Smut and fluff

I Wish I Could

By vondrostes

Summary:

"Insert tabs C and B into slot A. There you have it."

"I want to try something."

It was the sort of thing Harry usually said while they were in the shower. Or a pool. Like being near any significant source of water suddenly turned him into a nymphomaniac. That made sense in a strange sort of way, Louis thought to himself. Nymphs were water deities, if what he remembered from the English lessons he hadn't paid hardly any attention to happened to be correct. Or, well, some of the nymphs were.

"What are the nymph things that live in the sea called?" Louis wondered, ignoring Harry's statement completely. "Naiads or summat?"

Harry frowned. "No, naiads live in rivers. Nereids live in the sea." He tilted his head inquisitively. "Are you ignoring me?"

Louis was still wondering what one might call a nymph who lived perpetually in the shower, but he shook his head with a wide-eyed face of innocence, quickly changing tacks. "You wanted to try something," he re-iterated before crooking an eyebrow at Harry in expectation. "Well?"

They were sat at Louis's kitchen table of all places, which was thus far one of the stranger locations they'd had a conversation like this. Harry was getting braver though, Louis thought, slowly evolving from the whispered requests made from his bunk back at the X Factor house to whatever this was—asking for some strange new kink he'd thought up on the toilet while they were in the middle of pudding. Louis pre-emptively wrinkled his nose in disgust. He really hoped the toilet hadn't had anything to do with Harry's inspiration for this one.

"Are you sure you're listening to me?" Harry asked sceptically. "You look like you're rehearsing lines or something."

"I'm not!" Louis replied in an overly defensive tone. He shovelled another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. "I'm all ears," he said, the words muffled by the icy dessert he could already tell was about to give him a brain freeze.

"Well," Harry continued, still not looking entirely convinced that Louis was telling the truth, "I saw something in a porn ad that I thought we could try?"

Louis didn't mean to wince, really. It just so happened that the brain freeze he'd anticipated decided to occur at that very moment, and there was no holding back his reaction.

"I haven't even told you what it is yet," Harry said, sounding unfairly wounded by Louis's involuntary facial contortions.

"No," Louis protested, "sorry, I just—brain freeze. Anyways, keep going."

"I don't have to."

"Please, Harry, I promise I'm on board with whatever you've decided we should try this time."

Harry scowled a little bit at Louis's attempt at dry humour before finally coming right out with it. "I thought you could put your bollocks in me while we have sex," he said bluntly.

Louis just stared at him, a little in awe of the fact that Harry had managed to get all the words out in one go, just like that. Maybe getting Harry annoyed was the secret to tricking him into saying what he really meant the first time around, without all the hemming and hawing and unnecessary question marks.

"You haven't said anything," Harry pointed out several seconds later.

"I'm, uh—" Louis wrestled with the concept of what Harry was proposing, staring down at his rapidly melting ice cream to avoid meeting Harry's eyes. "I'm struggling with the logistics of it," he finally admitted.