fic | shelter.
shelter. | harry/louis & eleanor/louis - slight. | r. | 3, 500. | And Louis tips Harry’s head back with a skillful thumb and kisses him softly, thinking: 'this is us against the world.' | warning: management, implications of a staged relationship. | Been having a rut for a month, this decides to come out. Hope you enjoy and sorry for any mistakes. Title to The XX/Birdy and lyrics to Walk The Moon.
nobody has you down, but me.
- i want! i want!, walk the moon.
Harry is sixteen. Louis has never thought in age before, really. Never catalogued people by number, but by face, by eye color, by laugh. He thinks of it over and over again, when Harry lifts him into his lap the first time they’re put together, when they all walk out, when they become a band, and not just five boys.
“I can’t believe this,” Harry mumbles through his sweating fingers, his voice muffled. “I can’t believe this! I’m only sixteen!” And suddenly, they’re all smiling, dog piling on top of one another, and Louis’ - even then, so long ago - looks for Harry’s hand throughout the mess of limbs and holds on tight.
*
There’s no kissing or fumbling around or fooling around or anything, really, when they’re in The X - Factor house. There’s nervous laughs when they edge too close to one another, rubbing the backs of their necks and shrugging when they happen to reach for the same thing. Louis is comfortable around Harry, maybe too comfortable, but that’s allowed, isn’t it? They’re in a band now; they’re in One Direction together, all tied up as one entity.
Sometimes, though, it feels like they’re barely five boys anymore. Louis sometimes presses his hand to one of their chests, feels their heart pulsing, and thinks: why isn’t my heart in tuned with yours? Or, sometimes he’ll end up walking and three out of the five will have the same pattern: right, left, right, left, but the other two--the other two are: left, right, left, right.
Louis is never out of synch with Harry, though, and Louis wonders if this is what a soul mate is. If it’s not all that crap about kissing and having your knees turn to nothing but dust, or your backbone spark like you’ve been shocked by an electrical fence.
If, instead, it’s the same timed heartbeat, from day one. If it’s the same step of your footing or if it’s knowing when the other wakes up in the middle of the night and not spooking when they crawl into your bed with a mumbled, sorry, and their limbs wrap around yours. If it’s feeling like you’ve found all the slots and spaces and pieces filled. If you feel complete without having to kiss, without having to do anything, but look at them.
Louis feels like he should be scared, that he’s found his soul mate in sixteen-year-old Harry Styles, but he’s not. He feels invincible, and when Harry turns to smile at him, bright with green eyes and white teeth, then he knows the feeling is mutual, too.
*
Growing up is different when you’re growing up like Louis is.
It’s not growing up, but it’s more like--it’s more like growing out, sideways, horizontal, vertical. It’s more like twining limbs and sometimes it feels like Louis has four other hearts in his chest, but he only wants one, and he’s not scared. He’s not scared of anything, god damnit. And his mother has always said his fearlessness will be the death of him, but she’d say it with a laugh, thin lines ringing her mouth with age.
Harry is growing up, inside, outside, left, right. He feels like a weight in Louis chest, heavy and comfortable, sometimes forbidden, sometimes terrible, but--
“I feel like you’re the one who is watching,” Harry whispers, when they’re curled around each other in bed. It’s the middle of the night and Harry shouldn’t be talking that much, but his eyes are glossed from the moonbeams. He looks at Louis with his saucer eyes, and it says everything it needs to say.
Louis kisses Harry. In the space between the kiss, he stops thinking of sixteen and starts thinking of warm and pink lips that are chapped, but never sixteen. Not anymore, never again.
*
After that, it’s easy. Harry and Louis were never built to be complicated, and they both know this, the whole world knows this.
They hold hands underneath tables, in the corners of venues during The X-Factor tour and kiss each other - warm and firm, I’m here if you’re here - before they need to go and sing.
“Did you know from the start?” Liam asks, who is still rosy in his cheeks and shy in his smile. Who is sneaking off with Danielle just as Louis is sneaking off with Harry. “That you were going to be with him?”
“No,” Louis says, honestly. It was always built up, always something Louis dissected, because his mind works a millenium a minute, works until it’s tired, until he’s too tired. He has memorized Harry’s smile, his gentle curves, and his soft baby skin. He has memorized it in his dreams, behind his eyelids, but not with his tongue or teeth or lips.
Liam smiles and says, “Neither did we, but we’re happy for you guys.”
