Chapter Twenty Two

He lies in the dark for two hours. Sleep consumes Louis within minutes but Harry just lies there beside him barely moving and barely breathing. It's agonizing being so close yet the emotional barrier between them is still so uncertain and scattered. His thoughts begin to frustrate him an hour in, by the second hour he's almost shaking.

As quietly as he can he shifts himself over to the far side of the bed and stands, making sure to make as little noise as possible. Louis had always been a deep sleeper and it seems that at least hasn't changed as he slips out of Louis' bedroom and wanders downstairs. It must be somewhere past five am now, the first light of day still an hour off yet as he makes for the kitchen and switches on the kettle. He rummages through several cupboards before he finds the cups, noting the lack of food in the house. He supposes they are only here for a week but it still makes him smile at the memory that Louis had always been useless with groceries.

He makes himself a tea, which he knew that at least Louis would have in his home, considered it essential, and heads for the undiscovered living room. It's not all that different from his home in London, although this living room doesn't look out over into a football field, instead an infinity pool lies still in the night outside, several outdoor lounge chairs scattered around the yard and LA stretched out below.

He sits in the dark on the sofa, cradling the tea in his hands as he waits in the unfamiliar room. He thinks about switching on the tv mounted on the wall opposite him but thinks better of it least it wake Louis up, it's not as though he particularly feels like watching anything either.

He'd stupidly left his phone upstairs in his jacket pocket too, otherwise he'd consider calling Gemma. Sarah even in this instance but there's no way he's going back upstairs right now.

He hears Louis long before he actually walks into the room. The sun is now partially risen and he waits patiently whilst Louis moves around the kitchen, hearing the sounds of him making his own morning cup of tea before he finally walks into the lounge.

He looks better than he had the night before, eyes clear but his hair is messy from sleep and he wears light joggers and a jumper hazily thrown on to cover his chest.

"Hi." Louis says as he sits down at the other end of the sofa from Harry.

"Hi."

"I really think we should talk this time." Louis says, his voice clear and steady.

"Yeah, I've kinda been waiting." Harry says gesturing to the blanket wrapped around him and half-drunk cup of tea in his hand.

"I..."

"What did you mean that I didn't call you?" Harry cuts in before Louis can say anything more, the thought had been one of the main things occupying his mind and he wasn't leaving here till he had an explanation.

Louis swallows down a large mouthful of tea, as if giving himself time to formulate an answer. "You called me. One night a few years back, I think you were in Jamaica still. You were quite drunk."

"Obviously." He mutters not remembering the incident at all.

"You were angry, at first. You went on for quite some time. Kept rambling about how I had caused you so much hurt, how you didn't understand when things had gone wrong, why I did what I did." Louis is quiet for a moment, "Then you started crying."

And...oh. Harry definitely doesn't remember this.

"I didn't know what to do, you were drunk and saying all these things and I hadn't heard from you in months."

He sits and waits for him to continue.

Louis looks at him then, and there's an emotion in Louis' eyes that he doesn't want to read too much into. "You said you still loved me, and that I'd hurt you. That you were somewhere we'd always wanted to go and that when everything had gotten too much it's the first place you'd wanted to go because it reminded you of us. Of what we had."

"I finally got you to calm down." Louis starts, eyes staring down into his lap. "You told me you'd call me when you woke up again and I was so fuckin' worried about you that I didn't sleep. And you never called again. I know you forgot, that much is clear by how you're reacting now, and I know I have no right to be hurt by that but this mess is all because of my fuck ups and I have never learnt how to deal with that."

"I was trying to finish the album." Harry offers when everything has gone quiet again. "I wrote for a few months then just hit a wall. I was trying to erase every part of what we'd had, I was so angry with you that I tried everything to get you out of my head but then I'd go back to the house at the end of each day, the same house we'd bought together, when we'd had a life together." And Harry sees from the corner of his eye that Louis' hand is shaking where he's holding his tea. "I couldn't deal with it anymore, I arrived back there one night and just couldn't breathe. Walking in the door everyday was torturing myself but I couldn't bare to part with it. It's not even home but it's one of the only things we had that was just ours, and one day you were gone and I couldn't keep that in anymore." The burning in his eyes blinds him for a moment but he won't let himself cry, not at his own story, not until he knows Louis'. The full story this time.

"You know, I wrote 32 songs, scrapped each and every one of them because none of them conveyed anything I actually wanted to say. I knew I had to put down what I'd been through when I let you go. That's why my songs have you woven through them." His heart is aching now at those words, but this is exactly the conversation they need to be having so he shoves the feeling down and shifts slightly on the sofa.

"I lied to you." Louis says, his eyes flickering up to meet Harry's but it only sparks more confusion in him. "And I wasn't strong enough to talk to you about it, instead I got so overwhelmed by the pressure and the bullshit they'd been pushing on us both for years and I just cracked."

"I don't understand."

