Shelter - Larry Fanfiction

Prologue

Louis and Harry still consider themselves best friends even though they haven’t talked in nearly 5 years. Their relationship had always been complex. They both had underlying feelings for the other, but their relationship never went beyond friends with benefits. 

Louis and Harry met when Harry was 10 and Louis was 12 through their mothers. Jay and Anne were best friends, literally inseparable. At first, the two boys didn’t like each other. Louis was loud and bouncing off the walls with energy while Harry was quiet and rather shy. They didn’t really become friends at first, but then the pair realized that they were going to be stuck together all the time and they couldn’t do anything to stop it since their mothers got along so well, so they just decided to give each other a chance.

Fast forward about 3 years and you couldn’t get them away from each other. They would help each other with everything - from girls to school to insecurities and everything in between. They really had no boundaries between them and people always wondered about their relationship, constantly asking them if they were dating or not. That question never really got awkward for them though. They just really didn’t care what anyone had to say about their relationship, and a lot of the time they’d be called fags. It didn’t bother Louis anyway, but it always did hurt Harry’s feelings. The night something like that happened, Louis would comfort Harry and let him cry into his shoulder until he fell asleep.

That was a normal occurrence for them - cuddling and sleeping in the same bed. 

They hardly ever spent a night apart, always wanting to have the other close. It also wasn’t out of the ordinary for one of their mums to walk into the room and they’d be cuddled up to each other - Louis’ head on Harry’s chest and Harry’s arms clasped around Louis’ waist. 

Their mothers were suspicious of the two of them for a long time, thinking that they were in a relationship. They never thought there was a problem with it, they kind of wanted them to be together. That suspicion did die down though after Anne had a talk with Harry about it. Which, every time somebody brings it up, Harry just puts his hands up and walks out of the room claiming it was ‘the most awkward conversation he’s ever had’. 

Fast forward another couple of years to the time when Harry was 17 and Louis was 19. Louis was already in university decently close to home. He didn’t stay at his house though because he wanted to be a ‘proper adult’, so he lives in a small flat less than a mile from his campus. Harry, however, had big plans for uni. He didn’t necessarily want to leave his mum, sister, and Lou, but he did want to make something of himself. Harry was going to the USA for university. New York, specifically. 

It broke Louis’ heart when he told him, as neither of them had money to be flying back and forth to see each other. 

‘Why are you leaving me Harry?’ Louis asked, his voice cracking and his eyes shimmering with tears that were threatening to fall.

‘There is so much in New York for me, it’ll be amazing. We’ll keep in touch Lou, promise.’ Harry said with a smile on his face. He didn’t realize that Louis was actually upset about this, not happy like he’d expected.

‘You’ll have the same opportunities in London that you’d have in New York,’ he whispered, not meeting Harry’s eyes.

‘Are you upset about this Louis? I kind of expected you to be excited for me…’ Harry trailed off, realizing what was going on.

Louis didn’t respond, but he did start proper crying. He brought a hand up to cover his eyes and started sniffling. Harry noticed this and went to put a hand under Louis’ chin, trying to move his face so he’d look at him. ‘Hey, look at me Lou,’ he whispered. 

Louis jerked away from Harry’s hand and stood up, dropping the hand from in front of his face. ‘No you know what Harry?’ he said, raising his voice louder, ‘just leave me alone! I can’t fucking wait until you leave. Make sure you shag every girl you lay your pretty little eyes on when you get there,’ he shouted, above Harry’s protests. 

‘If it means losing my best friend over, I’ll just stay here,’ Harry pleaded.

‘No Harry! Don’t do that for ME. I was just someone there for you when you didn’t have anyone else and I can’t believe I’m just figuring this out now. So how about you get the FUCK out of my house and go to New York! I don’t give a shit,’ Louis finished, steaming. He expected Harry to fight back and was astonished when he just got up and left without saying a word. As soon as Harry was gone, Louis regretted everything he just said.

That was the last time they talked. 

Harry went off to college in New York without so much as saying a goodbye to Louis, which nobody blamed him for. Harry was hurt and he had a damn good reason to be. Louis never tried to keep in touch with Harry over the 5 years he was in New York for the simple reason that he was embarrassed and thought there was no way Harry could forgive him, he was convinced that Harry hated him after all of the shit he’d said to him that day.

Jay and Anne were still as close as before and knew nothing of the fight. Harry would periodically call Jay and ask how she was doing and ask about the girls and he would talk to them on the phone as well. Louis and Anne were still close, Anne treating Louis like a second son.

The 5 years that Harry spent in New York weren’t the way he expected them to be. Of course, he loved it there. It was his favorite place in the world. He discovered a lot about himself in the past 5 years.

His daily routine was pretty average for the whole time. During the week he would wake up and get dressed, walk to class, pick up a starbucks on the way, eat lunch alone in any place that he found decent, go to his night classes, get back to his flat, have a disagreement with his flatmate, order food in, do homework, and go to sleep. He rarely got out of the house on the weekends, although he told his mum otherwise. She spent a lot of money to get him to New York and into the college that he wanted so he had to make it seem like he was having an amazing time there doing everything he wanted.

The only type of relationship he had in the past 5 years was a friends with benefits thing with someone he met in one of his classes named Joseph. That was when he realized he was for sure gay. It didn’t really come as a revelation or anything, he’d always been slightly confused about his sexuality, what he did with Joseph was just confirmation to himself. 

Another thing he realized over the time he spent away from home was that he was, indeed, in love with Louis. 

And right now he’s on the plane heading back home.