fic | if you could take all the heat in your heart
if you could take all the heat in your heart | harry/louis & zayn/liam. | nc - 17. | 5,500. | “Can you hear the ocean?” Louis asks, combing his fingers through Harry’s tangled curls. They smell of peppermint and mango. / “No,” Harry sighs. “I can just hear you.” | warning: slight D/s relationship/undertones, body paint. | Hope you all enjoy. Sorry for any mistakes you might see. Title to Okkervil River and lyrics to The Strokes.
why won't you come over here?
we've got a city to love.
- juicebox, the strokes
Louis wants to get lost with Harry in the New York streets.
It’s comforting to be stuck in an endless maze of metal buildings. Louis grasps onto Harry’s hand and Harry grasps back. Their fingertips bruise each other, marking each other for when they have to leave for the day. Louis always presses onto the bruises over the bird bones of his hand, hisses at the simmer that settles underneath skin as he skims over a tiny dot of a bruise.
They’re lost in a sea of strangers - together. Louis doesn’t remember a time when Harry wasn’t a part of him. Doesn’t remember a time when he woke up and Harry wasn’t there with their legs tangled and arms warm.
They’ve grown together.
*
It snowed their first week in New York.
Louis doesn’t remember ever seeing as much snow in England as he did in New York. It washed away all the colors of the streets. Harry and him sat in front of the window of their apartment, wrapped up in a blanket together, and drank hot chocolate. Every time a car would speed by they would pinch themselves if it weren’t grey or black or yellow.
New York is beautiful drenched in white, Louis knows. He painted each day the snow fell and each day it thawed. He laid Harry out on the floor and painted him, too. Painted him bright colors because soon they both grew tired of white. He grew tired of endless grays and Harry was bright. Harry was purple, yellow, orange, red, and blue. He was every color that Louis would be allowed to touch and streak down his boney chest.
Harry stayed still and when he was finished, spread his legs and asked for Louis to take him with his eyes twinkling unlike the greens painted over his nipples and in the dip of his collarbones.
*
They send letters to their friends, their family, and the nameless strangers that sometimes stop by. They write down their hearts and sign away with just a simple ‘H & L.’ and hope for someone to pick them up and get a glimpse into a life that not even these two boys understand.
New York is taxing. It’s taxing with its miles of walking and endless bustle and the streams of sirens that roar down from street to street. Louis buys Harry earplugs a month into their adventure because Harry constantly kicks and claws and can’t sleep with all the noise.
Louis makes love to Harry with his earplugs in the night he buys them. Harry touches his skin like it’s something to be treasured, and it’s the first time Harry has been hindered. He’s been hindered in other ways, in ways that made them both run away as fast as they could, but this is different. Harry touches the stretch of Louis’ ribs through their bodies and Harry babbles away.
He’s never liked listening to his own voice, and Louis has always shamelessly loved it. Loved the dark drawl and the heavy seduction it took on without meaning to. Harry closes his eyes and moans Louis’ name, trying to hear himself through the blockage. He claws at Louis’ stomach and his collarbones. He talks about love, repeats the word over in a broken echo like he has to let the words go.
When Louis comes - before Harry because of too much touching and talking and Harry - he whispers Harry’s name, low enough to not hear, because it’s his secret. His secret, and the word feels warm and settles heavy in the walls and the lamp and the drying paintings around them.
Harry falls asleep and is late to work, but he wakes Louis up and mumbles a silent thank you, but is vocalized through his touches and his pretty little moans when Louis jerks him off before sending him off with a kiss.
*
They celebrate the Holidays by getting drunk off of Red Wine and ordering Italian food. Harry eats all of the Penne Vodka and Louis licks away the wine. He watches as a drop trails down Harry’s lips, down his chin and stain him red. It is a trail that is asking for Louis to follow down and see what lies there. He resists because it’s Christmas and Harry is wearing little antlers and his lips look as red as the lights that glitter outside.
Money is tight and they don’t have enough for presents, but this is enough. This is enough with their legs tangled on the worn couch and their hands lazy and mouths lazier. They trade kisses that taste of smoke and wine.
The snow begins to fall again and Louis wakes Harry up early the next morning, painting him with his fingers and Harry is pliant and easy underneath him, like he always is.
*
Louis has always wanted to be an artist. He’s always been drawn to the way colors mix and the way a body can be broken down to simple shapes that click together and move. He’s always admired it, but never was able to harness it until he met Harry.
Harry - who was only 14 to Louis’ 16 - but he was beautiful in his own right. Beautiful in the way his voice wrapped around a room and around bodies. Louis studied him, drawing him out and he took every doubt and second guess on Harry. He took each drawing and formed them until they became better and better.
It eventually came to an end, when Harry found him one day and said that he should’ve asked first. He was smiling though, young and limbs awkward and face not fully grown in.
Louis has never been a romantic at heart, but with Harry it’s different. It’s different because Harry’s heart grows like a tangled tree, limbs screwed into the ground, and he’s grown his heart in Louis’ body. Grown him like tangled roots that Louis can’t help but nurture.
Harry is nineteen now. Nineteen with dark hunter green eyes that betray his pacifist beliefs and his hair curls around his cheeks like he’s innocent. His body is long and always bruised in one area. His neck constantly mutilated by Louis’ needy teeth and tongue.
He’s beautiful, growing in and out and sideways and inside Louis’ heart. He paints his skin and Harry yields to him. Yields on the uncomfortable carpeted apartment room floor and lets his eyes close to half-lid. Louis paints with a delicate hand that contradicts his entire being completely. He focuses on the ridges of Harry’s ribs.
They’re both hard and aching, when Louis sets the paintbrush down. Harry’s legs spread obscenely and he doesn’t ask. He never does.
“Ask me,” Louis commands.
Harry opens his eyes, lips bitten raw and ruby red. He takes a breath -- the paint drying quickly. His ribs are coated red today.
“Fuck me.”
*
New York twists into their bodies, into their minds.
They find clothes in second hand stores and make up stories that could possibly have been the previous owners. They usually settle on lovers who want to pass their stories on, because Harry is a romantic and Louis is Harry’s.
It’s sickening, to a sense, how they cannot be alone. Harry gets headaches and his hands shake if Louis is gone for too long. Their jobs are taxing and long hours, but Louis makes sure to slip in for his break to where Harry works and jerks him off in the bathroom to settle the anxiety.
Underneath Harry’s uniform, is the blend of colors. It takes a long time to wash off, dying his skin so lightly that sometimes Louis has to use his tongue to try and map out where the fade of colors being and end.
Harry shakes less whenever Louis leaves, promising to come by right when work is over to take Harry home. Louis is a lot of things, but he isn’t a liar.
The city is too big for Harry, too big for his bones full of love and his heart that breathes passion. Louis keeps him tucked close, keeps him as a secret, as a prize.
