for angels to fly | lwt + hes.

Chapter 14 (Harry's POV)

Chapter 14 (Harry's POV)

ouis had been staring at him for approximately twenty minutes, bright blue eyes drifting over his profile and burning the heavy weight of unspoken words into his skin. Harry was torn between the urge to embrace the warm feeling unfurling in his chest and grin like an idiot, and the desire to crawl on top of the older boy and kiss him until they were both incoherent.

But he couldn’t do either of those things. He didn’t have the right to reach over and touch Louis like he was his, like he did it every day. His fingertips itched to carry out the command that his heart was hammering against his ribcage, but there was a barrier between the two boys that Harry couldn’t bring himself to cross. All he could do was sit and stare straight ahead at the TV, forcing the occasional laugh for appearances’ sake and ignoring the heavy tension that had fallen over them. It wasn’t uncomfortable by any definition, quite the opposite really; Harry was full and warm and irritatingly happier than he had been in what felt like a very long time. But everything that they hadn’t said to each other was hanging in the space between them, growing harder to ignore with each second that they sat on Louis’ battered old couch.

He hated to admit it, but the fact was that Harry had grown so accustomed to being able to touch Louis that it felt wrong not to. Louis had settled into his life so seamlessly and quietly that it took Harry an embarrassingly long time to realise that he had become a permanent fixture, that he was real and tangible and that he cared. Once he had realised that, the realisation that he did too followed soon after. And it utterly terrified him. 

Harry had become so achingly attached to Louis’ presence that when he forcibly removed himself from it he felt like the world had ended, or something equally as dramatic. Honestly, he couldn’t even go a few weeks without acting completely pathetic; he was sure that Louis hadn’t been sitting in his flat in the time that they had been apart, curled up into a ball of misery, not eating and pining after him like a lovesick teenage girl. Louis had his friends and school and work and a life; something that Harry was severely lacking. But he didn’t begrudge him that; that’s what Harry wanted for him. That’s what the entire exercise had been for; he needed Louis to forget about him, to carry on living his life as if Harry had never existed.

How Harry had ended up sitting in Louis’ apartment in a painful imitation of the easy relationship they had once had, he couldn’t quite work out.

Harry hadn’t intended their separation to be temporary. He needed to end it; the entire relationship was wrong and impossible and shouldn’t have been allowed to continue as long as it did. Harry had let it spiral out of control at an alarming rate simply out of his own selfishness, his own desire to have something to himself that maybe he could keep. But even as he let it carry on he knew it couldn’t possibly last forever, he knew that Louis had his life to get back to and his time would be better spent away from someone like him. Harry wasn’t even entirely sure why Louis had even bothered convincing him to come around to his place that night; there was no reason to prolong this.

He ignored the feeling that nagged in the back of his mind like of course you do of course you know it’s written all over his face it’s there it’s there he loves you.

Harry had made a stupid mistake by calling Louis up the night before, he knew that. It had been a moment of weakness. Had he been in the right frame of mind he wouldn’t have dared, but he had been frightened and tired and things had been growing dimmer by the minute and he was seized by the desire to have Louis’ soft, raspy voice curling around him. Louis would know what to do; Louis would be able to fix it. He hadn’t planned on Louis coming to his rescue like Harry was the damsel in distress and he was prince charming; but it had happened, and Harry hated how much he wanted dwell on all the things that meant. How much he wanted Louis to always be there to save the day, but at the same time how much he wanted to not have to be saved.