Where We Belong

Chapter 20

When he steps back into the flat, his legs feel numb from the cold, and his chest tight from watching Harry go. He lets the coat slip to the floor, locks the door behind him and pads into the kitchen because he needs something to drink. There's only milk in the fridge, tea and coffee in the cabinets, water in the faucet. He could've sworn he had a bottle of wine standing on the counter, but apparently he drank that too, last night.

His fingertips are throbbing. He needs something. To drink, to smoke, to drown out the silence.

They've got a CD-player standing in the corner of the kitchen-counter. Louis never uses it, but he likes it when Harry does, although he'd never admit it. He turns it on without thinking, without even taking a look at the CD before it starts to spin.

He clutches the edge of the counter, presses his forehead to one of the cabinets and hopes for it to be rocky, screaming-loud and lyric-less.

It's everything but.

A guitar strums mellowly and a man begins to sing. Louis can't remember the name of the song, but he's heard it a million times before. He's heard it, right here, whenever Harry turned this particular CD on. He's watched Harry cooking up eggs and bakey in the mornings, bare-arsed and swaying his hips to the meldoy. He's seen Harry sitting in the window, curled up with his laptop, feet tapping along as his fingers do the same.

He's let Harry pull him in by the wrist in the middle of the night, drunk and high and so fucking happy they didn't need to be any of the two first things, and swayed him around. Wrapped his arms around Louis' waist and rested his face in the crook of his neck and hummed along every time the guy sings, over and over, I wanna make it with you.

He remembers standing in a moment like that, feeling the low vibration of Harry's voice against his skin send tickles down his spine, and thinking and you will.

But, that was then.

He's bent fully over, face in his arms, entire weight slumped onto the counter, when someone walks up behind him.

"Nice," the prick says, right before his palm collides with Louis' bum.

"Piss off," Louis hisses. He straightens up and turns off the music, wipes his nose and eyes with the back of his wrist and pins his gaze to Eli's blotchy orange feet. "I'm really, I— I need you to go. I'm sorry if that comes off rude but, I, ehm— I need you to leave. Without that t-shirt you're wearing. You can take my trackies, I don't care, just please leave the t-shirt and go."

Silence. It stretches on for a while, and then Eli utters four words too much; "are you all right?"

Louis drops his face into his hands. There's no dignity left to save, he's crying in front of a total stranger, he can't even manage a no, or a lie, the only thing he manages to do is cover his face in his hands, as if that makes any bloody difference.

"No, hey," Eli says, and before Louis knows it, he's got arms wrapping around him, hands stroking up and down his back, "it's all right, it's all right. Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be all right. Your fella's a bit of a nutter, but I'm sure it'll be all right."

But, that's the thing. Harry isn't his fella anymore. "I- I need you to leave," Louis says again, shrugging out of Eli's arms, "I just- please just go. I don't know what is that you need from me, but- just please."

Eli still hesitates. Stands there and watches Louis while he tries to reassemble himself, sniffling pathetically. "I don't like to leave people alone when they're like this. Especially not when they've got a mental ex-bloke running round outside, barging in out of the blue and attacking people."