*
Spring thaws out of the cold hands of Winter, and soon, Louis paints every day.
Harry sleeps underneath a small blanket on the couch. His breathing is even and deep, his fingers laid flat against the floor.
Louis paints Harry as much as he paints everything else. Paints his sleeping form and puts too much pink over his eyelids, but he always liked drawing Harry tired. Always on the edge of innocent and too much innocence, it comforts Louis.
“Are you still painting?” Harry asks, yawning as he sits up.
“No, not really.”
It’s dark outside now, starts twinkling like dust. Harry moves silently -- he learned at a young age to never drag his feet -- and wraps himself around Louis.
“Come to bed, yeah?” He asks. He presses kisses against the stretch of skin that tastes of sweat and the smell of pollen.
“Are you going to wear your ear plugs to bed?” Louis fishes them out of the drawer of the bedside table when they get there. Harry is stripping off his clothes like they’re layers of his own skin. Soon enough, he’s only just skin.
Harry shakes his head and says, “No, I miss hearing your breathing.”
They hold onto each other. Harry with his ear pressed against Louis’ chest like a young boy listening to a seashell.
“Can you hear the ocean?” Louis asks, combing his fingers through Harry’s tangled curls. They smell of peppermint and mango.
“No,” Harry sighs. “I can just hear you.”
*
Harry begins to collect rings. Sometimes he finds them left behind, using the excuse of giving them a nice home. Louis doesn’t say anything. Sometimes Harry decorates his fingers, long and hopelessly elegant, with some of them and poses with an exaggerated pout of plump red lips.
“Are you home sick?” Louis asks over breakfast.
Harry nods, unhesitant because he has no more hesitation when it comes to Louis.
“Very.”
The rings are a link to home, Louis discovers. He remembers going to Harry’s home-when they were inexperienced and they both had to cover their mouths when they fucked-and the one thing Louis remembers vividly are Harry’s mother’s rings.
He remembers them because they were delicate and classy. Molded around gold and silver and jewels seared to hold. He would go home and doodle her hands, sketch out the rings.
“We could go home.” Louis taps his foot against Harry’s underneath the table. Their silverware scrapes along plates.
Harry shakes his head and says, “That’s enough.”
*
And it is.
They both begin to collect things that remind them of home. Louis buys Yorkshire tea and the biscuits his mother used to eat with her tea. He buys candles that his sister, Lottie, would burn and they smell of vanilla. It helps cover over the scent of drying paint. It gives Harry headaches.
During the third week of April, Louis stops by a little store wrapped by the bend of a street and buys paint. He calls this his Harry Paint, because it’s meant for his skin. The guy behind the cash register smiles and makes a comment about how they don’t usually get people like Louis in the store.
“What do you mean?” He asks. He’s slowly losing his accent; it feels foreign and new in his throat.
He hands over the money and the guy shrugs and brushes it off. Louis does the same. He has more important things to worry about, anyway.
*
“Stay still.”
Harry closes his eyes and Louis presses the flat of his palm over Harry’s ribs. He presses and there’s a faded in the center between Harry’s nipples. There’s a very rushed painted word of MINE that is written on a diagonal from one side of Harry’s stomach to the other.
“Louis,” Harry whines. He grips onto Louis’ hips, and rubs their cocks together. The friction is hot and Louis gasps. Then something takes over and Louis curves his fingernails into Harry’s shoulder until he stops moving.
“I told you to stay still.”
Harry whines in the back of his throat. “It’s hard -- your fingers.”
Eventually the MINE becomes nothing less than a smudge of faded black along Harry’s stomach. His eyes are greener because of it, and Louis kisses him. Harry slips off to sleep easy enough, lips still bruised, and Louis paints him.
It’s the beginning of something.
*
Louis is two months shy of twenty-two when his first gallery opens.
He rang his family when he found out, Harry pressed against the length of his back. The lights of the kitchen bright and white, washing them both out until they were just little shadows that a voyeur could examine. Louis’ voice didn’t waver when he told his mother and his sisters, but they cheered and smacked kisses down the receiver that would surely make his ear buzz, high like tiny bells.
Later, Harry takes Louis out and sits next to him in the booth. Harry smells of strawberry and smoke that day. It’s Fall outside, the winds causing Harry’s hair to curl around his cheeks more, saturating red just like his lips.
“I want to draw you when we get home,” Louis breathes into his neck. He’s exhausted.
Harry swipes his lips against Louis’ neck, a brush of red plump skin against skin. It’s welcoming. Louis’ hand travels up Harry’s side, like a spider crawling against a wall, and he presses against Harry’s pulse point. There’s a rose tinted circle on his porcelain skin. Harry gasps in something that blurs the edges between pleasure and pain.
There’s a silence between them. The world exits away, and it’s nice. It’s nice because Louis and Harry don’t have to worry about friends or family or distant cousins or aunts and uncles twice removed to find them like this-in this compromising position that could ruin reputations and start a whole town talking.
Louis presses a kiss onto Harry’s temple, and removes his fingers and asks for the check.
*
Louis ends up puking three times in the span of an hour and a half. His hands don’t stop shaking, and he locks Harry out. Harry doesn’t whine, but instead rolls down his shirtsleeves and waits for Louis.
“Are you feeling any better?” Harry asks. Louis sees him as all of his paintings. Sees him in all of his failure and self-doubt that is crowding his ribs and pressing like a lead weight on his stomach.
“No,” Louis answers honestly. “I might puke again.”
Then it becomes clear, when Harry smiles softly, and Louis grasps him. Grasps his head and his hands are shaking, which makes Harry’s head shake slightly, his hair bouncing. He smells of Louis. Smells of Louis and the paint that is underneath his clothes that says things like MINE and THIS IS OURS with a grave red line that strikes over Harry’s heart.
“You can’t puke,” Harry checks his watch. His father’s - the first and only one Harry cares to mention anymore - and he says, “We have to go. I’ll bring a bag.”
*
Harry is in all of the pictures.
It’s daunting to him just as much as it is to Louis. People rushing up to him and asking him questions that make his neck turn scarlet and tug at his collar. He smiles and answers, though, voice slow and eyes pressing their emeralds dagger right through hearts and splintering through bones.
They detach and Louis silently hopes for Harry to not have his hands be shaking and his skin translucent when they find one another.
People congratulate him, voices quiet and faces disappearing as soon as they come into view. This gallery is as big and daunting as New York is, in general. Suddenly, his hands itch and he wants to run away, again. He felt this before, when he was reckless and proud - still is, to a deadly degree - and he took Harry by his hand with their belongings and fled here.
Louis thanks enough people that they all become one nameless person to him. He tries to find salvation and instead finds Harry in a corner, staring at a line of small sketches.
“Having fun?”
