Core 'ngrato [L.S]

Half of Something Else

Louis's smile had been so stunning and brilliant when Harry first shyly questioned aloud whether or not he should go away for university. Louis' smile had been everything.

"Of course!" he'd exclaimed happily, hands waking into life as they gestured the words, as they coaxed Harry's limbs to loosen around him. "You absolutely fucking better go! Go as far as you can, Harry. Experience the world—all the best writers know about the world, don't they? Right? I don't know, I have no fucking clue."

Harry laughed, bright and white and alive and he clutched Louis tighter to him as Louis shrugged.

"You're right, yeah," Harry laughed, a little breathless. There was a pause then, Harry regaining his bones and brushing fingers across the fabric of Louis' t-shirt, his other arm safely secured around his waist as they lay on the ground of Harry's room, records scratching along in the background. "But. You're not... You're not. Like. Worried?" he finally managed, biting into the cushion of his lip. He looked up, found the courage to stare up into Louis' neverending eyes.

Louis' smile had been everything.

"Of course not," he said, as if it were the simplest, most obvious fact. As if it were so absurd to think otherwise. "We've been together forever, Curls. 'S not gonna change, is it?"

"I don't want it to change," Harry said immediately and his voice conveyed it all—it always did whenever he was around Louis. Harry was open bones and exposed lava around Louis and he had no control over it. It was probably embarrassing and maybe terrifying for an onlooker, but he loved too fiercely to care all that much.  He loved Louis so fiercely.

He loves Louis so fiercely.

Harry fretted a bit and tugged Louis closer, sticking his face in the crook of his neck. "I want to be with you forever." He could already feel Louis nodding at his hushed words, could feel the soft laughter reverberating in his chest as he slid a hand through Harry's curls.

"Well. Good news, then," Louis said, words teasing and grinning and impish. Harry waited. "We're a 'forever' sort of thing." He held Harry tighter and everything tight inside of Harry unraveled.

They were a forever sort of thing. Forever.

So Harry would go. And they would be fine.

Infinite. Forever.

**

He's sitting at the café. The one with the oversized gilt mirrors on the walls and the patched up blue velvet chairs speckled with cigarette burns. He's been sitting here for three hours, staring sightlessly, empty notebook in front of him, the blunt tips of his fingers tapping discordantly atop the dull surface of the wooden table. The varnish is chipping away.

Not once has he moved, save for his breathing. He thinks he's breathing. Pretty sure, at least. He's pretty sure that he's still alive. Whatever.

The torn sleeves of his flannel are rolled up to his elbows. He might be wearing two flannels, actually. He's wearing too many shirts. It's easier that way, in case one of them begins to smell or something drastic spills, he can just remove it, wear the one beneath. It saves him time, he says. But really, he's sort of just cold all of the time and the layers keep him warm. Warmer.

God.

He can't write. Why is he even here?

His intentions were good.

He'd gotten up early (he always gets up early, never sleeps, never rests, not really, not anymore) and, since he was off from the bakery, he'd decided to get some early-morning writing done before his lectures. He hasn't written in so long, spending most of his time trying to suppress words and forget images and ignore the sweeping swells of emotion that carry those empty, poetic nuances with them.