to do anything about it, to keep them whole and together; and Zayn who thinks he should have seen it, should have acted on any suspicions he may have had, should have gotten involved that one time when it was important and not just left things alone; Niall who trusted them to all love each other as much as he loved them.)
"I just couldn't breathe anymore. I felt like my lungs weren't working, my heart wasn't - I was alive, but something else was controlling me. I wanted to live - live properly. Or I wanted to die. I was sick of the in-between."
"I won't stop," he says. And he's not asking for help, he's not guilty, he's not tortured, he's not anything, not anymore.
He's not even Harry, but maybe Louis's not Louis either.
*
December comes and goes and it's New Year's Eve and Louis's wrapped up in a blanket and when Harry's hands start shaking so much that he spills more than usual, Louis takes the bottle away from him and pours it himself.
He pours one for himself, although he hasn't had anything for two years.
Harry asks his own question that he's been harbouring.
"Why? Why are you here?" Because he has his own family, and Liam didn't even send a Christmas card, and Zayn's recording again, by himself, and Niall's on the other side of the world.
Louis just grabs his phone off the coffee table, pulls up a picture he's had saved for six years. He slides it across to him.
Harry breathes out audibly when he looks at it. Them as teenagers, a lifetime ago, Harry's babyface and huge eyes and goofy grin. Louis' arm around him as they both smiled at the camera he held in front of them, not knowing how intertwined their futures would be.
"You could have a life," he says.
"You've been it for the last six years."
"You can't change this," Harry says in a whisper.
"I know, I know," he says, nodding, but he kisses him anyway.
*
Louis touches all of them, the scars still on his wrists, the needle tracks on his arms, the bruises scattered over his body with a variety of causes, presses his lips to them almost reverently. They're all a part of him now, of them.
Louis fucks him gently, and thinks about if they'd done this before, if they'd done it right. It probably wouldn't have made any difference. And that would have made it a million times worse.
It's not enough. It doesn't change anything. Louis thinks about finding him dead the next morning, like always. He goes to sleep.
*
He's sober for six months.
When he falls off the wagon again, Liam leaves one message.
"I can't do this anymore. I love you. I will always love you. Both of you." He starts choking up then. "I'm not - I'm not brave enough, to stay, to try to make it work. Maybe one day, maybe one day things will be different."
Louis doesn't think he's brave at all. Staying is probably the most cowardly thing he's ever done, because he did it for himself. They're not brave - not any of them.
Harry used to be the brave one.
*
They spend Christmas at Harry's mum's and Louis finds him after dinner crying in the bathroom. And it's the first time, since the hospital three years ago, and he rambles on and on about how sorry he is and how much he hates himself. Louis clings on to him all night.
Anne hugs him for a long time before they leave.
Harry reaches across for his hand when they're in the car, just says, "I can't."
*
He starts going to meetings, they both go to therapy once a week, he gets put on antidepressants, they start doing okay.
He's clean for a year.
They decide to go to a Coldplay concert, as a treat.
He makes tea for both of them after.
When he gets back to the living room and Harry's not there, he drops both cups on the carpet, races upstairs.
*
They pump his stomach. Louis is alone this time. There's no one to call. There won't be anyone.
He thinks about just getting up and leaving, maybe wandering around the streets all night, maybe going back to the flat, packing his things, driving back to Doncaster, calling Harry's mum, saying goodbye or this isn't what love is supposed to be or if he needed me, I would know.
It's the first time he's really thought about it, and he knows it's the only time he will. It's now or never.
But Harry doesn't need him, he never really has. He's always needed Harry though.
*
Niall turns up around dawn and just pulls him into his arms and Louis isn't crying this time either. He's cried enough for him, for all of them.
Zayn's on tour, and his tour manager is the one who calls.
Liam just says three words, "Is he alive?" Louis's pretty sure he just didn't want to find out the answer in the news.
*
He wakes him up with a story this time.
Reminds him of their first tour, how he'd get so nervous and Louis would have to speak to him soothingly through the bathroom door until he came out. And how he would kill it every time on stage after. Tells him about their trips all over the world, asks him if he remembers Australia and bungee jumping in New Zealand and Niagara Falls and -
Sometimes he forgets this is the same Harry he did all those things with. Sometimes he forgets those things happened to him. Sometimes he forgets that they were on top of the world once. (Of course, of course, there was no way to go but down. And oh, how far they fell.)