Harry turns and his eyes look tired and hunter green instead of emerald in this light. Louis doesn’t slip his hand around his waist or kiss the edge of his neck, but instead stands close enough for warmth to pass together.
“When did you draw these?” Harry asks, pointing to them. They’re all Harry sprawled out on the bed, limbs loose and hair fanned like a halo on their soft pillows. The mark of MINE is heavily sketched out, almost like it’s been scarred on his skin.
Louis shrugs and says, “I didn’t know if it was too intimate because - because you know - you know, the whole - thing.” He waves his hand at the end.
“It’s nice. I’m happy you didn’t make it one of your five foot canvases, that could’ve been embarrassing.”
They’re not alone for long, but Harry silently gravitates towards Louis in the silence and the space of it. Their bones ache and Louis calms Harry’s shaking hands and says, “I’m right here, I’m right here,” but sometimes simply being there isn’t enough.
Harry sends him off with a smile and says, “Now that you’ve finally made it, you might as well go talk your head off, right?” His eyes twinkle dim and his lips are plump and cherry.
Louis does it only because Harry asks.
*
It’s the first night in a long, long time that Louis doesn’t make Harry lie down on the floor and get out his Harry Paint and use it.
Harry falls asleep in the middle untying his shoes. Louis strokes his thumbs over his cheeks and warms him up before taking each layer off. He leaves Harry in his jumper and folds his nice pants and tucks his shoes next to the bed. Next, Louis does the same thing for himself, instead going down to boxers.
He kisses Harry’s shoulder, securing his arm around his waist, and falls asleep long enough into morning that when he wakes up, Harry is gone and off to work.
*
Liam and Zayn live two floors above them, and surprise them when Harry is folding laundry and Louis is sitting by the window and staring outside - trying to find something to draw, paint, something.
“Hi,” The boy with the birthmark - later known to be Liam - smiles. “We just - we went to your gallery earlier this week and then we saw you - here, in the complex and -“
“Deep breaths,” The one with the yin and yang tattoo etched onto his skin says, with a small smile -- later to be known as Zayn. It seems to only be reserved for Liam.
They end up getting Chinese and Harry steals Louis’ noodles for the most part and doesn’t touch his chicken. Liam and Zayn share in equal segments, sometimes their wrists hitting one another from eating.
Despite it, Louis feels restless again. Later, they all say goodbye and Liam and Zayn pet Harry’s hair and he smiles softly, his eyes hooded.
“They’re nice,” Harry says. His voice is slow from sleep. Louis undresses him quietly, fingers slow as the pads trace over the contours of Harry’s skin, feeling the ridges of bones where they stretch obscene.
Harry shifts closer to Louis when he tugs on the waistband of his jeans. He leans down for a kiss - small and sweet, too tired now - and Louis responds with a soft press of lips as he unzips Harry’s jeans.
“You’ve been undressing me for years,” Harry laughs. The apartment is dark just like outside, but the windows are open and Louis can hear the roar of engines and the cars speed by.
“I have, haven’t I?” Louis lets Harry tug off his jeans on his own, and watches his fingers tighten. “Do you want me to close the windows?”
“Yes, please.”
*
A year and a half into their "adventure", Harry begins to grow homesick.
Louis knows this in very small ways that Harry lets him see. He wears the rings more, fingers glittering with mismatched jewels and bands of different sizes. He smiles when he wears them, lets his fingertips skirt across the rigid forms and that’s the only time that Louis sees him smile and have it be genuine.
Harry’s skin is porcelain white and sometimes Louis takes a pen and traces the electric blue tracks that wind underneath Harry’s arms and on the very tops of his thighs. His weight is reassuring over Harry’s, his hands skillful and graceful just the way that Harry is composed of, but does not embrace.
“You’re running away from me, aren’t you?” Louis asks. He wishes he used to be the jokester that everyone took pride in knowing from earlier on, but New York has washed both of them away. He’s growing tired, and his paintings are selling for more and more but his Harry is feeling less and less.
Harry flutters his eyes closed, and takes a breath. “I miss my family.”
“I know.” Louis does, too. He misses being surrounded by his sisters and buttoning their simple dresses and keeping Lottie away from boys in her year.
“Should we go back?” Harry asks. It’s quiet, and the moonlight catches on the golden band wrapped around Harry’s thumb. It’s a cheap golden band that is starting to taint Harry’s skin green around the crease.
Louis grabs his hands and says, “We can go during the winter.”
It’s summer now. The air conditioner doesn’t work, and they don’t have trouble with laundry often simply because of Harry going around nude and Louis taking over Harry’s extensive wardrobe. They like the summer, here. It makes them needy and desperate, and Harry’s wrists are lined with pen and there's a tiny filled in heart on the back of his neck. The curves are precise and the heart small enough that half of it is hidden away by the edges of Harry's curls.
Harry had tried to scrub off the pen mark on his neck, but simply stopped when Louis crowded him close and bent him over the sink and peppered him in kisses and soothing words.
“Yes,” Harry nods. His voice is slightly faster in the summer. His skin is golden and his hair wraps wildly. He needs a haircut soon. Louis wonders if Liam or Zayn will be able to do it. “Yes, we can go back in the winter, I think.”
Harry moves on from wearing the ring around his thumb - he insists that it reminds him most of his mother, very simple and sophisticated even if the band is fake - and sticks it in his pocket or wears it around the chain with the golden cross whenever he wakes up and doesn’t feel too tired.
*
They end up going back in the Spring, because that’s the only time Harry can get off of work without it being too much hassle.
Louis watches as Harry swallows a few pills before the plane takes off and promptly passes out for the whole endurance of the flight. Louis’ hand sometimes finds its way to Harry’s and touches simply for the fact that Harry won’t shake and stir.
There are five sketches of Harry in Louis’ notebook when his wrist begins to ache and he decides to watch the movie. His head lolls back fifteen minutes in, eyes slipping closed.
The headphones slip away from Louis’ head - he’s always been a constant mover, a ball of energy - and his fingers has found Harry’s wrist. When they wake up, Louis’ fingers are smudged with ink from where he’s written HOME over Harry’s pulse and pressed a kiss before Harry swallowed his pills.
London is messy and it’s loud, but Louis feels like he can breathe. It reminds him of New York - which then reminds him to text Liam and remind him to water the plants - but it’s something - it’s something about being home that Louis feels so completely exhausted and calm at the same time.
“You look tired for once,” Harry comments. His eyes are wide and emerald green again. Louis misses the hunter green, because it was dark and hungry and the only time Harry’s eyes flashed bright were when Louis jerk him off against the kitchen counter before they had some tea and then went to bed or work.
Louis smiles and says, “I am tired.” And then, “Come on, let’s find the train and go home.”
*
The two weeks go by in a blur. Louis sleeps for most it and Harry sleeps for pretty much all of it. Louis sketches out his family whenever he’s downstairs with them and Harry is upstairs and sleeping, curled tight in a ball underneath Louis’ childhood blanket.
