Work Text:
He fucking hated him.
Louis Tomlinson lifted the cigarette to his lips, fingers trembling just enough to betray how deep it went. A long drag. Smoke curled up, bitter and dry, like everything else this year. He should fucking hate him. It would make sense, wouldn't it? Clean. Justifiable. Logical. Everything this year had been shit, obviously. After everything.
And then the asshole had to go and drop his single on the same goddamn day Louis dropped his.
Louis let the smoke out slow, watching it drift through air, pretending for a second it was fog on a London street, somewhere far away from here. The bitter taste of nicotine barely dulled the burn in his chest.
Another drag. Deeper, this time.
The last time he'd heard from him—really heard—had been after Liam. That long, horrible day when everything felt like it was unraveling. A flurry of texts in the group chat, each of them typing the same safe things. Love you, here if you need, stay strong. And then silence. No calls.
God, Harry Styles was an asshole.
But Louis still loved him.
He always had. Even when it got dark. Even when it got ugly. Even when Harry stopped looking at him like he meant anything real. That was the cruelest part. Louis had learned to hate the way he loved him—quietly, violently, like a bruise he pressed just to feel something. Like some stupid moth circling back to a flame that didn’t want him anymore.
He flicked ash onto the sidewalk. Didn’t care. No one was watching.
He pulls out his phone and begins to type.
“Congrats. The single’s good.”
Delete.
“Didn’t know we were playing release day chicken now.”
Delete.
“Miss you, you prick.”
God. Delete.
Fuck.
He pulled out his phone again. Typed faster this time. Didn’t even think.
“Did you do it on purpose?”
Sent.
Three dots.
Three fucking dots.
They blinked on the screen, taunting. Disappeared.
Yeah, he’s a fucking asshole.
Louis feels the sting sharpen behind his eyes before he can blink it away. Prickling, useless heat building at the corners like he’s sixteen again and can’t control it. Fuck, that’s so stupid. He isn’t crying over this. Not again.
He looks up at the sky, as if daring it to cry first. The clouds are low, heavy, the kind of gray that turns everything dull and metallic. It looks like it’s going to rain. Good. Maybe he can walk until he’s soaked, until no one can tell what’s water and what’s not.
He jams the phone back into his pocket, like that’ll silence it. Like it hasn’t already taken root in his chest, vibrating somewhere deep in his ribs.
“Fuck it,” he mutters. He turned on his heel and walked—quick, sharp steps, shoulders hunched against the cold he couldn’t feel. Home. Just get home. He’d finish the bottle of Jameson in the cupboard, the one he told himself he was saving. For what, he didn’t even know.
His home was quiet when he walked in. He didn’t take off his shoes. Just threw his keys down, marched to the kitchen, grabbed the bottle, and twisted it open without ceremony. The first swallow burnt. The second was easier. By the third, he wasn’t sure if the warmth in his chest was the liquor or leftover ache.
The phone buzzed.
His breath caught.
But it wasn’t him.
Just a Twitter mention. Some fan tagging them both with side-by-sides of their singles peppered in blue and green hearts, asking if the “coincidence” meant something.
Fucking delusional.
He dropped the phone face down on the table and took another drink.
The rain comes it starts soft—just a hiss against the windows—then grows teeth. Heavy drops slam into the glass, streaking the city into long, warped lines of light. Louis stands in the middle of the kitchen, bottle loose in his hand, and laughs once under his breath because of course it rains now. Of fucking course it does.
He presses his back to the counter and tips his head up, eyes closing without him meaning to. The ceiling swims. His chest feels tight.
Fuck.
The tears come hot and sudden, dragging tracks down his face before he can stop them. He doesn’t make a sound.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He never learned how to cry loud. Just lets it happen—jaw clenched, shoulders rigid—like if he stays still enough, it’ll pass through him and leave.
It doesn’t.
“How the fuck did it end up like this,” he whispers to the empty room.
He sees it anyway. Them. Always the two them. Two ghosts.
That first flat they shared in princess park—too small, too expensive, curtains that never quite closed. Harry barefoot in the kitchen at three in the morning, hair a mess, stealing Louis’s hoodie like it wasn’t already his. Laughing quietly so no one else would hear.
Their love had lived in margins. In glances held too long. In hands brushing and not pulling away. In nights where Harry would press his face into Louis’s neck and breathe him in like oxygen, like the world couldn’t touch them if he stayed close enough.
“I’ve got you,” Harry used to murmur, voice wrecked and soft in the dark.
Louis had believed him.
