Where We Belong

Chapter 1

It feels like it comes out of the blue. Like Harry goes distant in the flick of a switch, stops coming to him, stops talking to him, stops wanting him. His mum tells him people who work from home sometimes go into themselves for a while, that it's only a phase. Niall tells him just to throw Harry over the kitchen-table and pound it out of him. His sister tells him he doesn't see the half of what goes on in Harry's daily life and maybe he should ask once in awhile.

The thing is, he does ask. The first morning Harry starts acting different, fidgeting and laughing belatedly or not laughing at all, Louis squeezes his hip and asks him 'what's the matter, darling?'. Harry tells him nothing. Nothing's the matter. So, Louis goes to work, because he's an adult with a job and he can't spend every waking hour worrying about Harry, even though that's exactly what he does, because he can't not.

When Harry hasn't done the dishes that evening, hasn't thought to cook or even eaten anything himself all day, Louis asks him again. What's wrong? Harry tells him nothing.

It goes on for two weeks. It feels like two years. First it's just the fidgeting. The spacing out and the sudden introversion and the lack of physical affection. Then it's taking his phone with him everywhere he goes, popping out to, uhm, get some milk at odd hours and whispering on the phone in the bathroom when Louis' lying in bed.

Louis tries to get through to him, tries to ask whether he's done something, whether Harry's gotten a writer's block or he's just realised, like he did once before, that his entire six month's of writing is total rubbish. Back then, he had a bit of a mini-depression too. Again, Harry tells him no. Nothing's wrong, Lou-eh and I'm just tired.

He doesn't initiate anything at all, the only physical contact Louis receives a sexless peck on the cheek before work, and after too, if he's particularly lucky. Louis tries, several times, but he's always gently pushed off and it's hard to keep setting yourself up for rejection by the person you want the most. The sixth time in two weeks that Harry tells him he's 'tired', Louis forgets to bite his tongue and spits; what the fuck are you so tired for, you sit at home all day. Worst part is, Harry doesn't even really react.

In the end, he's so unresponsive to anything but his phone that Louis starts to feel more like a piece of furniture than a boyfriend.

Of course, after one too many nights of awkward goodnight's and being afraid to reach out and touch, because, for the first time in eight years, being touched right back doesn't seem like a given, it snaps.

And it's so much worse than Louis could've ever expected.

It's a Thursday evening, and he comes home from work, tired and spent, toes off his shoes and hangs his coat. He doesn't call out for Harry soon as he walks into the living-room and the kitchen, and doesn't find him. There's nothing on the stove and there's nothing in the sink, save for a plastic plate with crumpet-crumbs and half a mug of lukewarm tea. He hasn't eaten properly all day again.

With that hard pit of anxiety in his stomach that's become all too familiar lately, he walks into the bedroom.

Harry doesn't look up when he steps in. There's a twitch in his face, a little shift of his arm, but he doesn't lift from where he's flat-backed on the bed, he doesn't say anything. He's staring at the ceiling, fingers fiddling with a piece of tissue paper, twisting it to pieces.

Two weeks ago, Louis would've jumped on his belly to make him groan and flip them over, or he'd have made a teasing remark about no work in bed, because Harry gets that certain glazed-over look in his eye when he's lost in the world of his next novel. But, that's not the look in his eyes now, that's not the Harry who'd fall off the bed just to smack Louis' arse when he passed it. That's not it.