“How is your art going?” Jay asks, sitting across from him and tapping his wrist to make him stop. He looks up at her, and smiles.
“Good, yeah.” He nods, and fixes his glasses. He doesn’t talk about the interviews in magazines or the ones Harry has even been asked to do, but declined simply because he’s not the artist.
Jay smiles and says, “Do you like the city never sleeps?” Her tone is sad, but she tries to make it light. Lottie runs into the kitchen with Daisy and Georgia following behind her, quickly and eager. They tug on the bottom of her dress and shrieks.
“It’s quieter than here,” Louis laughs and starts to sketch out his mother’s hands. He pays attention to the rings decorating her fingers.
*
Harry cries when he sees his mother again - Anne - and they latch onto one another like they haven’t seen each other in a lifetime.
“You’ve grown so big,” She whispers, cupping his cheeks.
Cheshire is blooming in bright pinks and Louis takes allergy meds and Harry laughs louder than he has in a long time.
“Where’s Gemma?” Harry asks as he plays around with his food.
“Paris.” Anne is turned away from the both of them, putting the dishes in the cabinets. Their cat rests on the kitchen table and she clucks her tongue and removes the ball of black fur and sets it on the hardwood floor.
“You need a haircut,” She says when she turns around. Louis nods quickly and she smiles at him.
“Have you been treating him well?”
Louis crosses his heart and says, “My very best, Anne. I swear.”
*
Harry sits outside the deck and lets his mother cut his hair. She swears up and down that it’s better - and easier and less expensive - to do this way and she’s done it before.
*
Louis writes on the inside of Harry’s thighs with pen when it’s the middle of the night, and their both edging on needy. They don’t fuck in England, because it’s childhood. Louis remembers when they first had sex and Harry was only fifteen and Louis kissed away the treks of tears that slid down Harry’s young pinked cheeks.
Louis writes SOON on the tender flesh of Harry’s right thigh and licks a lovebite on the left.
*
New York is loud and smoke filled and Louis has missed it in the simplest terms of missing things. Mostly, he’s missed pressing Harry onto the floor and painting him. His fingers are covered in ink and Harry’s wrist is coated in pen.
“I’m surprised you haven’t run out,” Harry says, rubbing the pad of his thumb over it. It smears down; coating porcelain and making it look run down.
Louis shrugs and tosses his luggage to the side and immediately tugs Harry to the bed.
Harry goes on his stomach easily and clutches the pillows when Louis tugs his jeans down. Louis’ fingers are cool from the lube stashed away on bottom of the bed because they have no use for a bedside table. His hands are stark white against the pillows and his eyes flutter close. His lips red and bitten through as Louis teases him, presses one finger in, then two, then three, then-
“Please,” Harry begs into the cotton of the pillow.
“What is it, Harry?” Louis asks, leaning forward. His fingers stop, and Harry clenches around him, tight and warm and everything Harry is.
His cheeks are red like roses and his voice husky when he says, “Fuck me.”
*
Liam and Zayn come over and bring a friend, Niall, with them. His eyes are pure blue and his laugh loud and brash. Harry smiles at him, and Louis feels himself ease.
They get drunk off of beer and Niall dances with Harry in the middle of the living room, their chests hovering and hands near touching. Their laughs blur into one another.
“We got you something,” Liam says. His cheeks are bright red and Zayn keeps biting at his neck when Louis is turned away - too caught up with looking at Harry and trying to control the hot coil that wraps around his ribs and squeezes painfully tight, like a brand.
It turns out it’s a record player. Old and used and then Zayn goes onto explain how it would help the artist vibes they have going on.
Louis smiles and says, “Thanks,” and then drinks more and tries not to think of Harry and how loud his laugh is tonight.
*
Later, Louis rakes his nails down the pale expanse of Harry’s neck when they’re locked in the bathroom. There are still beer bottles littered across the apartment and ants will begin to come out on the hunt for the food that they haven’t thrown out.
“You’re mine,” Louis grits out across the juncture of Harry’s neck. He bites into the tender flesh of Harry’s neck and sucks a bruise so hard he feels like he’s sucking away Harry’s soul.
“Yours, yours, yours,” Harry babbles, voice turned to a whisper and eyes hooded and maddeningly dark green - almost black. He sucks Louis off and opens his throat to let Louis in. Louis looks down and Harry looks up and suddenly, Louis wants to paint him. Wants to paint the way his lips are stretched over his cock and his hands pressing blunt crescent moons across the tender flesh of his thighs. Harry’s eyes are green and watery, but he blinks them closed, and still doesn’t break away from Louis’ gaze.
“Go on,” Louis commands, fingers threading, but not pulling, and he holds Harry’s steady with each push and pull he gives.
He comes when Harry hums 'Louis' around his cock. He can barely hear it, muffled around hard flesh. Harry swallows, because it’s too annoying to spit and Louis always likes to watch the way Harry licks his lips until all the come is wiped away.
*
“When did we get a record player?” Harry asks, toweling off his hair. It’s storming outside, harsh and dark.
“Yesterday,” Louis says.
They end up plugging it in and Liam and Zayn have even put in two records for them to listen to.
The music calms and feels dim. It reminds Louis of a longue, and Harry is smiling at him, warm and loving and Harry and his palms burn white hot.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Louis’ smile is small, and the thunder claps around them. The windows are sealed shut, but the humidity still seeps in like a heavy blanket over them. “I don’t want to dance.”
“Oh, that’s not fair,” Harry giggles. He steps forward and wraps his arms around Louis’ neck and peppers kisses over the tender skin of his cheekbones, the side of his nose, the heavy bags of his eyelids. “Just one song.”
They end up dancing to the three songs on the front side, before Louis slides Harry down onto the floor.
“I’m going to be permanently rug burned, Lou,” Harry huffs, but lets Louis slide into the wide slot of his legs.
Louis swallows his worries and his words. Traps Harry’s jaw in his hand, and traces the sharp curve of Harry’s jawbone.
“You’ve grown so much,” Louis whispers against Harry’s lips.
Harry smiles, sleepily and almost drunkenly, and says, “I’ve grown with you, haven’t I?”
*
The galleries get bigger and bigger. There are too many interviews and questions about Harry and Louis and HarryandLouis, but Louis just answers them to the best of his ability.
New York is big, but Louis grows into it. Lets it fit like an over bearing mother around him. Harry still sleeps next to him, still slow mouthed and quiet with eyes that gleam of emeralds and lips of rubies.
Louis writes MINE over Harry’s chest. The words are solid and black. He’s beginning to feel shaky and weak from all the painting, his wrist aching and his eyes hurting.