It's as much to remind himself.
Harry eventually cracks a smile.
He doesn't say sorry, doesn't ask if Louis hates him, doesn't say stop it, stop saving me, doesn't tell him to go, to leave him the fuck alone, to go live his life, leave him to die.
He wants death. He wants life. He doesn't have either. He just has Louis.
And Louis has him.
*
He goes back into rehab after that and Louis goes on a couple talk shows, spills basically everything that's happened in the last four years since they practically disappeared off the face of the earth (except for the two suicide attempts, the grisly details of which were splashed all over the news). He gets offered a book deal too, but their story's not over, it's not over yet.
He visits Harry twice a week. He doesn't say anything about it. He probably doesn't care that the world knows their secrets now. Nothing's ever really been secret anyway.
He's never paid much attention to it up until now, the fan reaction. The heartbreak and the devastation it's caused not just to them, but to all these people who had to maybe grow up much too fast to be able to come to terms with it. The loss of innocence on all sides.
They were kids too, not long ago. Looking at Harry now, he can't even imagine it.
*
Two years after he gets out, they give their first and only interview together. Harry doesn't say much, only speaks when he's asked direct questions. He makes it clear he's not going to be some kind of poster-child for reformed drug addicts, he's not going to be the face of depression or the ill effects of superstardom. He's still a work in progress. He's dealing with his own things. He just wants to be left alone. They're just doing this because the fans, the real fans, have a right to know the full story.
The last question is about Louis and how much he's helped him through everything.
"He doesn't deserve this," Harry says after a pause. "He deserves to be happy."
"You deserve that too," Louis says, and it's honest. Harry looks back at him with a strange expression on his face.
And that's the end of it.
*
Another year after, and Louis decides to bring it up cautiously.
"We should do something - for Christmas," he says, trying to sound casual.
"Like what?"
"Like - I don't know, have some people over. Like Niall, and..."
"And all of them?" It kind of hurts to hear, because it used to be us - all of us.
"Yeah, maybe."
"We haven't been in a room together in years, Louis," he spits out, almost disgusted.
"Isn't it time then?"
Harry doesn't reply for a moment.
"I just - I can't handle it. That look in their eyes. The blame..."
"And what about me?" Louis almost screams. "What about the guilt you feel for me? Why can you deal with that but not this?"
"I never asked for this, Louis," and his eyes are pooling with tears, and he's looking so young for the first time in years and years.
"I didn't either."
"I never asked for you to love me so much," he finishes. "I never asked for any of it..."
"But you took it. And you took advantage of it," Louis says, grimacing.
"I can't fix it," and he looks like he wants to, he wants to desperately, for the first time.
"No," Louis says, shaking his head. "But maybe you can make up for it just a little."
*
Liam takes some persuading, from both he and Niall. Zayn says okay pretty quickly, like he wants to make up too, for avoiding things, avoiding everything.
*
Liam hands over a bottle of sparkling grape juice, says, "Nice welcome mat."
Louis feels his first involuntary smile in years.
Then Liam's looking over his shoulder at Harry who's biting his lip nervously, staring at the ground.
Liam just goes over and hugs him tightly. Harry clings back just as hard.
Zayn just looks at them both, links one of his hands with Louis', presses the fingertips of the other to Harry's cheek, as if to just check that he's warm and breathing.
*
Dinner's pretty quiet. Niall tries to get them all to talk, but it's not necessary, not right now. There'll be time. They really believe that now, for the the first time in ages.
Liam's helping Harry get dessert ready when Zayn goes out on to the balcony and Louis follows him.
He just curls both hands around the railing, looks out into the night, breath visible in front of him.
"No fag?" Louis says, rubbing his own hands together.
"Quit," he says simply. "After I saw your interview."
"Harry listens to your album a lot," Louis says quietly, after a few moments. "When he thinks I can't see."
Everyone knows there are a bunch of tracks on there about them, about Harry, about Harry and Louis.
Zayn just shrugs. It's how he deals with it.
