Larry Stylinson - Turning From Praise (AU)

17.

“You look good,” Harry said, wolf-whistling and raising his eyebrows.

“Mm. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s very…me. I mean don’t get me wrong, I like it on you, but I dunno, there’s something about it that’s a little bit…” Struggling to put his thoughts into words, Louis frowned at his reflection in the mirror and reached underneath the mess of chains hanging around his neck to touch the rosary beads underneath. “Dark? Can we at least rub off some of the eyeliner?”

He was sat on a stool in front of Harry’s bedroom mirror, biting his lip as he stared at his reflection. They were going out tonight, to a club somewhere so that Louis could have his first proper taste of alcohol without parental supervision which wasn’t vile church wine or watered-down punch, and Louis had somewhat warily agreed to let Harry loose on him and make him up, after Harry had admitted to a secret longing to see Louis dressed up as a punk. Out of a desire to make him happy, Louis had consented. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Harry had dyed a deep blue streak into his hair – “it washes out, promise, it only lasts for one night!” “It’d better!” – and insisted on making him leave it down, out of its usual quiff, because he said he loved Louis’ fringe. Apparently, he wasn’t lying; he kept absentmindedly running his fingers through it, which Louis actually liked far more than he wanted to let on. He kept feeling an odd urge to make a sort of contented purring noise that he was determined never to let past his lips.

They’d both tried to ease several different rings and studs of various sizes through Louis’ lip, hoping that the hole hadn’t closed up, but the hole was almost closed up now, definitely too small to fit anything through, so that idea had to be abandoned. Harry looked a bit wistful. 

Louis was wearing a pair of reasonably innocuous black Chinos; Harry had a liking for jeans so tight that they appeared to be trying to suffocate his legs, and although Louis’ legs were shorter than Harry’s, they weren’t any skinnier, and the slight curve of his stomach meant that he’d struggled vainly to squeeze into Harry’s jeans and failed miserably. This had been extremely humiliating to him, and he’d almost tried to call off the whole thing while he locked himself in the bathroom and stared at his stomach, wondering where on earth his six-pack had wandered off to, before Harry had burst in – “Oi! You could have knocked, I could have been on the loo or something!” “So what? I’ve already seen your dick – hell, I’ve already had it in my mouth” – and dropped to his knees, kissing from his neck down to his happy trail, mouth lingering over the light dusting of hairs emerging from the top of his boxers, and assured him that he loved Louis’ belly. It took quite a while of Harry worshipping his stomach before Louis sighed and agreed to come out with him, because maybe it wasn’t that bad (and maybe he’d pretended to be a bit more upset about the whole thing than he really was, because he really did rather enjoy having Harry kissing him quite so devotedly.) He was also, after a whole lot of duress and bribery in the form of promises of sexual favours from Harry, wearing a tight black t-shirt covered in silver skulls, with little silver chains dangling from the sleeves and neckline. Harry’s expert hands had outlined his eyes with a ring of deep black, and smudged it artistically so that he would look less like a racoon and more like someone confident, someone unafraid. Someone who could stand beside Harry, who always seemed so permanently unruffled by anything anyone else ever said, and look like he was supposed to be there.

Still, Louis couldn’t help but feel like maybe it was all a bit too much.

“Don’t you dare touch it! You look perfect. What’s your shoe size, by the way? Where on earth did I put my Doc Martens?” Frowning, Harry dived back into his wardrobe and started rummaging, and Louis watched in amusement as three pairs of black converse, four shirts and a single solitary flip-flop came flying out over his head.