And Louis forgets that he’s grown inside of everyone else, too. That’s it’s not just him, that the world is silently watching, and Louis is defiant. Louis is the lion’s roar at the break of dawn.
Watch me conquer the world in the name of love.
*
“Your fearlessness,” Harry says, when his thumb brushes against Louis’ cheekbone. Harry’s jaw isn’t so soft anymore. It’s harder now, defined, clenching tight when he swallows. Louis holds back the need to bite it, just to see if his tongue will be stained with the taste of cologne. “I like how unafraid you are.”
“Do you?” Louis asks, smiling. Louis doesn’t remember the day - Tuesday, Liam will later tell him, when he asks over tea and toast - but that’s fine. Right now, it’s fine.
Harry nods, and his fingertips slip away from the slope of Louis’ tender cheekbone. It feels foreign and cold without Harry’s touch. Louis wants to grab his hand and place it back there.
“Sometimes,” Harry whispers and his voice gets slower and slower as each day passes. His eyes flicker from Louis’ own azure sparkling eyes, to his lips. He looks up and finishes, “I feel like I wouldn’t be able to do this without you, and it terrifies me. How I feel like I can’t do anything without you anymore.”
Louis grabs Harry’s hand, somewhere pressed between their bodies. The bunk is too small, and Harry has permanently moved in. His bundled socks live in the corner at the bottom and his blanket is a warped pile over Louis’ own that he packed from home.
“It’s alright,” Louis says, and kisses Harry. It’s a press of lips, warm and reassuring and Harry’s other hand is trapped underneath Louis’ side, but his fingers wrap weakly around Louis’ side, pressing into skin that smells of hotel soap.
Harry’s breath is quiet, muffled against Louis’ chest when he presses his nose against his sternum.
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright.
*
It’s still Tuesday, but it’s not morning anymore. Harry and Louis aren’t locked at the knees, their fingers quiet as they roam, finger pads pressing against bone, a guess and check of when to quiet a gasp or when to kiss to hide a small moan.
Louis is rubbing Harry’s back in the Men’s Loo, fingers tangling in his hair, scratching his scalp.
“Don’t hold back, Haz,” Louis tells him. “We don’t need you puking on stage, yeah? Liam ripping his pants was enough fun for our fans.”
Harry laughs, shaky, the sound echoing through the ring of porcelain that he’s retching into. His fingers grip tighter - Louis is getting better at watching the smallest details.
Later, Harry kisses Louis’ cheek as a silent thank you and Louis wipes Harry’s eyes until they aren’t glossy anymore, holding him close. Chest to chest.
“You think you’ll be okay?”
“Yeah,” Harry nods, and their limbs untangle. “I’ll be fine, but we need to go find the other boys. They’re both placing bets on what they think we’re doing right now.” Harry’s eyes are sparkling green, and his smile is caught between his teeth.
Their fingers weakly interlock, and then they’re running through the halls to find the rest of their band.
*
There’s something about being lovers in hotel rooms that excites them both.
It’s the adrenaline of it all. The high-speed march of each day. Louis doesn’t remember if it’s Wednesday or Thursday or Sunday. He just knows them as Venice, Paris, London, two interviews, or three interviews and a photo shoot.
But, he catalogues these days in the moments with Harry. He remembers each detail of Harry’s body underneath his, his skin milky or sun kissed. His hair fanning out, and Louis wonders how long they’ve been traveling the world for it to curl like a darkened halo around Harry’s skin.
They’re playing fire with fire, clumsy with love and affection, but they’re not big, yet. The fans are watchful, like hawks eyeing dying prey, but Louis doesn’t care. Doesn’t care because his chest feels light and it hasn’t felt this way since Hannah, but even then there were moments when he stopped and thought: but do I want this? Do I?
Harry’s body grows longer and his heart bigger, his mind more opened to the possibility of love. Louis watches as Harry grows, as his features grow sharper and his voice slower. He watches as Harry changes from sixteen to seventeen. And Louis understands it, why the fans watch them, because Louis watches Harry the same way.
They fumble through bed sheets of hotels, and Harry laughs and asks if they’ll do this in their flat, in their home in the heart of London. If they’ll do this in Louis’ Porsche that he buys on a whim. Louis bites at Harry’s jugular, teasing and tasting that infectious heartbeat that charges on like a rumble, and says that they’ll do whatever Harry wants.
