we'll live to tell the tale (l.s.)

unbeing

tw// self harm , mentions of sex , trauma , past abuse 

hi, i hope this is adequate. man i am so tired. hahahhah. comments mean a lot to me as always, so if you could spare a half second i'd love that. thanks. 

twitter: @louflymehome

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it took hours to tell harry. about matthew, about jean, about how much he wished to disappear. they ad arrived home at seven, but by the time everything was said, it was already nearing midnight.

louis said he wanted to sit on the cold tile while retelling everything—closer to the earth, to the soil where his body would one day reside in, to the core of the planet into which he would imagine himself plummeting into certain death.

harry cried during almost all of the story, though louis couldn't quite understand why. he wasn't someone to cry for, or to cry over. it was already established clearly in his mind that he was not worth the green-eyed boy's tears.

it was all a bit easier to articulate than he thought it'd be, but his voice still shook almost as hard has his hands, and there were parts where he had to stop to remember to breathe. harry would have to clutch the boy's arms tightly, serving as a reminder that he was there, in that moment, and not back in the new york penthouse. he'd count to ten, then a hundred, sometimes five hundred. however long it took to calm the smaller boy down.

harry listened intently, heart twisting and turning in his chest; so much that he worried that it would sink and become one with his stomach, which had also been crying out for food—but he didn't want to interrupt the flow of louis' storytelling, so he didn't say anything about it.

it was borderline unbearable just to hear about, he realized, he couldn't imagine actually experiencing these things. there were moments where he wished he could clasp a hand over the ocean boy's mouth, stopping all the words that had flowed mercilessly from it. as if, by doing so, he'd be erasing everything that had happened in the first place.

but it wouldn't, so all he could do was sit on the floor with louis until he could no longer feel the bones in his bottom as they dug into the ground, and listen like he was never going to use his ears again.

when it was all over, louis looked so empty, like each word he'd uttered sucked a sliver of life out of him. he wasn't crying; he never allowed himself cry unrestrainedly, only trembled like there was nothing else in the world. harry, though, imagining every situation more vividly than he'd like to, couldn't combat that sobs that washed over him when he realized that these stories, which were just stories to him, were facts that louis had to live with every second of his life, regardless of whether he was awake or not.

"lou," the younger boy choked out between tears, "lou, i'm so sorry. i'm so sorry for ever having scared you. i'm sorry that these things ever happened at all. i- i wish, i wish i could hunt them down and hurt them." his eyes seemed to glower red with pure hatred in its most palpable form. "i want to rip them apart for hurting someone like you; someone who deserves so much better than what the world has to offer."

"jean's somewhere still, probably. france or Italy or new york, one of those romantic places where the lights never go out at night. maybe he's even in london," louis joked weakly. "matthew's gone, though. he passed last year. i read it in an obituary. 'priest dies from pancreatic cancer.' romantic, huh?"

"oh," he replied dumbly. what was he to say in this situation? apologize? congratulate the boy?

"it's alright. i was torn up at the time; wanted to be hurt and scared all over again because i deserve it, but it's fine now. i'm over it."