Untouchable

Chapter 10

Harry's POV

I watched as Louis tipped back his head and swallowed the second pill of the evening. He blinked and sighed once it was down.
He was curled on a chair in my hotel room, having been forced out of his own room. A half-eaten biscuit sat on his leg.
We were watching some show that I wasn't paying attention to. I was paying attention to Louis.
The other lads forced us to hang out with them every night. I didn't really care. Louis, however, put up a fight. He hissed and snarled when they tried to talk to him. When we got food, he ate two or three bites before setting it aside.
He was rapidly falling apart. We'd had a hotel with thinner walls one night and I'd gotten the room next to his. Our beds were right against the same wall and I was forced to listen to him cry for two and a half hours. It wasn't even like he was sad; it sounded tortured, like somebody was beating him. He was crying in a way that I had never heard.
Louis slouched down further into the armchair and didn't appear to notice the biscuit fall off his leg and on to the carpet.
His face was thinner, his hair dull and limp around it. He was pale and his eyes were constantly watering from how dry and tired they were. I could see how getting more thin by the day.
Frankly, he looked horrible.
And yet, somehow, I still thought he was beautiful. Even though his eyes weren't the same shocking blue I had fallen in love with, I loved the exhausted grey they had become just as much.
The night that I had had to listen to him cry, I had bit down on the back of my hand until my teeth broke the skin and I bled to keep from calling to him.
I heard the others talk about him, how he took longer and longer to register people talking to him. How he was lashing out for no reason. How he was falling into a whirlwind depression completely different from mine. How he was becoming more than they could figure out.
They left something out, something that had happened to him, whenever they talked about him in front of me. They said whenever it happened, it started with it, the last time he acted like this was right after it.
From all the context clues I had gathered, I still couldn't figure out what it was. It was really pissing me off.
I glanced back over to Louis. His eyes were slipping shut. He'd sigh and relax for a moment before jerking back awake. It was increadibly endearing. His head nodded forwards before he tensed and sat up.
There was a moment where I could all but hear him think 'fuck it' as he shifted to lean his head back against the armchair and close his eyes.
Within a few minutes, he was breathing steadily, cracked lips parted.
"Would you look at that. He's actually sleeping," Zayn commented dryly.
Liam and Niall looked over.
"Probably the only time he'll sleep for the next few days," Niall said sadly.
"It's actually rather impressive that he can keep himself going. He doesn't eat or drink much and who knows how much sleep he gets, but he still gets up every morning and deals with it," Liam said.
"That's 'cause he's running on auto-pilot," Zayn replied.
"Don't wake him up, lads. Lets not talk about him when he's right there," Niall said.
They nodded.
An hour or so later, they all got up to leave. I glanced unsurely at Louis.
"I swear to God, Styles, if you wake him up...," Liam growled, "Just let him stay."
I nodded reluctantly.
As soon as they left, I became hyper-aware of Louis. I could hear the soft whistle of his breathing and there was the faint smell of something that was pure Louis in the air.
I sat on the edge of my bed and shamelessly stared at him. His eyelashes fanned across the purple bags under his eyes. His small hand twitched slightly. He shifted and crossed his arms.
I froze, praying that he didn't wake up.
He didn't.
He sighed and made an absolutely adorable little noise.
I thought about all the times I had carried him to bed when he had fallen asleep on a sofa or some other obscure place. He'd fallen asleep on our floor several times and once in the bath after a long few days.
He just fit in my arms perfectly. We were like puzzle pieces. My neck fit his head exactly when he nuzzled into it and there was nothing better than the way my arms wrapped around his back. The way he would press close to my chest when we slept in the same bed and his hair would tickle my face.
And when he sleeptalked. God, he couldn't get more cute. He would slur the most irrational things. Most of the times I wouldn't be able to understand what he said, but when I did, I would have to leave the room so I could laugh.
That was when he still let us sleep in the same bed, in the same room.
I slowly got to my feet and crept across the room. I needed to shower and if Louis woke up and left while I wasn't in the room, that would be better.
And maybe I gave into the teenaged side of my brain and allowed myself to think about how pretty and fit he was as hot water pelted against my back. And maybe I had to bite down on my lip until it bled to keep from making any noise as I came and my knees threatened to buckle.
I got out of the shower pleasantly hazy and as relaxed as I could be with Louis in my room.
I only had pants on and was digging around in my suitcase when I heard Louis's soft, "Harry?"
I stood and turned around. He was sitting up and rubbing at one of his eyes.
"Where's everyone?" he muttered.
"They left like an hour ago. I didn't want to wake you up," I said quietly.
Louis nodded. He seemed wary and shy.
"Thank you," he replied.
I stood, watching him and waiting for his next move. He studied the carpet, seeming fascinated by a fading blue stain. He pulled his lip between his teeth and bit at it.
I sighed and sat down on my bed, facing him.
"They're worried about you, you know," I said.
Louis shrugged.
"I think I'd be worried too if I could make my mind shut up for a second," he replied, "Can hardly hear myself think."
"How are you? Really," I asked.
Louis sighed and leaned back against the armchair and crossed his arms. A defensive posture.
"I really don't know why you're acting like you care," he mumbled.
"Louis," I sighed.
I flopped my hands around uselessly, trying to tell him things that I couldn't say.
"You make it so difficult to stop loving you," I finally whispered, hoping that he wouldn't understand.
He snorted, his expression turning bitter.
"There's nothing to love in me anymore. Love doesn't even exist," he spat.
I stared at him in surprise. This was coming from somebody who had always been a hopeless romantic.
"I wish it didn't," I said.
"It doesn't. You're fucking blind if you think that it does. Love is just a concept that people dream about to make life seem a little less fucked up than it really is," he snarled, standing up.
Louis bent down and picked up the biscuit from the ground. He turned it over in his hands, studying it. Then he abruptly pivoted and threw it across the room. It ricocheted off the wall and fell to the floor.
I stepped back a foot.
"He just seems angry in a differet sort of way sometimes," Liam had said, "You know. When it seems like he might really hurt somebody."
I knew exactly what Liam had been talking about.
Sure, it was only a biscuit. But what next? My head? Louis and I weren't on good terms as it was. Physically hurting each other would damage things further.
"Fucking-" he hissed, cutting himself off as he brought a hand up and yanked on his hair.
It seemed to have a weird, calming effect on him. He buried his face in his hands and breathed jerkily, but the sudden violent anger was gone.
"Louis-" I started.
Louis tensed and lifted his head. His face darkened again.
"What, you want to preach about love? Love nearly killed you. If love existed, I wouldn't have-" he cut himself off again.
He squeezed his eyes shut and his mouth tightened into a thin, hard line.
"You wouldn't have...?" I prompted.
"Oh, what do you fucking care?" Louis spat.
He jerked the handle of the door, growling angrily when his hand slipped off of it. When he really did open it, he slammed it closed hard enough that half the hotel probably heard.
I noticed that he had forgotten his phone. It was wedged in the creases of the armchair.
I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. Curiosity made me try to enter his password.
I sucked in a breath as I got it right. He'd never changed it, in all the time since I'd jokingly set it.
louislovesharry
He'd never changed it from that. It made me smile and want to cry at the same time.
He didn't love me anymore in any way. He had it set in his mind that I didn't care about him and he probably didn't care about me.
I waited for him to come back for his phone.
Part of me waited for him to come back for me.
He didn't come back for either.