*
The thing about the Internet is that it’s easier to get bigger behind a screen than it is in real life, and soon, there are thousands and thousands. Soon, it’s One Direction having an army of rabid fan girls, of watching girls break to their knees like they’re witnessing God themselves, like they’re being blessed to become a saint.
Management tells them to tone it down, and Harry and Louis respect them. They know what they’re doing, and they’ve been so used to hidden hallways and burrowing underneath covers that they nod and say - with tiny smiles on their faces - that they’ll try, and Management smiles and says, “Trying is fine.”
But later, later Harry is hungry and churning with fire in his stomach, underneath the undeveloped ridges of muscle. Louis presses him into the sheets and Harry growls out no, no, like a chant. He flips over and marks Louis’ sternum, licking his ribs, and shushing Louis when he barks out tired laughs between the space of his third and fourth rib on the right side, a tickle spot. Harry presses his fingers inside the slots of Louis’ ribs, and his body sings like he’s found the missing puzzle pieces.
And they call this desperation. The beginnings of threads wound so tightly beginning to unweave, to leave their hidden trail. Come find us if you dare, it taunts. Harry is leaving a trail of bruises on Louis’ skin, from the column of his throat - the lightest of pink, barely scraping skin - to the skin of his ankle that bruises so deeply purple that it almost looks black.
And this is called defiance. This is called being in love against the odds. This is the end of the beginning.
*
They’re not complicated. They’re layered, is the thing. There are millions and millions of folds holding them up. Harry compares them to origami swans, when his sister tells him over the phone that she’s learning to make through the help of a friend. He tells them that they’re beautiful like swans but getting weaker like paper.
“We’re not weak,” Louis says, when there is yelling outside of hotel rooms. When there are bodies huddled underneath blankets and random outbursts of ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ being sung into the middle of the night.
Harry shrugs and it doesn’t sting Louis, because he understands. He understands being fearless and he understands breaking underneath the chains that have been laid, but--but he’s in love. He knows he’s in love, and he doesn’t care if people find out or if they don’t.
“Come here,” Louis persists, from where he’s leaned against the headboard of a suite. He’s still not used to being in a suite, but he is used to having Harry. Harry gets up from the desk, ending the call with Gemma. His body is longer, and his hair curls around his ears like fresh roses in the garden that Louis’ mum used to cut when summer rolled around.
Harry folds into Louis easily, and they’ve never needed practice for this part. Meeting in the middle, when their bodies react like they’ve been mechanically engineered to, and Louis sometimes wonders if they have.
Their bodies tangle like a braid, and Louis doesn’t remember his life before Harry. He’s built a lifetime within him, within his bones, and his heart. He doesn’t remember the days when it was just he and Stan in Doncaster, when they were silly and giddy like children, because each moment links to Harry. Each tiny thing goes back to Harry’s eyes, or his lips, or his wiry muscles, and it should be doing more damage than good, but right now, it’s fine.
“It’ll be fine,” Louis whispers, the darkness covering like a greeting. The voices roar outside, and Louis wishes they were louder, that they would reach from Earth’s core to the heavens, because he wants to make Harry sing. “It’ll be fine, Harry.”
They’re fearless, they’re in love, and they’re defiant.
*
Eleanor is bronze skin and a sweet smile. She’s not an enemy; she’s not anything, really. She’s one piece in another long chess game that Louis and Harry and the rest of them have been playing for a while.
They’re sat down and told - and management’s smiles turn into sneers with razor sharp teeth, gleaming white - and Harry and Louis cower underneath the power.
And home is another battlefield, another day marked with red paint.
“But what about me?” Harry says, low and dangerous. He’s looking right at Louis, and he remembers--he remembers being defiant and fearless and the dark corners that told their story. He remembers it all. “But what about me? And us?” Harry’s voice is weak, steeled through like a sword dripped in venom. They’re taking it all away; they’re letting it collapse.
“Harry, I can’t--”
“You can!” Harry cries, his voice vibrating along the walls. His eyes mint green, vulnerable and shining. “You can do it all! You can stop this, say you’ll stop this.” And then he’s clutching at Louis’ shoulders, and this is desperation. This is the animal need clinging to the skin; this is blood in the water. Take it or leave it.
“How can I?” Louis asks, and he’s always been fearless, but his bones are tired. He’s tired and Harry’s tired. “How can I when they already do enough damage as is? They damage me enough.” His hands clutch at Harry’s cheeks, and they sink to the floor, bodies wrapped around one another. The final strings coming undone. “I’m doing this to protect you, Harry, please.”