But, Harry is there. Harry is there with his smile and traces mine over Louis’ chest, and presses his hand over Louis’ heart. They’re lost together, in this city of grey and cars of grey and black and yellow. They’re lost together and Louis presses Harry onto the floor and strips him of his clothes and presses his fingertips to the sharp indents of Harry’s ribs.
“Ours,” Harry breathes, and it’s enough.
why won't you come over here?
we've got a city to love.
- juicebox, the strokes
Louis wants to get lost with Harry in the New York streets.
It’s comforting to be stuck in an endless maze of metal buildings. Louis grasps onto Harry’s hand and Harry grasps back. Their fingertips bruise each other, marking each other for when they have to leave for the day. Louis always presses onto the bruises over the bird bones of his hand, hisses at the simmer that settles underneath skin as he skims over a tiny dot of a bruise.
They’re lost in a sea of strangers - together. Louis doesn’t remember a time when Harry wasn’t a part of him. Doesn’t remember a time when he woke up and Harry wasn’t there with their legs tangled and arms warm.
They’ve grown together.
*
It snowed their first week in New York.
Louis doesn’t remember ever seeing as much snow in England as he did in New York. It washed away all the colors of the streets. Harry and him sat in front of the window of their apartment, wrapped up in a blanket together, and drank hot chocolate. Every time a car would speed by they would pinch themselves if it weren’t grey or black or yellow.
New York is beautiful drenched in white, Louis knows. He painted each day the snow fell and each day it thawed. He laid Harry out on the floor and painted him, too. Painted him bright colors because soon they both grew tired of white. He grew tired of endless grays and Harry was bright. Harry was purple, yellow, orange, red, and blue. He was every color that Louis would be allowed to touch and streak down his boney chest.
Harry stayed still and when he was finished, spread his legs and asked for Louis to take him with his eyes twinkling unlike the greens painted over his nipples and in the dip of his collarbones.
*
They send letters to their friends, their family, and the nameless strangers that sometimes stop by. They write down their hearts and sign away with just a simple ‘H & L.’ and hope for someone to pick them up and get a glimpse into a life that not even these two boys understand.
New York is taxing. It’s taxing with its miles of walking and endless bustle and the streams of sirens that roar down from street to street. Louis buys Harry earplugs a month into their adventure because Harry constantly kicks and claws and can’t sleep with all the noise.
Louis makes love to Harry with his earplugs in the night he buys them. Harry touches his skin like it’s something to be treasured, and it’s the first time Harry has been hindered. He’s been hindered in other ways, in ways that made them both run away as fast as they could, but this is different. Harry touches the stretch of Louis’ ribs through their bodies and Harry babbles away.
He’s never liked listening to his own voice, and Louis has always shamelessly loved it. Loved the dark drawl and the heavy seduction it took on without meaning to. Harry closes his eyes and moans Louis’ name, trying to hear himself through the blockage. He claws at Louis’ stomach and his collarbones. He talks about love, repeats the word over in a broken echo like he has to let the words go.
When Louis comes - before Harry because of too much touching and talking and Harry - he whispers Harry’s name, low enough to not hear, because it’s his secret. His secret, and the word feels warm and settles heavy in the walls and the lamp and the drying paintings around them.
Harry falls asleep and is late to work, but he wakes Louis up and mumbles a silent thank you, but is vocalized through his touches and his pretty little moans when Louis jerks him off before sending him off with a kiss.
*
They celebrate the Holidays by getting drunk off of Red Wine and ordering Italian food. Harry eats all of the Penne Vodka and Louis licks away the wine. He watches as a drop trails down Harry’s lips, down his chin and stain him red. It is a trail that is asking for Louis to follow down and see what lies there. He resists because it’s Christmas and Harry is wearing little antlers and his lips look as red as the lights that glitter outside.
Money is tight and they don’t have enough for presents, but this is enough. This is enough with their legs tangled on the worn couch and their hands lazy and mouths lazier. They trade kisses that taste of smoke and wine.
The snow begins to fall again and Louis wakes Harry up early the next morning, painting him with his fingers and Harry is pliant and easy underneath him, like he always is.
*
Louis has always wanted to be an artist. He’s always been drawn to the way colors mix and the way a body can be broken down to simple shapes that click together and move. He’s always admired it, but never was able to harness it until he met Harry.
Harry - who was only 14 to Louis’ 16 - but he was beautiful in his own right. Beautiful in the way his voice wrapped around a room and around bodies. Louis studied him, drawing him out and he took every doubt and second guess on Harry. He took each drawing and formed them until they became better and better.
It eventually came to an end, when Harry found him one day and said that he should’ve asked first. He was smiling though, young and limbs awkward and face not fully grown in.
Louis has never been a romantic at heart, but with Harry it’s different. It’s different because Harry’s heart grows like a tangled tree, limbs screwed into the ground, and he’s grown his heart in Louis’ body. Grown him like tangled roots that Louis can’t help but nurture.
Harry is nineteen now. Nineteen with dark hunter green eyes that betray his pacifist beliefs and his hair curls around his cheeks like he’s innocent. His body is long and always bruised in one area. His neck constantly mutilated by Louis’ needy teeth and tongue.
He’s beautiful, growing in and out and sideways and inside Louis’ heart. He paints his skin and Harry yields to him. Yields on the uncomfortable carpeted apartment room floor and lets his eyes close to half-lid. Louis paints with a delicate hand that contradicts his entire being completely. He focuses on the ridges of Harry’s ribs.
They’re both hard and aching, when Louis sets the paintbrush down. Harry’s legs spread obscenely and he doesn’t ask. He never does.
“Ask me,” Louis commands.
Harry opens his eyes, lips bitten raw and ruby red. He takes a breath -- the paint drying quickly. His ribs are coated red today.
“Fuck me.”
*
New York twists into their bodies, into their minds.
They find clothes in second hand stores and make up stories that could possibly have been the previous owners. They usually settle on lovers who want to pass their stories on, because Harry is a romantic and Louis is Harry’s.
It’s sickening, to a sense, how they cannot be alone. Harry gets headaches and his hands shake if Louis is gone for too long. Their jobs are taxing and long hours, but Louis makes sure to slip in for his break to where Harry works and jerks him off in the bathroom to settle the anxiety.
Underneath Harry’s uniform, is the blend of colors. It takes a long time to wash off, dying his skin so lightly that sometimes Louis has to use his tongue to try and map out where the fade of colors being and end.
Harry shakes less whenever Louis leaves, promising to come by right when work is over to take Harry home. Louis is a lot of things, but he isn’t a liar.
The city is too big for Harry, too big for his bones full of love and his heart that breathes passion. Louis keeps him tucked close, keeps him as a secret, as a prize.
*
Spring thaws out of the cold hands of Winter, and soon, Louis paints every day.
Harry sleeps underneath a small blanket on the couch. His breathing is even and deep, his fingers laid flat against the floor.