They’d been young and stupid and so fucking in love it hurt. And yeah, there had been girls—real ones. Ones he loved, even. But not like that. Not the way he loved him. With Harry, it was something else entirely—like gravity had shifted and Louis couldn’t stand straight without him. They learned how to split themselves cleanly—public and private—until there was nothing left that wasn’t fractured.
And God, the watching. Always the watching.
Fans screaming theories like confessions, like accusations. Paralleled with Homophobia dressed up as concern from management. Pressure like a hand around the throat.
In all honesty it was his fault.
He had started pulling away first.
Just… fewer touches. Longer silences. That look in his eyes—fear, maybe, or resolve—that Harry couldn’t know how to fix. Arguments whispered through clenched teeth, always circling the same things. Safety. Careers. Timing. This can’t last.
“You don’t get it,” Louis had said once, pacing the living room, hands shaking. “If this comes out wrong, it ruins everything.”
Harry had laughed, sharp and ugly. “Everything except us, yeah?”
Louis hadn’t answered.
The breakup hadn’t been dramatic. No screaming. No slammed doors. Just exhaustion. Just love rotting under the weight of everything. Harry had cried. Louis remembered that too. Big, silent tears slipping down his face as he stood there uselessly, hands fisted in his own shirt like touching Louis would kill him.
“I love you,” Harry had said, voice wrecked.
“I know,” Louis had replied.
It wasn’t enough.
It still isn’t enough.
Louis slides down the cabinet until he’s sitting on the cold kitchen floor, knees drawn up, back pressed hard against the wood like it might keep him upright. The rain is relentless now, pounding against the windows in a way that feels personal. The kind of rain that soaks through everything eventually. The kind you don’t outrun.
It slaps against Harry’s skin, soaks through his hoodie, clings to his jeans until they feel like weights around his legs—but still—he does not stop. His feet hit the pavement hard, over and over, rhythm steadier than his thoughts.
He knows someone’s taken photos. They always do. Probably already up on Twitter, blurry shots of him running through the downpour. He doesn’t really give a shit anymore.
He keeps running.
He knows he should’ve just called or texted. Should’ve fucking said something before bolting out the door like a madman. But what would he even say? Sorry I made your day ours? Sorry I still think about you every time I write a verse? Sorry the world fucked us up and I don’t know how to fix it? Sorry half my songs are about you?
The rain slicks down his curls, plastering them to his forehead. His lungs burn, breath ragged, shoes slapping against the pavement. But he doesn’t slow. Can’t. There’s no plan, no rehearsed apology—just the sharp, clawing need to see him. To be near him. Even if it ruins everything.
A scream cuts through the rain—high, breathless, unmistakably a fan’s.
“Harry?! Harry!”
He doesn’t even turn.
Flashbulbs might’ve gone off—he’s not sure. The storm blurs everything, turns the city into streaks of light and water. Feet pounding the pavement. Breath wheezing. Heart somewhere between his throat and the pit of his stomach. Let them take the pictures. Let them scream. Let them post their TikToks and start their threads. Let them think whatever the fuck they want.
He keeps running.
It’s only a mile. Maybe less. But it feels like he’s sprinting through a decade. Every step is thick with the weight of what they were, what they became, what he couldn’t say when it mattered. The air is thick and bitter, rain soaking him to the bone, he should be cold but it doesn’t touch the heat roiling inside him.
The knock startles Louis more than anything. Sharp, sudden. Out of place in the thick silence of his flat, where the only sound had been rain clawing at the windows and his own breath catching on grief. He flinches, jerks upright a little too fast. Who the hell? Maybe his sister, come to check in or celebrate the single charting. He doesn’t really want to see anyone. Not now. Not like this.
He stays still for a second, thinking maybe if he doesn’t move, they’ll go away. Another knock—louder this time. Firmer. Not his sister. No that was a man knocking.
“Christ,” he mutters, pushing himself off the kitchen floor. The room tilts a little, everything fuzzy at the edges. His limbs are slow, like they belong to someone else. He wipes at his face with the back of his hand, smearing tears across flushed skin.
The mirror in the hallway confirms what he already knows: Hes a wreck.
Another knock. Closer now. Impatient.
Louis swears under his breath.
Harry is bracing for a slammed door.
For yelling. For Louis to look at him with that tired, bitter edge he’s earned the right to sharpen. Harry’s still catching his breath, hoodie soaked and heavy against his back, rainwater running down his spine—but all of it stops when the door swings open.
Louis eyes wide and stunned.
He’s flushed, visibly shaken, smells like alcohol, and fuck, he’s still gorgeous. His cheeks are blotched pink from crying, lashes heavy. That dangerous mouth is parted in shock, lower lip bitten raw, like he’d been worrying it the way he always used to when he was thinking too loud. His hair is still soft, still perfect—a little messy, like he’d been dragging his fingers through it. And his face—God, his face—is unfair. All delicate bones and tired beauty.
