17 Black

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The bruises on his face, across his ribcage, over his left hip, and the ones shaped as fingers around his arm are deep purple and painful to the touch. He can't see the back of his head in his reflection on the bathroom mirror, but it hurts enough that he knows it's bad. His cheekbone is cut open and is scabbing around the edges, another splotch of sickly purple blooming where he had been hit. He looks back at his reflection, sees the tears in his eyes, and that's when he realizes that he's crying. Ashamed of himself, Louis turns away from the mirror and wipes at his tears until they stop falling from his eyes. An alteration of Ryan's voice booms in his mind, "Faggots just don't play football. Faggots cry like little babies." He wills himself to calm down, and walks across the hallway into his bedroom, going straight into his clothes drawers to find pajamas. After digging around, he pulls on a pair of clean boxers and searches for something warm, since he never turns the heater on in his apartment to save money. He finds a large sweatshirt at the bottom of his drawer and puts it on, letting its sleeves hang over his hands and it's hem fall past his thighs. With that, he crawls into bed and tugs the fluffy duvet up over his shoulders, falling fast asleep with the images of a certain tall boy with a pair of beautiful green eyes.

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"No, Liam, I'm honestly just fine," Louis insists as he peels off his Nirvana t-shirt in the boys' locker room.

Liam sends him a look that says 'you're obviously not "just fine" if you got your head bashed into a locker and the shit kicked out of you by a human tank'. Rollin his eyes, Louis tugs on his football jersey.

"Have you forgotten that your whole body is basically black and blue?"

"Fuck, Liam, do you think I've forgotten? Every breath I take is reminder enough," Louis scoffs, beginning to roll his socks on.

With a shake of his head, the brown-eyed boy finishes tying his laces and hops off the bench.

"Don't be late again, or Styles is going to beat you even worse than Ryan did," he calls over his shoulder at Louis as he jogs out of the locker room.

Hurriedly, Louis slips in his shinguards and pulls on his cleats in record time, doing his laces as fast as his fingers can manage. There's still one more boy in the room with him, with a panicked expression on his face as he scrambles out of the door, just before Louis does. He tries his best to sprint to the sideline where all of the players are stood in a row with Harry standing expectantly in front of them, hands shoved in the pockets of his windbreaker, but every step he takes, his head throbs and spikes of pain shoot down his spine and hip. By the time he reaches the end of the line, there are tears burning in his eyes. Standing beside him is Isaiah, who shoots him a pitied look. But Louis doesn't want his pity. He's convinced himself that he's okay. Harry is walking in his slow, long and elegant strides down the line, and stops in front of Isaiah. His eyes scan the row of players, but never once land upon Louis.

"If you don't work hard this practice, you're not playing in tomorrow's game," he says, brutally honest, his green gaze hard and sharp, the way Louis was used to seeing it.

"Understood?"

All of the boys nod timidly. Louis watches as Harry eyes Ryan pointedly, his eyebrows furrowing and his lip curling into a frown. This makes Louis feel all weird inside, like Harry might actually care a little bit about him. But also, he's worried that Ryan will catch on, and find out that Louis snitched on him. Hopefully, Harry can keep it subtle so that he doesn't.

"Isaiah, lead warm ups," Harry orders, an just like that, everyone is scrambling into place and hurrying to get in line.

As Louis goes to follow his team, practically hopping on one leg, a large hand lays on his shoulder. He can't say he didn't expect it. Turning around, Louis looks up at Harry expectantly, with a bit of a scowl on his face. He wants to play and show Ryan that he's not some baby who will sit out of practice just because of a few bruises and cuts. Harry's grassy green eyes stare down at him, his eyebrows knitted together assertively as he drops his hand.