Louis paints Harry as much as he paints everything else. Paints his sleeping form and puts too much pink over his eyelids, but he always liked drawing Harry tired. Always on the edge of innocent and too much innocence, it comforts Louis.
“Are you still painting?” Harry asks, yawning as he sits up.
“No, not really.”
It’s dark outside now, starts twinkling like dust. Harry moves silently -- he learned at a young age to never drag his feet -- and wraps himself around Louis.
“Come to bed, yeah?” He asks. He presses kisses against the stretch of skin that tastes of sweat and the smell of pollen.
“Are you going to wear your ear plugs to bed?” Louis fishes them out of the drawer of the bedside table when they get there. Harry is stripping off his clothes like they’re layers of his own skin. Soon enough, he’s only just skin.
Harry shakes his head and says, “No, I miss hearing your breathing.”
They hold onto each other. Harry with his ear pressed against Louis’ chest like a young boy listening to a seashell.
“Can you hear the ocean?” Louis asks, combing his fingers through Harry’s tangled curls. They smell of peppermint and mango.
“No,” Harry sighs. “I can just hear you.”
*
Harry begins to collect rings. Sometimes he finds them left behind, using the excuse of giving them a nice home. Louis doesn’t say anything. Sometimes Harry decorates his fingers, long and hopelessly elegant, with some of them and poses with an exaggerated pout of plump red lips.
“Are you home sick?” Louis asks over breakfast.
Harry nods, unhesitant because he has no more hesitation when it comes to Louis.
“Very.”
The rings are a link to home, Louis discovers. He remembers going to Harry’s home-when they were inexperienced and they both had to cover their mouths when they fucked-and the one thing Louis remembers vividly are Harry’s mother’s rings.
He remembers them because they were delicate and classy. Molded around gold and silver and jewels seared to hold. He would go home and doodle her hands, sketch out the rings.
“We could go home.” Louis taps his foot against Harry’s underneath the table. Their silverware scrapes along plates.
Harry shakes his head and says, “That’s enough.”
*
And it is.
They both begin to collect things that remind them of home. Louis buys Yorkshire tea and the biscuits his mother used to eat with her tea. He buys candles that his sister, Lottie, would burn and they smell of vanilla. It helps cover over the scent of drying paint. It gives Harry headaches.
During the third week of April, Louis stops by a little store wrapped by the bend of a street and buys paint. He calls this his Harry Paint, because it’s meant for his skin. The guy behind the cash register smiles and makes a comment about how they don’t usually get people like Louis in the store.
“What do you mean?” He asks. He’s slowly losing his accent; it feels foreign and new in his throat.
He hands over the money and the guy shrugs and brushes it off. Louis does the same. He has more important things to worry about, anyway.
*
“Stay still.”
Harry closes his eyes and Louis presses the flat of his palm over Harry’s ribs. He presses and there’s a faded in the center between Harry’s nipples. There’s a very rushed painted word of MINE that is written on a diagonal from one side of Harry’s stomach to the other.
“Louis,” Harry whines. He grips onto Louis’ hips, and rubs their cocks together. The friction is hot and Louis gasps. Then something takes over and Louis curves his fingernails into Harry’s shoulder until he stops moving.
“I told you to stay still.”
Harry whines in the back of his throat. “It’s hard -- your fingers.”
Eventually the MINE becomes nothing less than a smudge of faded black along Harry’s stomach. His eyes are greener because of it, and Louis kisses him. Harry slips off to sleep easy enough, lips still bruised, and Louis paints him.
It’s the beginning of something.
*
Louis is two months shy of twenty-two when his first gallery opens.
He rang his family when he found out, Harry pressed against the length of his back. The lights of the kitchen bright and white, washing them both out until they were just little shadows that a voyeur could examine. Louis’ voice didn’t waver when he told his mother and his sisters, but they cheered and smacked kisses down the receiver that would surely make his ear buzz, high like tiny bells.
Later, Harry takes Louis out and sits next to him in the booth. Harry smells of strawberry and smoke that day. It’s Fall outside, the winds causing Harry’s hair to curl around his cheeks more, saturating red just like his lips.
“I want to draw you when we get home,” Louis breathes into his neck. He’s exhausted.
Harry swipes his lips against Louis’ neck, a brush of red plump skin against skin. It’s welcoming. Louis’ hand travels up Harry’s side, like a spider crawling against a wall, and he presses against Harry’s pulse point. There’s a rose tinted circle on his porcelain skin. Harry gasps in something that blurs the edges between pleasure and pain.
There’s a silence between them. The world exits away, and it’s nice. It’s nice because Louis and Harry don’t have to worry about friends or family or distant cousins or aunts and uncles twice removed to find them like this-in this compromising position that could ruin reputations and start a whole town talking.
Louis presses a kiss onto Harry’s temple, and removes his fingers and asks for the check.
*
Louis ends up puking three times in the span of an hour and a half. His hands don’t stop shaking, and he locks Harry out. Harry doesn’t whine, but instead rolls down his shirtsleeves and waits for Louis.
“Are you feeling any better?” Harry asks. Louis sees him as all of his paintings. Sees him in all of his failure and self-doubt that is crowding his ribs and pressing like a lead weight on his stomach.
“No,” Louis answers honestly. “I might puke again.”
Then it becomes clear, when Harry smiles softly, and Louis grasps him. Grasps his head and his hands are shaking, which makes Harry’s head shake slightly, his hair bouncing. He smells of Louis. Smells of Louis and the paint that is underneath his clothes that says things like MINE and THIS IS OURS with a grave red line that strikes over Harry’s heart.
“You can’t puke,” Harry checks his watch. His father’s - the first and only one Harry cares to mention anymore - and he says, “We have to go. I’ll bring a bag.”
*
Harry is in all of the pictures.
It’s daunting to him just as much as it is to Louis. People rushing up to him and asking him questions that make his neck turn scarlet and tug at his collar. He smiles and answers, though, voice slow and eyes pressing their emeralds dagger right through hearts and splintering through bones.
They detach and Louis silently hopes for Harry to not have his hands be shaking and his skin translucent when they find one another.
People congratulate him, voices quiet and faces disappearing as soon as they come into view. This gallery is as big and daunting as New York is, in general. Suddenly, his hands itch and he wants to run away, again. He felt this before, when he was reckless and proud - still is, to a deadly degree - and he took Harry by his hand with their belongings and fled here.
Louis thanks enough people that they all become one nameless person to him. He tries to find salvation and instead finds Harry in a corner, staring at a line of small sketches.
“Having fun?”
Harry turns and his eyes look tired and hunter green instead of emerald in this light. Louis doesn’t slip his hand around his waist or kiss the edge of his neck, but instead stands close enough for warmth to pass together.
“When did you draw these?” Harry asks, pointing to them. They’re all Harry sprawled out on the bed, limbs loose and hair fanned like a halo on their soft pillows. The mark of MINE is heavily sketched out, almost like it’s been scarred on his skin.