Zayn writes songs and draws and gets tattoos that say 'strength' and Liam tries to be normal and Niall talks and laughs and gets them to play dumb boardgames with ridiculously complicated rules. And Harry - Harry runs away and comes back and plays hide and seek with life and death. Louis stays. Even when there's nothing to stay for. Even when there isn't a part of anything he knows left. Not even himself.
When they go back inside, someone's started a cake fight (probably Niall, maybe Harry). Liam's just rolling his eyes and ducking as pieces come flying at him.
Louis steps into the centre of the kitchen, declaring loudly that no one is allowed to wreak havoc without him around and he's stopped by a huge chunk of icing hitting him squarely on his mouth.
Zayn just laughs from a corner as he retaliates.
When Niall finally gives up, he finds Harry hiding behind the table, cake all over his face and in his curls, eyes wide and wild and shining, the biggest smile he's seen on him in years. He settles down next to him, and he doesn't have to say anything. Harry just nods at him. And it's not all okay again, it probably won't ever be, but for a moment, just that moment, it feels like it could be.
Harry/Louis. Harry falls into addiction and depression and Louis stays with him through it all.
warnings: drug addiction, depression, attempted suicide.
notes: This is pretty messed-up and probably doesn't make much sense. I'm really not an expert on any of this, so sorry for anything that's terribly unrealistic. (Also, listen to Constant Conversations, which is pretty much the inspiration for this whole thing, and Without You.)
can you picture it,
babe, the life we could've lived?
Sometimes, now, they're almost normal. They walk down the street holding hands on good days (and the somber whispers that follow them are so starkly different from the screams and camera flashes), they go shopping for sheets and blankets and end up getting all kinds of crap they don't need like a welcome mat with a cat wearing a bow tie that makes Harry smile (although no one ever visits), they still go to charity events sometimes (Louis mostly goes alone though, trying to avoid people's pitying looks).
Harry talks to his parents and sister in quiet mumbles about twice a month. He talks about visiting sometimes but it never happens. And Louis never pushes it (because he doesn't push anything, and he never will; he's forgotten how to demand things, from Harry, from himself, from life). Louis visits his mum and sisters as much as he can, but he doesn't ever leave Harry alone for too long.
Liam checks in with Louis every couple months. He hasn't spoken to Harry in about five years, and that - that's probably when he knew for certain, that it was over, that the battle was lost, that it was hopeless. That there was this split that could never be healed. That he broke the band and broke himself and broke all of them so irreparably. (Louis wonders sometimes if he only stayed, if he only stays, to create an illusion that it's not all broken. But they - the two of them have been broken in another way for a long, long time too.)
Zayn's the only one of them still making music, still trying to salvage something out of all of it. Louis thinks it's because that's all he could have done. He can't ever separate himself from it though, from them and their past. None of them can. Every interview, article, album review - they're all just painful reminders.
Niall comes around whenever he can. They play video games when they can coax Harry out of his room, and it almost feels like old times - with Niall's laughter and Harry accusing him of cheating - for a second, a minute, before Louis looks at Harry, all pale, pale skin and bones, permanent bags under his eyes, a smile that's gone wrong with unuse - and he remembers, remembers everything (the first accidental overdose, and the first suicide attempt, and the second - and the blood and the vomit and -). It's not fair, he thinks, it's not. It's not fair that he gets to be happy, for even a second, after all of this - when he should have been happy in the first place - when he should have - when he did this to them, to all of them, but mostly to him. When he stayed, when he'll stay forever, and it won't ever be enough to justify that.
*
He thinks about dying a lot. He thinks about Harry dying. He thinks about himself dying. He thinks about them both dying in this flat, ten years or one year or one month from now. He thinks about their bodies rotting. He thinks about himself just sitting there while Harry's body rots next to him, waiting for his turn. He wonders if that's what he's been doing all this time.
Liam would probably speak at the funeral - it would be a double funeral, of course, of course - and maybe he'd finally be able to move on and live his life. His kids won't have to ask him about things they read on the internet about people he used to be in a band with anymore. Maybe he could bury the past when he buried them. Their mothers will cry in the front row, and Zayn will sing, and Niall will tuck a picture of them when they were first put together into each of the caskets.
