Cupid's Defence

Chapter 12

xii.

As it turned out, it was a very bad idea.

Firstly because Harry's face was a riot. Louis looked out of the window and saw him arguing with Liam downstairs, begging with Niall, and even crossing his arms in defiance. But when Louis came downstairs, his face was cold, impassive, broken. He wouldn't even meet his eye, and that wasn't even the worst part.

The worst part was watching him leave.

Harry packed slowly, carefully, and as though he were about to cry. Every step was filled with sorrow, and Louis hated himself as he watched Harry collect all of his very few belongings and wheel them into the hallway: his bow and arrow, his clothes, two bottles of nail polish.

"Hey," Louis said, stopping him.

He held out the bra as one last comfort. Harry took it, carefully so, and looked at Louis as if he had just condemned the world.

"Thank you for helping me, Louis," he spoke, and his voice was heavy with sorrow, "I am sorry that we have to part."

"This--- It won't be forever," Louis tried, but he didn't believe it, "It's just for the good of the case."

"The case," Harry repeated, stone cold. His eyes said yeah, right.

He placed the bra atop his crate of belongings and, wordlessly, followed Niall to the lift.

"Louis?" A voice said.

Louis blinked: he'd been staring at the closed lift doors for about ten minutes. Harry and Niall were long gone, and Angie was making whining noises at his feet.

He picked her up. "Yeah?"

Liam popped his head out of the apartment door, "You wanna come help pack? You won't need much, will you?"

"No," Louis mumbled, following him, "I won't."

Angie rolled in his arms, seemingly sniffed him, and whined again.

"What?" He put her down, "What is it, girl?"

She didn't run, like she used to when he placed her on the ground. She just sadly pawed at his feet, and whined again.

"It's not a temporary thing," he said, awkwardly, "He'll be back soon."

Angie glared at him and ran over to Liam. Louis just sighed and started to pack: apparently, he wasn't anyone's favourite person anymore.

And who's fault was that?

The second reason that it was a bad idea was because once they'd actually set everything up, Niall wouldn't return his calls. All Louis wanted to know if Harry had settled in all right, for fuck's sake. He stared bitterly at the phone until he fell asleep, and wondered how he'd managed to fuck everything up, so quickly.

The third reason why it was a bad idea was because Liam was hardly the best of company in comparison. Sure, he was Louis' best friend, and sure, his apartment wasn't that bad, but all Louis longed for was soft speech and slow smiles, dark curls and goofy giggles of the incredibly unfair variety. What he got was awkward, normal Liam. And sometimes, that was fine. Sometimes, it was everything.

When Louis needed Harry, it felt like nothing.

So he disappeared into work and mourned a relationship that never truly came to be. He sharpened their defence, played with Angie, ate, sleep, and showered. In that order exactly, with little variation. Sometimes, when he even felt like it, he'd just go to the office and see clients, because it was too painful to see a glint of glitter left in Angie's fur. If Liam thought this would heal him, he was wrong.