Louis shrugs and says, “I didn’t know if it was too intimate because - because you know - you know, the whole - thing.” He waves his hand at the end.
“It’s nice. I’m happy you didn’t make it one of your five foot canvases, that could’ve been embarrassing.”
They’re not alone for long, but Harry silently gravitates towards Louis in the silence and the space of it. Their bones ache and Louis calms Harry’s shaking hands and says, “I’m right here, I’m right here,” but sometimes simply being there isn’t enough.
Harry sends him off with a smile and says, “Now that you’ve finally made it, you might as well go talk your head off, right?” His eyes twinkle dim and his lips are plump and cherry.
Louis does it only because Harry asks.
*
It’s the first night in a long, long time that Louis doesn’t make Harry lie down on the floor and get out his Harry Paint and use it.
Harry falls asleep in the middle untying his shoes. Louis strokes his thumbs over his cheeks and warms him up before taking each layer off. He leaves Harry in his jumper and folds his nice pants and tucks his shoes next to the bed. Next, Louis does the same thing for himself, instead going down to boxers.
He kisses Harry’s shoulder, securing his arm around his waist, and falls asleep long enough into morning that when he wakes up, Harry is gone and off to work.
*
Liam and Zayn live two floors above them, and surprise them when Harry is folding laundry and Louis is sitting by the window and staring outside - trying to find something to draw, paint, something.
“Hi,” The boy with the birthmark - later known to be Liam - smiles. “We just - we went to your gallery earlier this week and then we saw you - here, in the complex and -“
“Deep breaths,” The one with the yin and yang tattoo etched onto his skin says, with a small smile -- later to be known as Zayn. It seems to only be reserved for Liam.
They end up getting Chinese and Harry steals Louis’ noodles for the most part and doesn’t touch his chicken. Liam and Zayn share in equal segments, sometimes their wrists hitting one another from eating.
Despite it, Louis feels restless again. Later, they all say goodbye and Liam and Zayn pet Harry’s hair and he smiles softly, his eyes hooded.
“They’re nice,” Harry says. His voice is slow from sleep. Louis undresses him quietly, fingers slow as the pads trace over the contours of Harry’s skin, feeling the ridges of bones where they stretch obscene.
Harry shifts closer to Louis when he tugs on the waistband of his jeans. He leans down for a kiss - small and sweet, too tired now - and Louis responds with a soft press of lips as he unzips Harry’s jeans.
“You’ve been undressing me for years,” Harry laughs. The apartment is dark just like outside, but the windows are open and Louis can hear the roar of engines and the cars speed by.
“I have, haven’t I?” Louis lets Harry tug off his jeans on his own, and watches his fingers tighten. “Do you want me to close the windows?”
“Yes, please.”
*
A year and a half into their "adventure", Harry begins to grow homesick.
Louis knows this in very small ways that Harry lets him see. He wears the rings more, fingers glittering with mismatched jewels and bands of different sizes. He smiles when he wears them, lets his fingertips skirt across the rigid forms and that’s the only time that Louis sees him smile and have it be genuine.
Harry’s skin is porcelain white and sometimes Louis takes a pen and traces the electric blue tracks that wind underneath Harry’s arms and on the very tops of his thighs. His weight is reassuring over Harry’s, his hands skillful and graceful just the way that Harry is composed of, but does not embrace.
“You’re running away from me, aren’t you?” Louis asks. He wishes he used to be the jokester that everyone took pride in knowing from earlier on, but New York has washed both of them away. He’s growing tired, and his paintings are selling for more and more but his Harry is feeling less and less.
Harry flutters his eyes closed, and takes a breath. “I miss my family.”
“I know.” Louis does, too. He misses being surrounded by his sisters and buttoning their simple dresses and keeping Lottie away from boys in her year.
“Should we go back?” Harry asks. It’s quiet, and the moonlight catches on the golden band wrapped around Harry’s thumb. It’s a cheap golden band that is starting to taint Harry’s skin green around the crease.
Louis grabs his hands and says, “We can go during the winter.”
It’s summer now. The air conditioner doesn’t work, and they don’t have trouble with laundry often simply because of Harry going around nude and Louis taking over Harry’s extensive wardrobe. They like the summer, here. It makes them needy and desperate, and Harry’s wrists are lined with pen and there's a tiny filled in heart on the back of his neck. The curves are precise and the heart small enough that half of it is hidden away by the edges of Harry's curls.
Harry had tried to scrub off the pen mark on his neck, but simply stopped when Louis crowded him close and bent him over the sink and peppered him in kisses and soothing words.
“Yes,” Harry nods. His voice is slightly faster in the summer. His skin is golden and his hair wraps wildly. He needs a haircut soon. Louis wonders if Liam or Zayn will be able to do it. “Yes, we can go back in the winter, I think.”
Harry moves on from wearing the ring around his thumb - he insists that it reminds him most of his mother, very simple and sophisticated even if the band is fake - and sticks it in his pocket or wears it around the chain with the golden cross whenever he wakes up and doesn’t feel too tired.
*
They end up going back in the Spring, because that’s the only time Harry can get off of work without it being too much hassle.
Louis watches as Harry swallows a few pills before the plane takes off and promptly passes out for the whole endurance of the flight. Louis’ hand sometimes finds its way to Harry’s and touches simply for the fact that Harry won’t shake and stir.
There are five sketches of Harry in Louis’ notebook when his wrist begins to ache and he decides to watch the movie. His head lolls back fifteen minutes in, eyes slipping closed.
The headphones slip away from Louis’ head - he’s always been a constant mover, a ball of energy - and his fingers has found Harry’s wrist. When they wake up, Louis’ fingers are smudged with ink from where he’s written HOME over Harry’s pulse and pressed a kiss before Harry swallowed his pills.
London is messy and it’s loud, but Louis feels like he can breathe. It reminds him of New York - which then reminds him to text Liam and remind him to water the plants - but it’s something - it’s something about being home that Louis feels so completely exhausted and calm at the same time.
“You look tired for once,” Harry comments. His eyes are wide and emerald green again. Louis misses the hunter green, because it was dark and hungry and the only time Harry’s eyes flashed bright were when Louis jerk him off against the kitchen counter before they had some tea and then went to bed or work.
Louis smiles and says, “I am tired.” And then, “Come on, let’s find the train and go home.”
*
The two weeks go by in a blur. Louis sleeps for most it and Harry sleeps for pretty much all of it. Louis sketches out his family whenever he’s downstairs with them and Harry is upstairs and sleeping, curled tight in a ball underneath Louis’ childhood blanket.
“How is your art going?” Jay asks, sitting across from him and tapping his wrist to make him stop. He looks up at her, and smiles.