"I'd been having meetings for months, years, you knew this." And Harry did, he knew all about the meetings Louis had been forced to go to by their previous management and plant new ways to keep the band's image as hetero-normal as possible. Harry had had his 'womanizer' personality shoved down on him. The stunts he'd had to do with numerous woman, the scandals and articles debasing him as a person and painting him as the exact opposite of what he was. He was bisexual, had known that for years now, but he was Harry Styles, and Harry Styles under Syco and Modest! Management could not be that. Louis had been subjected to Eleanor. And whilst Harry had hated the role he'd had to play with all his heart, seeing Louis go through what he'd had to with Eleanor had caused him indescribable amounts of pain.

"It started in early 2015, I went in for another meeting, expecting it too be the usual threats of what they'd put on you if I didn't agree to do whatever but not this time. This time a new person was stood in the room, and she sat down and spent an hour talking with me about you. I was confused, didn't understand what any of it meant as she explained what you were like when you went out with friends, were performing on stage. It made no sense, and then she was there the next time I went back, and the next. It took several of these meetings till I finally got the message she was trying to convey; that you were happy living a life without me in it, that you felt so tied down in our relationship and caught up in pretending for the public eye that you just wanted to be out and free of it all. Not because of me, but just had the chance to be out."

"Louis..." He tries and he cannot believe he can actually speak right now.

"You were in LA when I figured it out, when it dawned on me what this woman was showing to me. And it really got to me. That despite the fact I knew you loved me, that we were so good together it was the strongest reason that they wouldn't let them be you. That I was the factor in the way of letting you be free. I fought it for months, but every time you went out, or we had to sit through another interview as you were asked about your sex life, relationships whatever, I thought about what she'd said. That you wanted a way out. And with the band about to go on a break all I could think about was the fact that I would stop you from being yourself. I knew you wanted to be out and open, you were so proud of who you really were H and I couldn't bare it knowing that I would be what would hold you back. I knew you'd wait, would suppress who you were all for me, and I couldn't cope with that."

He couldn't take his eyes off of Louis, eyes brimmed with tears and breathe so swallow it felt as though he were breathing through a straw.

"You walked in the door that night, you'd been out and I couldn't bare having you anymore but you had such a big part of yourself locked inside, one that only I ever truly witnesses. I don't even remember what I said, but you just stood there and took it all. You were looking at me as though I'd broken apart your entire world and I had to get away from you before I took it all back. I just want you to be free Harry."

Louis stops for a moment, as if thinking over his next words carefully. "I talk about it enough with Lottie and she's told me a fair few times just how much of an idiot I am. Daisy and Phoebe were too young to really understand our relationship when we were together. I've never properly spoken with them about why we ended, what I did. And I think they've taken that it means that it was your fault instead of mine and don't know how to act around you. They always loved you, but then one day to them they thought you'd caused me all this pain and put me in such a bad place but it's hard to talk with them about it because they don't remember how we were when we were together. They blame it on you, instead of me as they should."

Harry remembers the cold looks he'd received from the two girls last week. Their coldness towards him which had never been there when Louis had been with Harry and the two girls only knew Harry as Louis best friend.

"I was never with Eleanor...after." Louis continues and startles Harry from his thoughts. "It was all still a lie, you knew I never felt that way towards her, nothing close to it. We were, are, still under contract, it doesn't end till December."

"Louis..." He starts but Louis cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

"It's a small price to pay for the person you've got to become."

Neither of them say a thing. He doesn't know how much time passes but the next time Louis speaks he's crying.

"I watched it, when you came out. You were so proud to be out, to be yourself and despite every part of me that still loved you I couldn't do anything. Because it wasn't my place, not then, not anymore."

"You said you didn't love me anymore, not like you once had." He whispers and his voice isn't his own. "Said that you'd spent years feeling suffocated by the industry and that now we could both go live our own lives. That you wanted to experience a life without me in it. I told you I'd always be by your side, that I needed you there in my life and you took that from me."

"I said anything I could so that you could be free Harry, and I know I hurt you, I've spent four years in pieces because of what I did to you but I wouldn't take any of that back now because look at who you've become. What you stand for and represent."

"I don't care about that Louis, I would have waited forever if that's what it took to openly be with you!" Harry says and he fights to keep himself from screaming the words. "You are the love of my life and it was torn away from us both in a matter of moments. I know you thought you were protecting me, and it's one of the many reasons I feel in love with you in the first place, that you were so fiercely protective of the people you cared for but Louis, why wouldn't you talk to me about this? I never wanted to live a life without you in it, I got this for a reason Lou." Harry says and pulls his shirt up exposing the anchor tattoo. Louis' eyes snag on the tattoo, unmoving as they trace over the lines inked to his skin.

"I wanted to tell you, every day for this past four years. But I saw how happy you were with who you've become because you've had that chance now, and I convinced myself that if I tried to reach out I wouldn't be able to be around you."

"You left me broken that night Louis. I've spent all this time holding onto it all, wondering what I did that would have what we had together fall away for you, only to find out that if you'd just talked to me and let me explain," He says choking on a sob, "Then we would never have gone through this. Would never have been apart and know what it's like to live without the other."

