say it with dignity

it was after the second time he had to speak of his past in front of harry that he remembered again that harry didn't have a complex relationship with sex like he did. harry saw it as something pleasurable, desirable, beautiful—as most healthy people would. it wasn't that louis didn't know that sex is something so crucial to relationships, he did. but he also knew that it wasn't something he could readily provide.

and he hated that part of himself.

he hated the part of himself that told harry everything about what'd happened to him and what he done. he hated the part of himself that shook as harry's hands even suggested faring anywhere close to between his legs.

somehow, he wanted to find ways to repay harry. for robbing him of the joy that usually came apart of being young and having a relationship.

he woke at three a.m. exactly one week after they had the talk together with tom. this week, he went by himself again, but had trouble stringing into words what he really felt. he described what hurting himself meant to him, and how he couldn't see himself stopping. but if it meant making things easier on harry, he was willing to at least try to make it less frequent or hide it better.

when he came to, he was surprised that he even fell asleep in the first place. it'd been weeks since he was able to sleep before four, and the fatigue was really beginning to take a toll on him. it was thursday, and he hadn't used up the one-day-a-week pass he allowed himself to hold harry tightly whenever he wished for someone to rip him apart.

so he did, and felt the warmth radiating off the boy transfer to his cold skin, which he couldn't quite understand why it was cold. he had been sweating so much, from who knows what, since he didn't remember dreaming about anything.

sometimes, his dreams were gentle arms that he feared would strike down upon him, sometimes he would even hope that they would. but not these arms, these arms would inch closer to him, slowly and unthreateningly, and lay gently on his head and shoulders. you're safe, they would say.

the next night, he found himself pressed up against harry again, despite already having done so the night before. he didn't know what it was in him and he couldn't really conjure the energy to find it in himself to figure it out, so he allowed himself this, if nothing else. he allowed himself to curl up against harry's chest and feel his arms around him again, half-conscious fingers stumbling through his tangled hair and damp back.

the warmth made the feelings inside of him burn even brighter and stronger than ever before—not just the ones that loved harry, but the ones that craved harry's nails to dig deep into his skin, as well. the ones that told him that he didn't deserve this kindness, that craved for someone to treat him like the scum he is.

louis wanted to peel himself out of the sheets to administer the pain that no one else would, but he knew that harry would wake at his moving out of bed after he'd already established their places against each other. he missed jean more than anything, in that moment. he missed how jean would treat him like he had no place in the world, like he was an unsightly stain on a beautiful painting.

something chained him down, though. a force larger than just the fear of disturbing harry. it was exhaustion, he recognized. something that told him, aren't you tired of doing this to yourself? aren't you tired of not allowing yourself anything?

but wouldn't trying to be happy be even more tiring? wouldn't that be far more unrealistic? wouldn't that be overstepping his bounds and reaching out for a world that he knew he had no place in?

he had no idea. he had no idea whether happiness was just an urban legend told by the delusional, or if it was something actually achievable. but in the moment, he bathed in his craving for pain and allowed it to reach its crests and troughs, all until it mellowed down into a single flat line. he imagined those urges to be troubled souls that the gods eventually harvested from his chest to will the feelings to pass.

and they did, surprisingly. he hadn't actually expected them to pass like everyone told him they would. for the first time in a while, he realized, he felt comfortable at night, in bed, after being jolted awake. it wasn't heaviness that set in his bones, but this floating feeling.

"harry?" he whispered, which had startled him, because he hadn't intended to allow the thought to venture past his lips.

the boy didn't respond, to louis' relief. the last thing he wanted was to disturb him when he had meetings the next day regarding the album. the release date was rolling closer and closer, and harry was growing more and more restless. every minute of sleep, louis knew, was precious.

he felt this exigence coursing through his veins suddenly, pumping directly from his chest. it was a feeling that wasn't foreign to him; it had the same nature as the force that urged him to pull apart his skin. but this time, it was to write. he'd been at a wall for so long, feeling this way made him almost believe it was the end of the world.

he would have gotten up to scratch all his ideas down on paper, but curse his eyelids, he thought, as they grew heavier and heavier with each breath. it wasn't long until he was completely pulled under, seduced by a thick layer of white coming over him and by harry's incoherent mid-dream mumbles.