Harry kisses Louis, desperate with teeth and tongue and nails digging into Louis’ side, sharp like a claim. It’s needy and desperate, and the strings continue to unwind. Harry bites out mine, in the shape of love bite, in the Morse code he taps over Louis’ sternum. It’s the storm and the calm. It’s them fighting for something that they’ve always hid, and Louis kisses Harry quiet, before whispering out, yours, into the bubblegum pink seam of his lips.
*
They don’t break. There’s no tearful goodbye, there isn’t anything. They fall asleep on the floor; bodies bundled around like they’re stranded for warmth. Harry glows in the darkness, like the stars, and he envelops Louis like he’s the Earth itself.
They don’t break, is the thing. They can’t.
“We have history,” Harry concludes over the tea he’s making when they wake up. It’s raining outside, and Louis could laugh at it. Purification, a new start, a rebirth. “We have history and I have you and you have me, that’s all. That’s why we can’t break this.”
Louis smiles and silently wonders when the roles switched between them. When Harry became the revolution in green eyes and a long winding body.
“Are you going to tell me you’ll fight for the name of love, then?” Louis jokes, standing up and wrapping himself around Harry’s body. His hand soothes up and down Harry’s spinal cord, tripping over love bites he can remember himself sucking on sugar skin.
“No,” Harry shakes his head. The spoon clinkclinkclinks against the ceramic mugs they got while in Paris. “But I can fight for you, I can fight for us.”
And Louis tips Harry’s head back with a skillful thumb and kisses him softly, thinking: 'this is us against the world.'
*
It’s complicated to be against the world when you’re on top of it.
Niall says that they’re the five kings of the world, when he’s drunk too much beer and his cheeks are flushed. Zayn laughs at him and puts him in his varsity jacket, watching Niall shiver as he proclaims them kings.
Louis turns to look at Harry who is smiling; his eyes bruised purple from lack of sleep. Louis shuffles close, and doesn’t care if the lights aren’t dim enough or if the club isn’t packed enough as he presses his nose against Harry’s throat.
“You smell like me,” Louis comments when he pulls away. His lips are in a smile, though. He doesn’t remember a time--besides the fight about Eleanor--when he’s found himself frowning at Harry.
“I didn’t know whether or not I’d touch you tonight, is all,” Harry airily says, with his lips perked up.
“I’d let you touch me every moment of every day if it’d make you happy,” Louis says through a mouthful of a drink Zayn ordered him. It tastes sharp and it reminds him of biting Harry’s shoulder blades and watching the skin taint red.
“I know,” Harry laughs. “I’d do the same for you.”
*
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? History. History makes everyone stronger, but it makes you bitter if you let it.
Louis has enough history with Harry, and some people wouldn’t believe it. Say that a year and some months isn’t enough, but it is. It is when you’re living in the shadows of the world, when you’ve spent every second of your days being glued to someone and you still think that they shine as bright as the stars in the sky.
“I love you,” Louis presses against Harry’s hipbones. They’re in America now, playing shows for thousands of fans, and Louis has to call Eleanor after this. Has to set up dates for when he comes back to America and dates for when she flies to America. But right now, in the space of the moment, Louis licks his way around the jut of Harry’s hipbone, teething at the skin.
“Mhm,” Harry mumbles, his hand tangling through Louis’ hair. “Yeah, I love you, too,” and it’s safe. It’s common phrases between them that used to not be common. That were stuttered out when Louis had his hands hooked underneath Harry’s knees and pressing him open, that were confessed when they were drunk. At one point in time, they weren’t history. They weren’t soldiers in this battle.
And they’ve been fighting for what feels like centuries. Fighting with their long casting looks between three bodies setting them apart. Fighting with touches that get magnified and tossed to the world, to get eaten up by those who are starving for affection. They are fighting for so many things, but now, Louis is winning. Winning with Harry’s mewls and gasps and tender lips pressing out his name like it’s the only word he’s cared to learn in his whole life.
And it’s fine, Louis thinks, they can leave the fighting for the day. Every victory deserves to be celebrated, every day in their history marked anew.
