The Exceptionals

Chapter 17: Shadows and Light

     It all crashed over Louis in an unbearable wave.

Every moment suddenly sharpened, as though he were seeing Harry, truly seeing him, for the first time. The tenderness in his jokes, the way he deflected with charm, the swift way he avoided answering questions that cut too close to the bone.

How had he missed it? How had he been so blind to the quiet signs that Harry carried his own invisible burden, a weight Louis recognized far too intimately?

Louis swallowed hard, his throat nothing but dry. He looked towards Harry again, at the boy he was just beginning to know. His eyes traced the curve of his cheek, the faint puffiness from tears, the vulnerability in the way his body rested now, wounded and unguarded.

And yet, even in his stillness, Harry seemed to be bracing for something. For someone to notice, to ask, to dig.

Louis' chest tightened.

The room felt suffocating, the air too thick to breathe. His gaze flickered back to the drawer, the cap of the bottle gleaming like a cruel beacon. His fingers twitched at his sides, fighting the urge to pull the drawer open, to confirm what he already knew.

But he didn't. He couldn't.

Instead, Louis' eyes returned to Harry, his heart hammering.

"Did you pretend not to know, when you bought me them?" Harry slowly turned towards him, and he followed Louis' flick of iridescent eyes.

"Oh," he murmured, completely caught off guard and slightly startled that Louis saw it; the eye-catching object that feverishly stared back. He gracefully stood up and walked towards his drawer, lazily pulling it open and grabbing the container, swiftly tossing it onto the bed. "Kind of," he said after a beat, his eyes intently set on the small pills as he shut the drawer without a glance. "I didn't know they were for you. But I did think so." His eyes flickered to him, red-rimmed with a glimmer of silver fire. "I could tell you didn't want me to know, so I didn't mention it again."

"You could have told me."

"Told you what exactly?" He placed a knee on the bed and leaned forward to grab the container, placing his dose of pills in the clasp of his palm and swallowing them easily.

Louis watched the action in a daze. "I don't know," he gestured towards the medication. "That we weren't so different after all."

"Us needing the same medication doesn't make us similar. It makes us unique." He paused, his fingers brushing over the container as if searching for what to say next. "It means we're both dealing with our own stuff." He said, a dimple popping into life as he shamelessly smiled. "You wouldn't have told me either, would you?"

Louis blinked, his cheeks flaming. "That's not—"

"Don't lie," Harry interrupted gently. "I get it. I really do. It's not about trust. It's about not wanting anyone to look at you differently." He let out a breath. "I didn't say anything because I knew what it'd feel like if you brought it up to me; if our roles were reversed. I'd been such a jerk to you, and in that moment I didn't want to give you another reason to hate me anymore." The words clanged around the room like metal against metal, echoing peacefully in Louis' mind. He tried to dissect the meaning behind every word, the breathiness in the syllables, and the emotion laced behind the thoughts.

"But you and I, we're very different." Harry removed him from the hole he'd crawled into, shaking his head with a smile. "And I love that."

Louis' heart skipped a beat. I love you. The words died in his tongue, like the last 100 times this past week alone. Just say it.