he woke again to an empty bed, which scared him at first. his first thought was that maybe harry had gotten tired of dealing with him, and that he'd had enough. the worries were put to rest at the sound of the whirr of the vent hood and the sizzle of heat against oil. some kind of sausage, he smelled, which made him feel sick. meat was never something that he did well with, and especially so early in the morning. it was growing frustrating, with how difficult eating remained. he hadn't been purging and the cuts and blisters that he once thought were going to be permanently embed on his knuckles had been on the fade, but the urges weren't gone and he didn't hate himself any less.

recovery, he realized, if what he was undergoing could even be considered as such, didn't mean the thoughts or urges would go away like everyone told him. he'd try and try and try, but at the end of the day he'd still find himself craving the empty feeling, chasing this high he'd never achieve again.

and here he was, eating harry's food like someone who hadn't struggled with eating at all, and he questioned whether, if all this time, he was faking it. harry beamed at him so proudly when he finished his food and sat unmoving on the bar stool, unable to will his legs to take him to where his mind begged him to go. he wanted to wipe the smile off of harry's face like it was some kind of mistake, like he wanted to prove to the boy, i am still sick, i want to be sick, sickness is all i am, i don't know myself without my illness.

but he couldn't muster out the words. the thoughts that festered inside of him felt so first-world and embarrassing; laughable for a full-grown man like him.

he remembered the inspiration he found last night, and rushed to his notebook like he hadn't just been frozen and bound to his chair by anxiety. he feared that once again, all his ideas would slip right between his fingers, but they hadn't. if anything, after eating, they felt stronger and clearer. everything did, he noticed. the world felt much steadier beneath his feet compared to before. was this what health felt like?

in the most fucked up way possible, he thought, he missed the unsteadiness, the uncertainty. it gave him a rush of adrenaline; the same one that he would always feel when he'd run a blade over his wrist—one that he felt when he knew that he was dancing back and forth between the threshold of real danger.

he doubted that his ideas would remain salient by the time he reached his notebook and began spilling everything onto paper.

but they had.

he wrote and wrote and wrote until he couldn't feel anything from his wrist to the tips of his first three fingers, but he hadn't regretted a thing. harry would always ask him why he wrote everything on pen and paper when typing it all, either on his phone or on a laptop would be worlds quicker and more convenient. truth be told, louis didn't exactly have an answer. he liked imagining the ink flowing from the pen onto paper like it the pen were his own heart pumping blood through his veins.

the next time he looked at the clock was when he realized he'd run out of room in his notebook, which had started only two-thirds of the way full. two hours had passed, and harry was gone, off to a meeting, and he didn't even remember saying goodbye to the boy, or, quite frankly, he didn't remember the boy leaving his side at all.

it'd been months since he wrote this much in one sitting, and he couldn't even understand what it was about the past week that had sparked this sudden brainwave, but he accepted it all wholeheartedly. this is what he'd been waiting for; for his characters to move on their own accord, dragging the tip of his pen under their guidance (while still allowing him to take command over them at times), and bring everything alive. the story had been dead for so long, he thought, that maybe he'd have to scrap it, and start anew. of course, starting anew wasn't a bad thing per se, but he'd grown so connected with the story and intertwined so much of his own personal thinking into this prose, he knew that if he let this go, he'd be letting go a portion of himself. he'd leave a part of him in the heart of it all.

harry returned to the ocean boy flipping quickly through drawers, as if looking for something, and felt his chest momentarily collapse before inflating again.

"what are you looking for?" he asked, carefully approaching louis.

"a notebook. used up my last one."

"oh, i think i put your empty ones in the third drawer down. your shit is an absolute mess, i hope you know that."

the boy snorted and shook his head with mock dismay. "of course you would move my things, harry. i appreciate the sentiment, but it's all organized clutter. i remember where i leave things, i'll have you know."

"like hell you do. you lose shit all the time. the way i set things up, it's functional and looks nice."

