These Inconvenient Fireworks (original story on ao3 by complemtattoos)

sixteen

LOUIS

Harry will be leaving in early July.

Her internship doesn't start until the middle of the month, but she wants to travel to London a few weeks in advance so she can have time to get used to it. She will be working in central London, so she hopes to find an apartment near a subway entrance that is not terribly expensive and she will get a little help from her parents. He won't need a car there so he's shipping most of his stuff ahead of time and his mom and sister will fetch his car from Manchester to store it at Holmes Chapel for him.

Louis knows all of this clinically, just information stored in his head that he has decided not to process. Harry tells him everything one afternoon while eating a sandwich on Louis's couch, and Louis waits until he's done talking to push him onto his back and ignore the whole thing.

That's the only kind of sex they have right now, and it also feels like the only kind of conversation they have right now. It is not definitive. It's not like the first time Harry kissed him, or the look on his face when he told him about boarding school, a pointy thing marking a dot on the map of his life that marks exactly when and where something happened. There is not a moment where Louis makes sure they have disbanded. They just keep adrift.

Harry hardly stays overnight anymore, and Louis isn't sure whose idea that was. He figures he hasn't been particularly welcome in recent weeks, immediately walking away from Harry as soon as the two of them come. So okay, maybe he started it, but still. What is he supposed to do, let Harry hold him when they both know they're killing time? Louis refuses to play fantasy, but that doesn't make him the villain. He remembers the first time Harry came back to his apartment in months, two fingers on the tight spots on his back for half a second and then the sound of Harry pulling his jeans free, and the slight pain in his throat.

He hates how much he misses the little parts of Harry. He misses Harry's hands around his waist and his lips against the side of his neck in the mornings as he makes tea. He misses Harry's stupid voice muttering nonsense about pop music and art and vinyl records at all hours of the day and night. He misses the Christmas lights on the ceiling and the way things felt when they were right, he misses the way Harry's face used to light up when he saw it. You want not to miss any of that.

Mostly, you wish you never got used to it. Or at least have known better. Because if he had, he would have done things differently, and now that means he doesn't even have the right to be upset, because this fucking mess was caused. If he hadn't known better, at least he wouldn't have felt nauseous every time he was self-indulgent enough to miss something he knew wouldn't last.

And this is what you wanted, right? He wanted things to unravel, he wanted Harry to let him go. I wanted to get over it, right?
Shit. It doesn't matter what you miss or what you want. It never mattered. He was an idiot to think so.

Harry goes to find an apartment in London and doesn't tell Louis until he's there, just a message from Victoria Station that he won't be there for the weekend. So that's it, Louis assumes. Officially there is a future for Harry elsewhere, another department chosen and signed, and he is not invited. Not a direct rejection, he supposes, but it is enough. Sure as hell it's not an invitation. It's enough to make it poke, and enough to make it inescapably real.

Whatever. He slept for only twenty-six years, he can do it for twenty-six more.

Suppose you need to start preparing now, as much as you can. The first step is to start cleaning your apartment. You don't have to get rid of everything that reminds you of Harry; I probably couldn't without setting all fire, anyway. You just need to get rid of what reminds you of Harry-and-him.

There aren't a lot of physical things, thank goodness. The biggest thing is the bear. He still has the furry bear that Harry won for him at that fair a million years ago in the back of the closet, and he can no longer bear his glass eyes staring at him every time he dresses. However, he is unable to throw it away. He tries, but just stares at him accusingly from the trash.