Only that won't happen, because they're both going to be cremated.
It'll be better that way, he thinks. They'll be truly free for the first time. Free of each other. Free of themselves.
*
The first time, they sit in a hospital waiting room and Niall holds his hand and he can't stop shaking and his eyes are red but he's not crying anymore because there are no more tears. He left them all in a puddle next to Harry's unconscious body on the bathroom floor.
He's never going back home, he thinks. Whether he - Whether it's alone or not. He's not. He's not - It seems important for some reason to say that, he keeps repeating it, "I'm not going back - I'm not -" (Not home, and not to any place he's ever been, not to any place Harry's ever been, not to any place that existed while they were alive and together and -) Liam's looking more scared than Louis could ever have imagined him looking. Zayn's standing in corner, like he can't even move, and he's not looking at any of them.
The doctor comes in. Liam leaps up first. Zayn's hands clench into fists as he moves closer stiffly. Niall's grip tightens.
He's alive. Barely.
Louis's still not going back. There's nothing to go back to now.
*
A year passes, and they move into a new place (smaller and darker and more confined, somehow both more and less like home), and he's been in and out of rehab three times, and they're on hiatus now, officially. It's December, and Harry hasn't been outside in weeks, and he goes to the shop to pick up some stuff (because Harry keeps telling him he wants waffles for breakfast, although he actually hasn't had breakfast in months, but Louis never, ever says no, not even now), and when he comes back, he knows something's wrong.
He finds him in the bathtub this time (and it's always him, always will be, and his constant presence doesn't mean Harry will be safer, it never has, it's never been enough, it just means that Louis will always, always find him first), wrists slashed, blood fucking everywhere.
*
This time, when he wakes up, it's not with a lot of crying and begging and empty promises like before.
He just says, "Do you hate me?"
And then when Louis says nothing, "Do you hate me more because I'm alive?"
Louis's been thinking about him being dead every day for a year, but he'd rather this, not so he has to deal with the pain, but so he can see that he's there, he'll always be there.
It's not enough though. It's never, ever enough.
*
He's never asked, not through the drinking and the women, not after the overdose. Not for six months after the first attempt.
"Why?" And it's a Sunday morning, they're watching footie, and Louis knows he's been using again for about a month, but he can't - can't stop it, can't say no, can't do anything. Because Louis doesn't ever do anything - all he does is find him passed out in clubs and he calls ambulances and cleans up after him and holds him while he cries and screams his way through withdrawal and he uses his mood as a gauge for when he's back on it (he can't even remember a time when Harry being happy, being bright and full of life and himself, didn't raise red flags). He doesn't do anything but let it happen.
He wants to know though, even if there's no real answer.
Harry knows exactly what he means as soon as he says it.
"What do you want me to say? That it's all about you - and us - and whatever this thing is between us. That it's your fault. That you could have fixed it. That you could have made it better."
And they both know that's exactly why he hasn't asked before. Why they never, ever talk about it. Why Louis has given up everything for him.
"It's not your fault," he says a second later, quietly. And his voice is still rough from lack of use; he hasn't said this much at once to anyone in months, maybe years.
"It's not anyone's fault." (And there's Liam, who's been blaming himself for not being strong enough to do anything about it, to keep them whole and together; and Zayn who thinks he should have seen it, should have acted on any suspicions he may have had, should have gotten involved that one time when it was important and not just left things alone; Niall who trusted them to all love each other as much as he loved them.)
"I just couldn't breathe anymore. I felt like my lungs weren't working, my heart wasn't - I was alive, but something else was controlling me. I wanted to live - live properly. Or I wanted to die. I was sick of the in-between."
"I won't stop," he says. And he's not asking for help, he's not guilty, he's not tortured, he's not anything, not anymore.
He's not even Harry, but maybe Louis's not Louis either.
*
December comes and goes and it's New Year's Eve and Louis's wrapped up in a blanket and when Harry's hands start shaking so much that he spills more than usual, Louis takes the bottle away from him and pours it himself.
He pours one for himself, although he hasn't had anything for two years.
Harry asks his own question that he's been harbouring.
"Why? Why are you here?" Because he has his own family, and Liam didn't even send a Christmas card, and Zayn's recording again, by himself, and Niall's on the other side of the world.
