relief next to me (by dolce_piccante on ao3)

23

Harry took a deep breath through his nose and held it in. His heart pounded in his eardrums, strong and steady and much more relaxed than earlier in the evening. He exhaled through his pursed lips and stretched his limbs as far as he could. His muscles burned and his bones popped until he released the stretch, his limbs relaxing to a more normal length. He rubbed the bottoms of his feet towards the corners of the king sized bed, the cool duvet causing tingles to bubble beneath his bare skin.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the white ceiling, watching light flicker over the surface. He turned his head to the right and peered out the window. The lights of London twinkled and shimmered against the murky black sky, The Eye glowing in the distance.

It felt foreign to be in a hotel room whose layout was nothing like their bedrooms. The lamps and en suite and windows were in all the wrong places. Everything, though luxurious and well made, smelled so new.

The linens were stiff and the king sized bed was a touch too hard when compared to how Louis' sheets felt after they had shared the bed for a couple of nights in a row. Worn and warm and a little thinner than when the sheets first came out of the dryer. There were none of Louis' renegade socks hidden at the bottom of the bed, the duvet and sheets tucked tight as a drum. The pillowcases did not smell like a conglomeration of their shampoos and sweat and a sweetness Harry knew belonged to him.

Even though the room was strange, Harry had never been happier to take his clothes off and fall back onto a mattress. Thinking of their wild night together made his eyes flutter closed, a grin spreading over his face and his arms stretching higher towards the headboard. He shivered in his black boxer briefs, his lower belly heating.

The sound of running water stopped behind the closed bathroom door. Harry brushed his knuckles over the wooden headboard, able to hear the water start up a few second later, the hissing faucet almost drowning out the sound of bare feet padding on tile.

Harry propped his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles together. He rested for a moment, then reached to the side. He turned off the left bedside lamp, stretching to turn off the right lamp. Moonlight poured through the tall windows, a new bunch of shapes pouring over the ceiling.

Their room was lovely, as his mother said it would be, and as modern as he figured it would be based on Louis' taste. The dark wood bed had a pale green duvet with geometric white flowers scrawled on it. A pair of goldenrod cushioned armchairs faced each other in front of the window with a small square table between them, a matching hardwood desk flat against the wall. They were all simple furnishings but more vintage than Harry would imagine Louis selecting, as if the hotel wanted to remain current but selected pieces that harkened back to a more classic time.

A surprise night in a hotel sounded romantic, but it wasn't until they were checking in at the hotel's front desk that they realized they didn't have any clothes or toiletries. Luckily, the hotel staff sent them up to their rooms with toiletry kits, even including a tiny bottle of contact solution for Louis.

The technicalities of their stay, along with the presence of his mum, caused the heat that had built between them to simmer. They rode the lift with his mum and kissed his mum good night at the door to her room. It was not necessarily an aphrodisiac, but he felt a weird sort of semi-arousal each time he caught Louis being sweet to his mum or making her laugh.

The up and downs and extreme spikes in excitement made for a wild night, but it was also a touch draining. He didn't know if Louis would be up for anything besides sleep after such a long evening.

Harry unbuckled his watch from around his wrist and dropped it on the left bedside table. He propped himself up on one elbow, itching his lower belly. He sniffled once, his itching fingers rising until he reached the centre of his chest. The en suite doorknob clicked.