“Good, yeah.” He nods, and fixes his glasses. He doesn’t talk about the interviews in magazines or the ones Harry has even been asked to do, but declined simply because he’s not the artist.
Jay smiles and says, “Do you like the city never sleeps?” Her tone is sad, but she tries to make it light. Lottie runs into the kitchen with Daisy and Georgia following behind her, quickly and eager. They tug on the bottom of her dress and shrieks.
“It’s quieter than here,” Louis laughs and starts to sketch out his mother’s hands. He pays attention to the rings decorating her fingers.
*
Harry cries when he sees his mother again - Anne - and they latch onto one another like they haven’t seen each other in a lifetime.
“You’ve grown so big,” She whispers, cupping his cheeks.
Cheshire is blooming in bright pinks and Louis takes allergy meds and Harry laughs louder than he has in a long time.
“Where’s Gemma?” Harry asks as he plays around with his food.
“Paris.” Anne is turned away from the both of them, putting the dishes in the cabinets. Their cat rests on the kitchen table and she clucks her tongue and removes the ball of black fur and sets it on the hardwood floor.
“You need a haircut,” She says when she turns around. Louis nods quickly and she smiles at him.
“Have you been treating him well?”
Louis crosses his heart and says, “My very best, Anne. I swear.”
*
Harry sits outside the deck and lets his mother cut his hair. She swears up and down that it’s better - and easier and less expensive - to do this way and she’s done it before.
*
Louis writes on the inside of Harry’s thighs with pen when it’s the middle of the night, and their both edging on needy. They don’t fuck in England, because it’s childhood. Louis remembers when they first had sex and Harry was only fifteen and Louis kissed away the treks of tears that slid down Harry’s young pinked cheeks.
Louis writes SOON on the tender flesh of Harry’s right thigh and licks a lovebite on the left.
*
New York is loud and smoke filled and Louis has missed it in the simplest terms of missing things. Mostly, he’s missed pressing Harry onto the floor and painting him. His fingers are covered in ink and Harry’s wrist is coated in pen.
“I’m surprised you haven’t run out,” Harry says, rubbing the pad of his thumb over it. It smears down; coating porcelain and making it look run down.
Louis shrugs and tosses his luggage to the side and immediately tugs Harry to the bed.
Harry goes on his stomach easily and clutches the pillows when Louis tugs his jeans down. Louis’ fingers are cool from the lube stashed away on bottom of the bed because they have no use for a bedside table. His hands are stark white against the pillows and his eyes flutter close. His lips red and bitten through as Louis teases him, presses one finger in, then two, then three, then-
“Please,” Harry begs into the cotton of the pillow.
“What is it, Harry?” Louis asks, leaning forward. His fingers stop, and Harry clenches around him, tight and warm and everything Harry is.
His cheeks are red like roses and his voice husky when he says, “Fuck me.”
*
Liam and Zayn come over and bring a friend, Niall, with them. His eyes are pure blue and his laugh loud and brash. Harry smiles at him, and Louis feels himself ease.
They get drunk off of beer and Niall dances with Harry in the middle of the living room, their chests hovering and hands near touching. Their laughs blur into one another.
“We got you something,” Liam says. His cheeks are bright red and Zayn keeps biting at his neck when Louis is turned away - too caught up with looking at Harry and trying to control the hot coil that wraps around his ribs and squeezes painfully tight, like a brand.
It turns out it’s a record player. Old and used and then Zayn goes onto explain how it would help the artist vibes they have going on.
Louis smiles and says, “Thanks,” and then drinks more and tries not to think of Harry and how loud his laugh is tonight.
*
Later, Louis rakes his nails down the pale expanse of Harry’s neck when they’re locked in the bathroom. There are still beer bottles littered across the apartment and ants will begin to come out on the hunt for the food that they haven’t thrown out.
“You’re mine,” Louis grits out across the juncture of Harry’s neck. He bites into the tender flesh of Harry’s neck and sucks a bruise so hard he feels like he’s sucking away Harry’s soul.
“Yours, yours, yours,” Harry babbles, voice turned to a whisper and eyes hooded and maddeningly dark green - almost black. He sucks Louis off and opens his throat to let Louis in. Louis looks down and Harry looks up and suddenly, Louis wants to paint him. Wants to paint the way his lips are stretched over his cock and his hands pressing blunt crescent moons across the tender flesh of his thighs. Harry’s eyes are green and watery, but he blinks them closed, and still doesn’t break away from Louis’ gaze.
“Go on,” Louis commands, fingers threading, but not pulling, and he holds Harry’s steady with each push and pull he gives.
He comes when Harry hums 'Louis' around his cock. He can barely hear it, muffled around hard flesh. Harry swallows, because it’s too annoying to spit and Louis always likes to watch the way Harry licks his lips until all the come is wiped away.
*
“When did we get a record player?” Harry asks, toweling off his hair. It’s storming outside, harsh and dark.
“Yesterday,” Louis says.
They end up plugging it in and Liam and Zayn have even put in two records for them to listen to.
The music calms and feels dim. It reminds Louis of a longue, and Harry is smiling at him, warm and loving and Harry and his palms burn white hot.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Louis’ smile is small, and the thunder claps around them. The windows are sealed shut, but the humidity still seeps in like a heavy blanket over them. “I don’t want to dance.”
“Oh, that’s not fair,” Harry giggles. He steps forward and wraps his arms around Louis’ neck and peppers kisses over the tender skin of his cheekbones, the side of his nose, the heavy bags of his eyelids. “Just one song.”
They end up dancing to the three songs on the front side, before Louis slides Harry down onto the floor.
“I’m going to be permanently rug burned, Lou,” Harry huffs, but lets Louis slide into the wide slot of his legs.
Louis swallows his worries and his words. Traps Harry’s jaw in his hand, and traces the sharp curve of Harry’s jawbone.
“You’ve grown so much,” Louis whispers against Harry’s lips.
Harry smiles, sleepily and almost drunkenly, and says, “I’ve grown with you, haven’t I?”
*
The galleries get bigger and bigger. There are too many interviews and questions about Harry and Louis and HarryandLouis, but Louis just answers them to the best of his ability.
New York is big, but Louis grows into it. Lets it fit like an over bearing mother around him. Harry still sleeps next to him, still slow mouthed and quiet with eyes that gleam of emeralds and lips of rubies.
Louis writes MINE over Harry’s chest. The words are solid and black. He’s beginning to feel shaky and weak from all the painting, his wrist aching and his eyes hurting.
But, Harry is there. Harry is there with his smile and traces mine over Louis’ chest, and presses his hand over Louis’ heart. They’re lost together, in this city of grey and cars of grey and black and yellow. They’re lost together and Louis presses Harry onto the floor and strips him of his clothes and presses his fingertips to the sharp indents of Harry’s ribs.
“Ours,” Harry breathes, and it’s enough.