I Could, But Wouldn't Stay

XVI

When Louis got back to his new unofficial room after sitting through a three-hour session to get the family brand, he was tired. Before he could even reach the room, he was shifting out of his uniform, unbuttoning his shirt and toeing out of his shoes.

Harry, like a dutiful alpha, walked behind the small omega picking up the pieces of his uniform and folding them over the chair in his room. The omega hadn't cried or even winched when Vinny pressed the needle into his arm, he couldn't feel a thing.

Louis referred to his new friend as the fog, it rolled in and persisted like a thick coating over the past four weeks. His senses were dulled beyond the point that he could even find it in him to worry. The fog was nice in the way a heavily medicated sleep can be nice, you feel the need to be alert, but something pulls you back down. 

In the end it wasn't natural, something was wrong.

That was another thing about his new best friend, thinking was just about impossible. Anytime he attempted to put two thoughts together he would feel them shift so close to a synapse but there was never a connection.

His class work all but halted and a few teachers approached him about it, but he couldn't even recall what they had said to him. If his mother was here than they'd tell her, but she wouldn't be home until the end of January, so for now they just waited.

Louis wished he could say that this friend numbed him, but it wasn't quite that either, rather it acted as a practically impermeable layer, trapping his fear and anxiety in. Outwardly the omega looked calm and even rather detached, nodding his way through conversations, and smiling softly, convincingly.

But every so often he'd manage to explode through his fog, there didn't seem to be just one thing that'd set him off. It could be Edward telling him he wouldn't sleep with him, Harry staying out at work too late, Niall asking him if he was ok one too many times, or a million more small things could send him from dead eyed to foaming at the mouth in seconds.

He knew he was being unreasonable, but it was like he couldn't express his emotions unless what he was feeling was so intense it'd burn him up. His consciousness seemed to rely heavily on what was happening right at that moment and nothing else. So here he found himself, naked save for his boxers and scrawled out on the bed, Harry leaning over him with a shirt.

"I don't want a shirt." He could hear his voice like he was screaming into water, so dull and far away.

Harry's lips moved and he clearly wasn't letting this go so Louis felt it building in his chest and in his stomach. He wanted to be so basic and call it anger but really it was something closer to impotence, from lack of control. So, he pouted and bitterly said, "I don't want it."

"Louis." That seemed to break through the fog, "Please. I need you to put the shirt on before Edward gets here."

"Why?" Louis asked, voice sharp.

"Because he can't know about our little secret just yet."

"I thought you said it was a surprise for him?"

"It is." Harry nodded and then as if to pacify a small child, he continued, "But for right now I think we should wait until his birthday in just two weeks?"

Louis felt the anger level off but not recede, leaving him just under his explosive level, "If I put the shirt on, will you fuck me?"

The omega had guilted Harry into finally sleeping with him a few times since his mother's wedding. The alpha made him promise not to tell Edward which he didn't mind doing, as long as he got what he wanted. Sleeping with Harry was one of the few times he felt himself rise out of the emotionless pit without feeling scared or angry.