Louis just grabs his phone off the coffee table, pulls up a picture he's had saved for six years. He slides it across to him.
Harry breathes out audibly when he looks at it. Them as teenagers, a lifetime ago, Harry's babyface and huge eyes and goofy grin. Louis' arm around him as they both smiled at the camera he held in front of them, not knowing how intertwined their futures would be.
"You could have a life," he says.
"You've been it for the last six years."
"You can't change this," Harry says in a whisper.
"I know, I know," he says, nodding, but he kisses him anyway.
*
Louis touches all of them, the scars still on his wrists, the needle tracks on his arms, the bruises scattered over his body with a variety of causes, presses his lips to them almost reverently. They're all a part of him now, of them.
Louis fucks him gently, and thinks about if they'd done this before, if they'd done it right. It probably wouldn't have made any difference. And that would have made it a million times worse.
It's not enough. It doesn't change anything. Louis thinks about finding him dead the next morning, like always. He goes to sleep.
*
He's sober for six months.
When he falls off the wagon again, Liam leaves one message.
"I can't do this anymore. I love you. I will always love you. Both of you." He starts choking up then. "I'm not - I'm not brave enough, to stay, to try to make it work. Maybe one day, maybe one day things will be different."
Louis doesn't think he's brave at all. Staying is probably the most cowardly thing he's ever done, because he did it for himself. They're not brave - not any of them.
Harry used to be the brave one.
*
They spend Christmas at Harry's mum's and Louis finds him after dinner crying in the bathroom. And it's the first time, since the hospital three years ago, and he rambles on and on about how sorry he is and how much he hates himself. Louis clings on to him all night.
Anne hugs him for a long time before they leave.
Harry reaches across for his hand when they're in the car, just says, "I can't."
*
He starts going to meetings, they both go to therapy once a week, he gets put on antidepressants, they start doing okay.
He's clean for a year.
They decide to go to a Coldplay concert, as a treat.
He makes tea for both of them after.
When he gets back to the living room and Harry's not there, he drops both cups on the carpet, races upstairs.
*
They pump his stomach. Louis is alone this time. There's no one to call. There won't be anyone.
He thinks about just getting up and leaving, maybe wandering around the streets all night, maybe going back to the flat, packing his things, driving back to Doncaster, calling Harry's mum, saying goodbye or this isn't what love is supposed to be or if he needed me, I would know.
It's the first time he's really thought about it, and he knows it's the only time he will. It's now or never.
But Harry doesn't need him, he never really has. He's always needed Harry though.
*
Niall turns up around dawn and just pulls him into his arms and Louis isn't crying this time either. He's cried enough for him, for all of them.
Zayn's on tour, and his tour manager is the one who calls.
Liam just says three words, "Is he alive?" Louis's pretty sure he just didn't want to find out the answer in the news.
*
He wakes him up with a story this time.
Reminds him of their first tour, how he'd get so nervous and Louis would have to speak to him soothingly through the bathroom door until he came out. And how he would kill it every time on stage after. Tells him about their trips all over the world, asks him if he remembers Australia and bungee jumping in New Zealand and Niagara Falls and -
Sometimes he forgets this is the same Harry he did all those things with. Sometimes he forgets those things happened to him. Sometimes he forgets that they were on top of the world once. (Of course, of course, there was no way to go but down. And oh, how far they fell.)
It's as much to remind himself.
Harry eventually cracks a smile.
He doesn't say sorry, doesn't ask if Louis hates him, doesn't say stop it, stop saving me, doesn't tell him to go, to leave him the fuck alone, to go live his life, leave him to die.
He wants death. He wants life. He doesn't have either. He just has Louis.
And Louis has him.
*
He goes back into rehab after that and Louis goes on a couple talk shows, spills basically everything that's happened in the last four years since they practically disappeared off the face of the earth (except for the two suicide attempts, the grisly details of which were splashed all over the news). He gets offered a book deal too, but their story's not over, it's not over yet.
He visits Harry twice a week. He doesn't say anything about it. He probably doesn't care that the world knows their secrets now. Nothing's ever really been secret anyway.