“What?”
It’s barely a sound—soft, broken at the edges, more breath than word. Like his brain hasn’t caught up with what his eyes are telling him. Rain drums behind Harry like a pulse, the wind catching in the crack of the door. He doesn’t answer.
He moves.
One step forward instinctual—Harry’s hand finding Louis’s waist guiding him back through the doorway like muscle memory. The door swings shut behind them with a heavy, final-sounding click.
Louis stumbles once, breath hitching as his back hits the hallway wall—hard enough to feel it. His hands twitch at his sides, fists clenching like he might shove Harry away—or maybe grab onto him and never let go.
Harry towers over him.
The kiss is explosive. Posesesive. Years worth of tension detonating between them in one breathless, desperate collision of mouths. Harry devours him. Slams his lips against Louis’s with a force that makes both of them stumble, Louis hands gripping the front of Harry’s soaked hoodie.
Louis gasps into him and Harry moans, deep and guttural, like he’s been starved. His fingers fist tight desperately in the back of Louis’s shirt until instinct takes over and one hand slides lower, anchoring at the curve of Louis’s hip, then gripping hard at the swell of his ass. crude. Not clumsy.
And fuck, Louis is just as wrecked. He tastes like whiskey and salt, sin and sorrow, his mouth soft but so needy. His hands claw at Harry’s hoodie, tugging him down. He is pressed up head tilted up, lifted just enough for Harry to slot between his legs without effort. And fuck, Louis still fits into him so perfectly—compact but solid. That curve beneath Harry’s palm is obscene in the most maddening way, enough to make him groan aloud.
The kiss gets messy fast, right in all the places that matter. Mouths part, tongues slide, breath mingles, hot and frantic. Their hips knock, chests press tight, soaked clothes clinging, and then—
Louis lets out a sound.
Just a breath, really. A tiny, high-pitched helpless gasp torn from the back of his throat like he didn’t mean to give it up. It’s barely even a sound. But Harry hears it.
His grip tightens at Louis’s waist, and then he’s moving, sudden and rough and sure. Louis barely has time to register what’s happening before he’s being lifted. His legs instinctively wrap around Harry’s hips, arms looping around his neck, mouth still locked to Harry’s like breathing is optional now.
Harry’s eyes flick up—sees the open-concept living room, the sleek black couch just a few feet away, leather gleaming in the low light. He carries Louis across the room in quick, stumbling steps, not breaking the kiss for a second. Their mouths drag open and messy, teeth catching on lips, tongues colliding.
Then he sits him over the arm of the couch.
Louis lands with a gasp that rips through the air like lightning, back arching beautifully, fingers scrabbling across harrys shoulders as something to hold onto. The couch creaks beneath him, cloth damp beneath his palms. He moans into him—quiet and high and broken. And he knows—knows—he shouldn’t be doing this.
The thought flickers weakly somewhere in the back of his head, drowned out by the heat of Harry’s body, the press of him close and solid and overwhelming. He’s buzzed enough that the edges of everything feel soft, like consequences are happening to someone else. Harry smells like rain and skin and something unmistakably him, and it makes Louis dizzy in a way that has nothing to do with the whiskey. He should be angry. He is…or was angry. He remembers being angry—but right now all he can think is that Harry is here, hands sure, mouth warm, teeth scraping gently at the side of his neck. He knows exactly where Louis will break. And Louis hates himself a little for how easily he does.
We should talk, he thinks dimly, as his head tips back gasping, giving Harry more room. We should really talk. But the idea feels exhausting. Heavy. Talking means pulling this apart, means naming things, means losing Harry’s hands on him holding him like he’s something. And the truth is that Louis doesn’t know if he wants answers right now. He just knows he wants this. Wants his weight, his strength, the familiar way his body feels against his.
Harry doesn’t let up. One hand stays locked at the small of Louis’s back, grounding him, while the other drags his soaked hoodie up and off in one rough motion. It peels away to reveal a black t-shirt clinging tight to his chest, riding up just enough to expose the sliver of skin at his waist—and the faint trail of hair disappearing beneath his jeans. Louis’s eyes catch there. The second the drenched hoodie hits the floor, he grabs two fistfuls of Harry’s shirt and hauls him back down kissing him desperately.
Harry grins through it and slides both hands back to Louis’s lower back, fingers splayed wide, keeping him right there. He leans in close, lips barely brushing the shell of Louis’s ear.
“Tell me yes,” he rasps, voice rough and dangerous. That low rumble that always made Louis feel like the ground could give out beneath him.
