Larry Stylinson ao3 one shots.

wrap your fingers around my thumb

I CRIED OKAY.

Written by:usedtothebeach

Summary:Harry hides out in Brighton. Louis finds him. Together they figure out how to grieve. And how to come home.

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Harry doesn't let the thought develop, doesn't even let the words form fully in his mind.

Instead he tells himself this isn't happening, mutters a vaguely polite goodbye to the doctor and hangs up the phone. He shakes out his hair and bites at the places where his lips have scabbed, and he makes a decision without really making a decision at all. He takes the tube to King's Cross and purchases one ticket on whatever is the next train out.

His iPod dies enroute, cutting off Chris Martin mid-chorus. The train ride feels too long, too quiet, and his thoughts keep skirting dangerously close to the buried up parts of his brain that he doesn't want to acknowledge right now.

When he arrives in Brighton, he slides his aviators up the bridge of his nose and zips up his jumper. He takes deep breaths of the cold sea air, feels an imaginary mixture of snowflakes and salt settle onto his skin.

Alright, he thinks. Here, then.

*

Harry doesn't remember the first time he'd heard about Transmutant Sperm Fertilization. The television news on mute at a bar somewhere, probably, or perhaps his mum had mentioned it over tea the last time he'd been home.

All Harry knows is that there have been twenty-nine cases of ectopic male pregnancies reported from across the globe within the last seven months. Of these, twenty-one have been aborted, five have miscarried, and only three have been born at full term.

It's been a topic of fascination and revulsion for most of the media, but Harry has hardly spared it a thought beyond, wow, weird and a few obligatory jokes with the boys. There were probably great moral and political debates surrounding the issue, but Harry hardly keeps up with current events while they're on tour.

Of the twenty-nine cases, only one other had occurred in the UK; Wales, if he remembers correctly. None of those afflicted so far have been celebrities.

Harry is not eager to pad either statistic.

*

He makes two phone calls and that is all it takes to rent a flat on a street close to the ocean, where he can breathe in and feel the salty air all around him, sink into its invisible weight.

They have off the whole month of December. After a non-stop tour of Mexico and South America, management decided they'd earned the break.

Harry had planned on spending his vacation time mostly moping around London, the flat to himself while Louis traipses across Eastern Europe with Stan. Go shopping with Grimshaw, maybe. Drink too much, definitely, and otherwise mooch off Liam's or Zayn's plans. Go back to Holmes Chapel in time for Christmas Eve.

Instead he is here, in a strange set of rooms with off-white walls, drafty windows and cold floors.

He feels lonely. But that is what he wants.

*

Brighton is cheerful and breezy and it doesn't take itself too seriously. Harry has visited about a half dozen times before, and he's always left with a smile and happy memories.