Benefits (Narry)

Prologue: When You're Gone

        That was the time he stopped believing that love meant something.

        When his heart had been ripped out of his chest by the only person that he could trust. It was taken and thrown on the ground, leaving an absence of the other boy - not just in their shared apartment, but in everything that reminded Niall of him as well. It wasn't a clean break, the edges of his heart were as sharp as razor blades, and even if Niall tried to pick them up and piece them back together, just holding them in his hands was too painful to bear.

        When the tears hadn't stopped streaming down his face until two in the morning and he had finally fallen asleep after days of not having any; a pillow clutched tightly to his chest. But it could never be as comforting or as warm as the body that he had wanted there with him. Food surrounded the small table next to his bed and also the spot beside him that was supposed to be inhabited by the other boy.

        When all of the food that was believed to make a broken heart less painful was gone and all that was left was alcohol to numb the excruciating pain that was left in his heart.

        When all that was left were broken bottles and empty cans strewn across the ground and cuts littered the boy's fingers in a useless attempt to clean the wreckage; a pointless effort: there would be more of a mess to clean up the next morning. It made him forget, if only for a few hours, until he would tear himself from his sleep, paralyzed with fear, flinching at the mere thought of the other boy who now haunted his dreams, who once used to lull him to sleep with the whispers of promises that would never be kept.

        When he was barely recognizable as he stared at his face in the mirror, circles under his eyes as dark as the night sky and cheeks as hollow as the hole in his chest. Faint outlines of his ribs could be seen under his sickly pale skin, having only been able to keep down a few bites of food at a time.

        Niall had known that this never should have happened, but he let his heart take control rather that his head, and this is what he got.

        Maybe he deserved this. Maybe it was his fault that things ended so badly. But that didn't make any sense because he didn't want things to end.

        All he wanted was one of those sappy yet romantic happily-ever-afters with the boy he had loved, but things never turned out in his favor. Niall declared that the "luck of the Irish" was a crock of shit and whoever had made that up was just a lonely old man who told that to people to make himself feel better about his terrible life. Niall now felt that his life was about as worse as the old mans, if not shittier. He had lost the only thing he had cared about, now his life meant nothing anymore.

***

        Harry wasn't sorry.

        Or at least that's what he told himself.

        When he had broken the heart of his best friend in the world. Harry knew that the other boy wasn't okay, but he couldn't bring himself to go and check on him; not that the broken-hearted boy would want to see him again.

        He didn't do it for no reason.

        He really did have a good reason.

        He was in love with someone else.

        So Harry had to cut all other ties off with his best friend, knowing that he was giving up fifteen years of friendship; and maybe something more.

        It was for both of their own goods. This was supposed to be easy for them: for them to sever the relationship ties that they weren't even supposed to have. They were friends first, fuck buddies second, nothing more.

        But Harry couldn't deny the feeling that he felt for the other boy either.