He's never paid much attention to it up until now, the fan reaction. The heartbreak and the devastation it's caused not just to them, but to all these people who had to maybe grow up much too fast to be able to come to terms with it. The loss of innocence on all sides.
They were kids too, not long ago. Looking at Harry now, he can't even imagine it.
*
Two years after he gets out, they give their first and only interview together. Harry doesn't say much, only speaks when he's asked direct questions. He makes it clear he's not going to be some kind of poster-child for reformed drug addicts, he's not going to be the face of depression or the ill effects of superstardom. He's still a work in progress. He's dealing with his own things. He just wants to be left alone. They're just doing this because the fans, the real fans, have a right to know the full story.
The last question is about Louis and how much he's helped him through everything.
"He doesn't deserve this," Harry says after a pause. "He deserves to be happy."
"You deserve that too," Louis says, and it's honest. Harry looks back at him with a strange expression on his face.
And that's the end of it.
*
Another year after, and Louis decides to bring it up cautiously.
"We should do something - for Christmas," he says, trying to sound casual.
"Like what?"
"Like - I don't know, have some people over. Like Niall, and..."
"And all of them?" It kind of hurts to hear, because it used to be us - all of us.
"Yeah, maybe."
"We haven't been in a room together in years, Louis," he spits out, almost disgusted.
"Isn't it time then?"
Harry doesn't reply for a moment.
"I just - I can't handle it. That look in their eyes. The blame..."
"And what about me?" Louis almost screams. "What about the guilt you feel for me? Why can you deal with that but not this?"
"I never asked for this, Louis," and his eyes are pooling with tears, and he's looking so young for the first time in years and years.
"I didn't either."
"I never asked for you to love me so much," he finishes. "I never asked for any of it..."
"But you took it. And you took advantage of it," Louis says, grimacing.
"I can't fix it," and he looks like he wants to, he wants to desperately, for the first time.
"No," Louis says, shaking his head. "But maybe you can make up for it just a little."
*
Liam takes some persuading, from both he and Niall. Zayn says okay pretty quickly, like he wants to make up too, for avoiding things, avoiding everything.
*
Liam hands over a bottle of sparkling grape juice, says, "Nice welcome mat."
Louis feels his first involuntary smile in years.
Then Liam's looking over his shoulder at Harry who's biting his lip nervously, staring at the ground.
Liam just goes over and hugs him tightly. Harry clings back just as hard.
Zayn just looks at them both, links one of his hands with Louis', presses the fingertips of the other to Harry's cheek, as if to just check that he's warm and breathing.
*
Dinner's pretty quiet. Niall tries to get them all to talk, but it's not necessary, not right now. There'll be time. They really believe that now, for the the first time in ages.
Liam's helping Harry get dessert ready when Zayn goes out on to the balcony and Louis follows him.
He just curls both hands around the railing, looks out into the night, breath visible in front of him.
"No fag?" Louis says, rubbing his own hands together.
"Quit," he says simply. "After I saw your interview."
"Harry listens to your album a lot," Louis says quietly, after a few moments. "When he thinks I can't see."
Everyone knows there are a bunch of tracks on there about them, about Harry, about Harry and Louis.
Zayn just shrugs. It's how he deals with it.
Zayn writes songs and draws and gets tattoos that say 'strength' and Liam tries to be normal and Niall talks and laughs and gets them to play dumb boardgames with ridiculously complicated rules. And Harry - Harry runs away and comes back and plays hide and seek with life and death. Louis stays. Even when there's nothing to stay for. Even when there isn't a part of anything he knows left. Not even himself.
When they go back inside, someone's started a cake fight (probably Niall, maybe Harry). Liam's just rolling his eyes and ducking as pieces come flying at him.
Louis steps into the centre of the kitchen, declaring loudly that no one is allowed to wreak havoc without him around and he's stopped by a huge chunk of icing hitting him squarely on his mouth.
Zayn just laughs from a corner as he retaliates.
When Niall finally gives up, he finds Harry hiding behind the table, cake all over his face and in his curls, eyes wide and wild and shining, the biggest smile he's seen on him in years. He settles down next to him, and he doesn't have to say anything. Harry just nods at him. And it's not all okay again, it probably won't ever be, but for a moment, just that moment, it feels like it could be.