"i disagree, but i'll let it slide this time," their eyes met again, contrasting hues bouncing so deeply off each other, harry swore that he felt time shatter before for just a millisecond before the cracks resealed. "because you're functional and look nice."

it was a wonder, how the younger boy managed to get louis' heart racing and rocketing toward the sky so often, despite the two spending nearly all of their time together. and louis forgot, momentarily, what exactly it was he was looking for and why he'd been looking. it was the bright, golden light, he reckoned, that outshone everything else and urged him to drop absolutely everything to feel harry in his arms for just a second longer. "i'm glad for you baby," harry whispered. "i hope to see a novel out soon from you. you write bestseller-worthy work, darling. it's just a matter of time."

"that's not true. you haven't even read anything i've wrote."

"wrong. i've read some or your random little pieces or poems. the way you convey meaning is beautiful," he said. "i know it. have i ever been wrong?"

"plenty of times, harold," louis laughed. "but i guess i'll take your word on it. don't forget that you've not time to think about me, though. album release is in a week."

"speaking of which," he said, this time softer and slower than usual, "i'm going to the bar with my producers and band and such the night before the release. there's a gig the day of; a bit shorter than the last one, but there'll be more people there, probably. at a venue. afterward, niall, liam, and i were planning on clubbing. you should come along. i don't think you've met liam before? you don't have to. i just think it'd be nice for you to have some fun every once in a while, you know. you can even bring zayn, if you want."

"i don't know if he would like that," louis replied, scratching the tip of his nose. "but i'll ask him just for fun."

"i'm sure he'll say yes, especially if you're the one asking. if i asked, he'd just ghost me."

"i didn't know you've been talking to him. but if you told him that it's to celebrate your debut album, he'd definitely come. that's the kind of person he is."

"i guess so," harry didn't notice himself grabbing the ocean boy's hand, but somehow, their fingers were intertwined now. "so? what do you say? want to come?"

"of course i'll come. as long as you don't hire security guards to go drinking with us. i mean, i'm sure they'd be wonderful company while niall's puking into a sewer in the parking lot, but none of that, please. promise me that, styles, and i'm down."

it was a running joke between them, since after the first gig. most of their arguments went that way; it'd be heated in the moment, but eventually the fire would die and leave just ashes of their original emotions, for both boys to wonder what it'd been that made them so angry in the first place.

"wasn't planning on it," the younger boy rolled his eyes. "and niall's quite the drinker, for sure. it's the irish in him. he holds his alcohol well."

"i figured." they fell silent, allowing the moment to come over them until louis finally let out the question that'd been a constant ebb of his mind since the very first day they met, intensity waxing and waning like that of the moon cycles. "weshouldhavesex." his words came out as a single string of hardly intelligible nonsense, but harry had decoded it anyway, to the ocean boy's dismay.

"i know you feel like you have to, babe," he said gently, letting go of louis' hand for a moment to pull the entire boy in close to him. "but you don't. i'm not some kind of sex fiend."

"but it's been months. we're dating. normally, that's what you'd expect, no? and it's what we were going to do… the first night. so."

"don't get me wrong, i'd happily do it, if you wanted to. but i don't want to force you to do anything you're uncomfortable doing. i want something like that to be beautiful, intimate. you know? like something we share enjoyment in. sex isn't just fucking, at least the way i like to think about it. it's… it's making love. and you've never made love before. you've been fucked, sure. but i'd like to do that with you someday. show you what it feels like."

louis flinched, feelings waves of anxiety threatening to spill over the dam that he'd built so high. "y-yeah. maybe we can do that." endure, endure, endure, endure.

"not now, god. not now. lou, i love you so much. i want to cherish you."

"don't you ever get… don't you ever get horny?" he whispered shyly.

harry was trying to hold back his laughter, but failed miserably. "lou, i—" an explosive guffaw interrupted his sentence. "of course i get horny. but fuck, my hope for your wellbeing burns so much brighter. besides, me and my right hand are getting along fine, no?"

"'my right hand and i,'" louis retorted wetly, pouting. the air was a bit lighter, thank god.

"whatever. my right hand and i." the younger boy sighed at the ridiculousness of the situation. "i know how hard it is for you, babe. i can go for longer. we can figure something out if you are ever ready. and it doesn't have to be soon, or ever. remember that."

"i'm sorry."

"you have nothing to apologize for."