Harry hoists Louis up with a buck of his hips. Louis wipes his mouth with the back of his
hand and kisses Harry’s lips. Nips them until they bleed red like roses, and he thinks this is a casualty he can learn from; in the bright burst of the morning day of their break, in the brightness of America, and in the space of Harry’s ribs and lungs and skin.
And they’re both fearless for each other, in the name of love.
nobody has you down, but me.
- i want! i want!, walk the moon.
Harry is sixteen. Louis has never thought in age before, really. Never catalogued people by number, but by face, by eye color, by laugh. He thinks of it over and over again, when Harry lifts him into his lap the first time they’re put together, when they all walk out, when they become a band, and not just five boys.
“I can’t believe this,” Harry mumbles through his sweating fingers, his voice muffled. “I can’t believe this! I’m only sixteen!” And suddenly, they’re all smiling, dog piling on top of one another, and Louis’ - even then, so long ago - looks for Harry’s hand throughout the mess of limbs and holds on tight.
*
There’s no kissing or fumbling around or fooling around or anything, really, when they’re in The X - Factor house. There’s nervous laughs when they edge too close to one another, rubbing the backs of their necks and shrugging when they happen to reach for the same thing. Louis is comfortable around Harry, maybe too comfortable, but that’s allowed, isn’t it? They’re in a band now; they’re in One Direction together, all tied up as one entity.
Sometimes, though, it feels like they’re barely five boys anymore. Louis sometimes presses his hand to one of their chests, feels their heart pulsing, and thinks: why isn’t my heart in tuned with yours? Or, sometimes he’ll end up walking and three out of the five will have the same pattern: right, left, right, left, but the other two--the other two are: left, right, left, right.
Louis is never out of synch with Harry, though, and Louis wonders if this is what a soul mate is. If it’s not all that crap about kissing and having your knees turn to nothing but dust, or your backbone spark like you’ve been shocked by an electrical fence.
If, instead, it’s the same timed heartbeat, from day one. If it’s the same step of your footing or if it’s knowing when the other wakes up in the middle of the night and not spooking when they crawl into your bed with a mumbled, sorry, and their limbs wrap around yours. If it’s feeling like you’ve found all the slots and spaces and pieces filled. If you feel complete without having to kiss, without having to do anything, but look at them.
Louis feels like he should be scared, that he’s found his soul mate in sixteen-year-old Harry Styles, but he’s not. He feels invincible, and when Harry turns to smile at him, bright with green eyes and white teeth, then he knows the feeling is mutual, too.
*
Growing up is different when you’re growing up like Louis is.
It’s not growing up, but it’s more like--it’s more like growing out, sideways, horizontal, vertical. It’s more like twining limbs and sometimes it feels like Louis has four other hearts in his chest, but he only wants one, and he’s not scared. He’s not scared of anything, god damnit. And his mother has always said his fearlessness will be the death of him, but she’d say it with a laugh, thin lines ringing her mouth with age.
Harry is growing up, inside, outside, left, right. He feels like a weight in Louis chest, heavy and comfortable, sometimes forbidden, sometimes terrible, but--
“I feel like you’re the one who is watching,” Harry whispers, when they’re curled around each other in bed. It’s the middle of the night and Harry shouldn’t be talking that much, but his eyes are glossed from the moonbeams. He looks at Louis with his saucer eyes, and it says everything it needs to say.
Louis kisses Harry. In the space between the kiss, he stops thinking of sixteen and starts thinking of warm and pink lips that are chapped, but never sixteen. Not anymore, never again.
*
After that, it’s easy. Harry and Louis were never built to be complicated, and they both know this, the whole world knows this.
They hold hands underneath tables, in the corners of venues during The X-Factor tour and kiss each other - warm and firm, I’m here if you’re here - before they need to go and sing.
“Did you know from the start?” Liam asks, who is still rosy in his cheeks and shy in his smile. Who is sneaking off with Danielle just as Louis is sneaking off with Harry. “That you were going to be with him?”
“No,” Louis says, honestly. It was always built up, always something Louis dissected, because his mind works a millenium a minute, works until it’s tired, until he’s too tired. He has memorized Harry’s smile, his gentle curves, and his soft baby skin. He has memorized it in his dreams, behind his eyelids, but not with his tongue or teeth or lips.
Liam smiles and says, “Neither did we, but we’re happy for you guys.”
And Louis forgets that he’s grown inside of everyone else, too. That’s it’s not just him, that the world is silently watching, and Louis is defiant. Louis is the lion’s roar at the break of dawn.
