Undone, Undress (Larry Stylinson)

thirty

As time passes, Louis becomes strikingly aware of the fact that Harry is a creature of tendency and pattern.

He has many habits. Some of them involve Louis.

For example: he rarely sleeps during the night, and Louis assumes this is because he's more inclined to get bad dreams at night. So Harry falling asleep in the apartment at random times in order to make up for his lack of nighttime rest becomes the norm. He naps on the couch, at the kitchen table, and on the floor in front of the TV. Rarely in his own bed.

Louis finds him like this when he returns home from classes. This is nothing new. Sometimes Clifford is cuddled up with him and sometimes he isn't.

For example: he has a routine of watching TV before bed. Not that he actually goes to sleep afterwards, but it seems he and Louis have a set bedtime which is around ten o'clock—insanely early for two college students. They sit close together on the couch and don't really speak much unless Harry initiates the conversation, which is rare.

Louis isn't naive enough to think that Harry actually sleeps when he retires to his room for the night, but he hopes. In reality, Harry works on his various art pieces for hours in a certain silence that can only be a mixture of concentration and fear.

For example: whenever he's sad he gets drunk. It doesn't matter if they're going out with friends or not; Harry will drink alone if he has to.

For example: whenever he's drunk he gets horny. This is just a guess on Louis' part but it makes sense, because after consuming enough alcohol to make his eyes a little dazed and his complexion a little flushed, he dresses in tight jeans and some sort of ridiculous-looking but inexplicably sexy top and Louis catches him by the door just before he leaves, wanting to ask where he's going but never actually doing it.

He doesn't need to ask because Harry always returns in the middle of the night or early in the morning, crying. Sometimes there are bruises. Sometimes there is blood. Sometimes there are nothing but tears.

It's safe to assume these are the nights Harry visits Roman. When he's sad, drunk, horny, and reckless. Self-destructive, perhaps. It would make sense.

For example: he hurts me. Daddy hurts me. He's a creature of habit. Why else would he go back time and time again to the very person who hurts him? Why else would he return to his abuser?

Yet somehow, despite it all, through the endless hours of darkness and fear, pain and torture, daydreams and nightmares... there is happiness. Like one little flickering flame in an infinite darkness. Weak but hopeful, tragic in a sanguine way. Like fighting the odds, and going back time and time again even when the result is always the same.

For example: Harry sings when he's happy.

Louis only knows this because one day he came home and Harry wasn't passed out on the couch, but instead in the kitchen baking cookies. And while he stirred the ingredients together in glass mixing bowl, he hummed a mindless tune. And then—he sang.

When Louis asked him about what had made him so cheerful, Harry only shrugged and pressed his lips tighter together. Refusing to give an answer.

Maybe there wasn't one.