"I know that now, and I wish with every part of me that I could take it back. But you know what they were like, what we went through to be together, what I did had no reflection of my devotion to you Harry other than I let myself be blinded and convinced that you would be better off without me."

"My life has never been better without you in it Louis."

Both of them are crying now. He wishes he could just reach over and pull himself into Louis, let the years wash away in the comfort that was so achingly close. He hurt everywhere, physically and emotionally torn between the past and present, where this would leave them for the future. He wanted Louis so badly but he'd been betrayed here, they'd had both promised to communicate with one another and they had done so for years. But not this time and it had driven them so thoroughly apart that Harry had had to live years without the person who made him feel whole.

"Do you remember New Year's at Princess Park?" Harry asks when he finally thinks he has his breathing slightly more under control. Louis nods, his eyes darting to Harry's and there's confusion laced through them. "There were dozens and dozens of people in our flat, and all I can remember from that day was being so hurt about the outing you'd done with Eleanor the day before. I avoided you all of that day, and you didn't move to hold me the night of the stunt. Instead we lay together in the dark, I don't think either of us sleep and I was miserable. You hadn't done anything wrong. The early days of you giving everything to protect me, not like it did much to hold them back, but you still did it. We'd been together for months and that was the first time, that night before New Year's I realised just how in love with you I was." He pauses and watches as two silent tears trace down Louis' check. "So on New Year's I grabbed your hand and we snuck out onto our spot in the hidden section of the roof. We didn't say anything, but I was so convinced in my love for you as we just sat there and held each other and I knew I'd spend the rest of my life feeling that way." He stops again, unable to shove the feeling of his hurt anymore.

"That feeling will never change Louis, never. But that doesn't excuse what you did. You didn't tell me any of this at the time when we could have worked through it together. I'm sorry, so sorry that you had to go through all that, you know how much we fought it, but I can't just forget this Louis. That I've been in pain so long now because you didn't talk to me."

By the time he is finished speaking his voice in raw. Louis sits in silence and stillness as he had spoken. He wishes he could read Louis' mind then. There was time he thought he very nearly could, but these secrets between them unraveling only proved how far wrong he had been.

"The other day," Louis says and Harry almost starts at the sudden change in topic. They've got so much to get off their chests so he goes with it, needs a distraction from his own words. "When I played you through the album I thought you'd guess it all right then and there. That you'd listen through it and know I'd lied."

"I don't think you lied Louis, well maybe about your reasons, but you didn't lie."

"I had to write those songs, thought if I got it out into the world the thoughts I've had trailing me everywhere I go for the past four years that it would ease the pain."

"But it only makes it worse." Harry mutters back in response, he knows exactly what Louis is experiencing.

"It's only made it worse." Louis agrees with a nod of his head. "You're so wound up in everything I was, who I became in those five years that even now my mind can't distinguish between who I really am and who I became in those years. I thought the time would heal that, but I don't think it does anymore. I think it leaves me aching and raw and I don't know how to pick up the pieces. Being around you is healing it but shredding it apart all at once it's just fuckin' overwhelming at this point."

"I don't think this part in either of us will ever heal Louis. It's been irrevocably damaged and perhaps we both need to learn to live with that." He says attempting to steel himself with the words.

"You don't believe that." Louis retorts and Harry wishes that Lois couldn't still read him like an open book when he is sitting here wishing he could erase every bit of their pain.

"No." He whispers, "I don't. But it was a nice thought. I think we can work through this though, both of us. We have months that are going to spent together and maybe we aren't anything like what we once were but we need to try make things better. Regardless of our history you will always be one of my best friends, these past few years have caused us unspeakable amounts of pain, but we can get past this. I've just got you back in my life, I don't want to lose you a second time."

"Harry I..."

"But I need some time to wrap my head around this Louis. It's fucking confusing and though I'm grateful you've told me this now it doesn't stop it from hurting like hell. I need some time whilst I think this through, I need space, can I ask that from you?"

"Of course Harry." Louis says and fiddles with his hands in his lap, "Anything."

He knows it's the right thing to do. That he can't rush back into their friendship without properly spending the time in his own head to sort through this mind field that Louis has now uncovered.

He doesn't stop himself however when he curls over his legs tucked up on the sofa and wraps his arms around Louis. Breathing in a familiar scent and lavishes in it when Louis' arms snake around him and hold him tightly. He's missed this. He has fucking missed this. From the way Louis holds him so that it feels as though he is trying to hold every part of Harry's shattered emotions in place, to the way he nuzzles his head into Harry's shoulder and doesn't move from there. Neither of them are willing to break away from the other, content to stay wrapped up in other for as long as they can.

Despite just asking for space, this is another step that needs to be taken. He needs to learn the boundaries with Louis. He will take a step back from everything when he walks out of Louis' door, but for now he needs to feel the love of his life hold him together.

It's a start.