Watch me conquer the world in the name of love.
*
“Your fearlessness,” Harry says, when his thumb brushes against Louis’ cheekbone. Harry’s jaw isn’t so soft anymore. It’s harder now, defined, clenching tight when he swallows. Louis holds back the need to bite it, just to see if his tongue will be stained with the taste of cologne. “I like how unafraid you are.”
“Do you?” Louis asks, smiling. Louis doesn’t remember the day - Tuesday, Liam will later tell him, when he asks over tea and toast - but that’s fine. Right now, it’s fine.
Harry nods, and his fingertips slip away from the slope of Louis’ tender cheekbone. It feels foreign and cold without Harry’s touch. Louis wants to grab his hand and place it back there.
“Sometimes,” Harry whispers and his voice gets slower and slower as each day passes. His eyes flicker from Louis’ own azure sparkling eyes, to his lips. He looks up and finishes, “I feel like I wouldn’t be able to do this without you, and it terrifies me. How I feel like I can’t do anything without you anymore.”
Louis grabs Harry’s hand, somewhere pressed between their bodies. The bunk is too small, and Harry has permanently moved in. His bundled socks live in the corner at the bottom and his blanket is a warped pile over Louis’ own that he packed from home.
“It’s alright,” Louis says, and kisses Harry. It’s a press of lips, warm and reassuring and Harry’s other hand is trapped underneath Louis’ side, but his fingers wrap weakly around Louis’ side, pressing into skin that smells of hotel soap.
Harry’s breath is quiet, muffled against Louis’ chest when he presses his nose against his sternum.
It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright.
*
It’s still Tuesday, but it’s not morning anymore. Harry and Louis aren’t locked at the knees, their fingers quiet as they roam, finger pads pressing against bone, a guess and check of when to quiet a gasp or when to kiss to hide a small moan.
Louis is rubbing Harry’s back in the Men’s Loo, fingers tangling in his hair, scratching his scalp.
“Don’t hold back, Haz,” Louis tells him. “We don’t need you puking on stage, yeah? Liam ripping his pants was enough fun for our fans.”
Harry laughs, shaky, the sound echoing through the ring of porcelain that he’s retching into. His fingers grip tighter - Louis is getting better at watching the smallest details.
Later, Harry kisses Louis’ cheek as a silent thank you and Louis wipes Harry’s eyes until they aren’t glossy anymore, holding him close. Chest to chest.
“You think you’ll be okay?”
“Yeah,” Harry nods, and their limbs untangle. “I’ll be fine, but we need to go find the other boys. They’re both placing bets on what they think we’re doing right now.” Harry’s eyes are sparkling green, and his smile is caught between his teeth.
Their fingers weakly interlock, and then they’re running through the halls to find the rest of their band.
*
There’s something about being lovers in hotel rooms that excites them both.
It’s the adrenaline of it all. The high-speed march of each day. Louis doesn’t remember if it’s Wednesday or Thursday or Sunday. He just knows them as Venice, Paris, London, two interviews, or three interviews and a photo shoot.
But, he catalogues these days in the moments with Harry. He remembers each detail of Harry’s body underneath his, his skin milky or sun kissed. His hair fanning out, and Louis wonders how long they’ve been traveling the world for it to curl like a darkened halo around Harry’s skin.
They’re playing fire with fire, clumsy with love and affection, but they’re not big, yet. The fans are watchful, like hawks eyeing dying prey, but Louis doesn’t care. Doesn’t care because his chest feels light and it hasn’t felt this way since Hannah, but even then there were moments when he stopped and thought: but do I want this? Do I?
Harry’s body grows longer and his heart bigger, his mind more opened to the possibility of love. Louis watches as Harry grows, as his features grow sharper and his voice slower. He watches as Harry changes from sixteen to seventeen. And Louis understands it, why the fans watch them, because Louis watches Harry the same way.
They fumble through bed sheets of hotels, and Harry laughs and asks if they’ll do this in their flat, in their home in the heart of London. If they’ll do this in Louis’ Porsche that he buys on a whim. Louis bites at Harry’s jugular, teasing and tasting that infectious heartbeat that charges on like a rumble, and says that they’ll do whatever Harry wants.
*
The thing about the Internet is that it’s easier to get bigger behind a screen than it is in real life, and soon, there are thousands and thousands. Soon, it’s One Direction having an army of rabid fan girls, of watching girls break to their knees like they’re witnessing God themselves, like they’re being blessed to become a saint.
Management tells them to tone it down, and Harry and Louis respect them. They know what they’re doing, and they’ve been so used to hidden hallways and burrowing underneath covers that they nod and say - with tiny smiles on their faces - that they’ll try, and Management smiles and says, “Trying is fine.”
But later, later Harry is hungry and churning with fire in his stomach, underneath the undeveloped ridges of muscle. Louis presses him into the sheets and Harry growls out no, no, like a chant. He flips over and marks Louis’ sternum, licking his ribs, and shushing Louis when he barks out tired laughs between the space of his third and fourth rib on the right side, a tickle spot. Harry presses his fingers inside the slots of Louis’ ribs, and his body sings like he’s found the missing puzzle pieces.
And they call this desperation. The beginnings of threads wound so tightly beginning to unweave, to leave their hidden trail. Come find us if you dare, it taunts. Harry is leaving a trail of bruises on Louis’ skin, from the column of his throat - the lightest of pink, barely scraping skin - to the skin of his ankle that bruises so deeply purple that it almost looks black.
And this is called defiance. This is called being in love against the odds. This is the end of the beginning.
*
They’re not complicated. They’re layered, is the thing. There are millions and millions of folds holding them up. Harry compares them to origami swans, when his sister tells him over the phone that she’s learning to make through the help of a friend. He tells them that they’re beautiful like swans but getting weaker like paper.
“We’re not weak,” Louis says, when there is yelling outside of hotel rooms. When there are bodies huddled underneath blankets and random outbursts of ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ being sung into the middle of the night.
Harry shrugs and it doesn’t sting Louis, because he understands. He understands being fearless and he understands breaking underneath the chains that have been laid, but--but he’s in love. He knows he’s in love, and he doesn’t care if people find out or if they don’t.
“Come here,” Louis persists, from where he’s leaned against the headboard of a suite. He’s still not used to being in a suite, but he is used to having Harry. Harry gets up from the desk, ending the call with Gemma. His body is longer, and his hair curls around his ears like fresh roses in the garden that Louis’ mum used to cut when summer rolled around.
Harry folds into Louis easily, and they’ve never needed practice for this part. Meeting in the middle, when their bodies react like they’ve been mechanically engineered to, and Louis sometimes wonders if they have.
Their bodies tangle like a braid, and Louis doesn’t remember his life before Harry. He’s built a lifetime within him, within his bones, and his heart. He doesn’t remember the days when it was just he and Stan in Doncaster, when they were silly and giddy like children, because each moment links to Harry. Each tiny thing goes back to Harry’s eyes, or his lips, or his wiry muscles, and it should be doing more damage than good, but right now, it’s fine.
“It’ll be fine,” Louis whispers, the darkness covering like a greeting. The voices roar outside, and Louis wishes they were louder, that they would reach from Earth’s core to the heavens, because he wants to make Harry sing. “It’ll be fine, Harry.”
They’re fearless, they’re in love, and they’re defiant.
*
Eleanor is bronze skin and a sweet smile. She’s not an enemy; she’s not anything, really. She’s one piece in another long chess game that Louis and Harry and the rest of them have been playing for a while.
They’re sat down and told - and management’s smiles turn into sneers with razor sharp teeth, gleaming white - and Harry and Louis cower underneath the power.
And home is another battlefield, another day marked with red paint.
“But what about me?” Harry says, low and dangerous. He’s looking right at Louis, and he remembers--he remembers being defiant and fearless and the dark corners that told their story. He remembers it all. “But what about me? And us?” Harry’s voice is weak, steeled through like a sword dripped in venom. They’re taking it all away; they’re letting it collapse.
“Harry, I can’t--”
“You can!” Harry cries, his voice vibrating along the walls. His eyes mint green, vulnerable and shining. “You can do it all! You can stop this, say you’ll stop this.” And then he’s clutching at Louis’ shoulders, and this is desperation. This is the animal need clinging to the skin; this is blood in the water. Take it or leave it.
“How can I?” Louis asks, and he’s always been fearless, but his bones are tired. He’s tired and Harry’s tired. “How can I when they already do enough damage as is? They damage me enough.” His hands clutch at Harry’s cheeks, and they sink to the floor, bodies wrapped around one another. The final strings coming undone. “I’m doing this to protect you, Harry, please.”
Harry kisses Louis, desperate with teeth and tongue and nails digging into Louis’ side, sharp like a claim. It’s needy and desperate, and the strings continue to unwind. Harry bites out mine, in the shape of love bite, in the Morse code he taps over Louis’ sternum. It’s the storm and the calm. It’s them fighting for something that they’ve always hid, and Louis kisses Harry quiet, before whispering out, yours, into the bubblegum pink seam of his lips.
*
They don’t break. There’s no tearful goodbye, there isn’t anything. They fall asleep on the floor; bodies bundled around like they’re stranded for warmth. Harry glows in the darkness, like the stars, and he envelops Louis like he’s the Earth itself.
They don’t break, is the thing. They can’t.
“We have history,” Harry concludes over the tea he’s making when they wake up. It’s raining outside, and Louis could laugh at it. Purification, a new start, a rebirth. “We have history and I have you and you have me, that’s all. That’s why we can’t break this.”
Louis smiles and silently wonders when the roles switched between them. When Harry became the revolution in green eyes and a long winding body.
“Are you going to tell me you’ll fight for the name of love, then?” Louis jokes, standing up and wrapping himself around Harry’s body. His hand soothes up and down Harry’s spinal cord, tripping over love bites he can remember himself sucking on sugar skin.
“No,” Harry shakes his head. The spoon clinkclinkclinks against the ceramic mugs they got while in Paris. “But I can fight for you, I can fight for us.”
And Louis tips Harry’s head back with a skillful thumb and kisses him softly, thinking: 'this is us against the world.'
*
It’s complicated to be against the world when you’re on top of it.
Niall says that they’re the five kings of the world, when he’s drunk too much beer and his cheeks are flushed. Zayn laughs at him and puts him in his varsity jacket, watching Niall shiver as he proclaims them kings.
Louis turns to look at Harry who is smiling; his eyes bruised purple from lack of sleep. Louis shuffles close, and doesn’t care if the lights aren’t dim enough or if the club isn’t packed enough as he presses his nose against Harry’s throat.
“You smell like me,” Louis comments when he pulls away. His lips are in a smile, though. He doesn’t remember a time--besides the fight about Eleanor--when he’s found himself frowning at Harry.
“I didn’t know whether or not I’d touch you tonight, is all,” Harry airily says, with his lips perked up.
“I’d let you touch me every moment of every day if it’d make you happy,” Louis says through a mouthful of a drink Zayn ordered him. It tastes sharp and it reminds him of biting Harry’s shoulder blades and watching the skin taint red.
“I know,” Harry laughs. “I’d do the same for you.”
*
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? History. History makes everyone stronger, but it makes you bitter if you let it.
Louis has enough history with Harry, and some people wouldn’t believe it. Say that a year and some months isn’t enough, but it is. It is when you’re living in the shadows of the world, when you’ve spent every second of your days being glued to someone and you still think that they shine as bright as the stars in the sky.
“I love you,” Louis presses against Harry’s hipbones. They’re in America now, playing shows for thousands of fans, and Louis has to call Eleanor after this. Has to set up dates for when he comes back to America and dates for when she flies to America. But right now, in the space of the moment, Louis licks his way around the jut of Harry’s hipbone, teething at the skin.
“Mhm,” Harry mumbles, his hand tangling through Louis’ hair. “Yeah, I love you, too,” and it’s safe. It’s common phrases between them that used to not be common. That were stuttered out when Louis had his hands hooked underneath Harry’s knees and pressing him open, that were confessed when they were drunk. At one point in time, they weren’t history. They weren’t soldiers in this battle.
And they’ve been fighting for what feels like centuries. Fighting with their long casting looks between three bodies setting them apart. Fighting with touches that get magnified and tossed to the world, to get eaten up by those who are starving for affection. They are fighting for so many things, but now, Louis is winning. Winning with Harry’s mewls and gasps and tender lips pressing out his name like it’s the only word he’s cared to learn in his whole life.
And it’s fine, Louis thinks, they can leave the fighting for the day. Every victory deserves to be celebrated, every day in their history marked anew.
Harry hoists Louis up with a buck of his hips. Louis wipes his mouth with the back of his
hand and kisses Harry’s lips. Nips them until they bleed red like roses, and he thinks this is a casualty he can learn from; in the bright burst of the morning day of their break, in the brightness of America, and in the space of Harry’s ribs and lungs and skin.
And they’re both fearless for each other, in the name of love.