Absolutely not. We need to talk.
That’s what Louis will say. He almost does. It’s right there—balanced on the tip of his tongue, nearly out—
But instead, a sound betrays him. A low, needy whine slips past his lips before he can swallow it down.
Then—because of course he fucking does—Louis lifts his chin, eyes sparking, and snaps, “Didn’t run through the rain like a dramatic little shit just to get all sentimental on me, did you?”
Harry’s eyes go dark.
Before Louis can blink, the world tilts—Harry’s hands clamp hard around his hips, flipping him with zero hesitation. Louis lets out a sharp gasp, palms slamming down on the slick leather of the couch as he’s bent over the armrest.
Harry doesn’t waste time.
There’s a sharp exhale against the back of Louis’s neck, the sound half a laugh, half a growl, and thenimpatient hands are everywhere.Fingers work at the button of Louis’s jeans, quick and efficiet. The zipper follows. Harry’s own hands fumble briefly at his waist, urgency trumping grace, fabric shifting and scraping as he crowds closer. Louis’s breath stutters, chest pressing into the leather armrest, rain still dripping faintly from Harry’s hair onto his back.
Something cool slicks between the cleft of Louis’s thighs, and he sucks in a breath so sharp it nearly cuts. The sudden chill against flushed skin makes his muscles tense, fingers digging into the couch cushions until his knuckles go pale. Behind him, he can feel Harry’s presence—the heat of him a stark contrast to the cold that lingers where the lube trails.
It’s maddening to harry. the way Louis shifts beneath him, trembling, but not pulling away. The sounds he’s making—soft, stuttering, barely-there gasps and moans—go straight to the center of Harry’s chest and cock alike. His fingers move slow at first, careful, but Louis is already arching into the touch, already breathless, already so fucking open. He braces one hand against the small of Louis’s back to keep him steady, the other slipping lower, slick now, precise. Louis lets out a gasp—sharp, beautiful—and Harry’s mind goes blank with it. He needs him. Needs him. More than anything, more than everything, more than the pain that brought them here.
Harry works him open with steady, practiced fingers, slow at first, then deeper, more deliberate. He finds the spot he remembers—how could he ever forget—and presses just right. Louis jerks, gasping, the sound caught somewhere between a moan and a sob. His head drops forward, forearms braced against the couch, and then he’s whispering it—quiet at first, then urgent, unraveling by the second. “Please,” he breathes.
He leans in, breath scorching against the curve of Louis’s neck, he bites when he sinks in sharp, claiming teeth that pierce hard enough to leave a mark. Louis shudders, the sound he makes wrecked, torn from somewhere deep as Harry presses in with no hesitation. No teasing. Just pure, consuming need. His rhythm is relentless, hips driving forward with purpose, each movement more desperate than the last. The couch groans beneath them, Louis clutching at the cushions like they’re the only thing anchoring him. Harry doesn’t let up—won’t. He’s moving like this is the only way to say everything he never could. Like if he stops now, he’ll lose whatever’s left of them.
Louis feels wrecked. Everything is heat and stretch and pressure, and it feels—God, it feels so good. Every drag of Harry’s hips pulls a broken sound from him, every grind against that spot inside makes his toes curl and his spine arch. He’s gone, floating, barely tethered to the couch, to his own skin. His brain’s gone soft and quiet, filled only with sensation, with Harry—Harry, all around him, in him.
He’s close. Too close. But then—
“Please,” Louis gasps, voice hoarse, lips swollen. “Please, I want—let me see you. Let me—fuck—see you.”
In the next second he’s being moved, flipped, Harry’s hands firm but careful. One presses down on his chest, guiding him down, the other catching at his waist, thumb anchoring on the sharp edge of his hipbone. Louis kicks off his pants completely. He is held there, close, open, overwhelmed as Harry rocks into him again, deeper now somehow, the eye contact making it worse—better—until Louis swears he might shatter from it.
Harry shifts, the grip on Louis’s hip tightening, pace sharpening. The angle changes—deeper, rougher—and Louis can barely keep his eyes open, blinking through pleasure that’s starting to burn at the edges. Every thrust knocks the breath out of him, and Harry’s right there, forehead pressed to his, their mouths brushing, never quite kissing. The tension coils tight, unbearable, until it snaps.
Louis comes with a choked gasp, body seizing, white heat streaking across his chest, his neck, even his chin. The sight of it—all of it—makes Harry groan, ragged and deep in his throat, and then he’s gone too, losing rhythm, losing everything, eyes locked on Louis’s wrecked, open expression.
And then… silence.
Just the sound of the rain tapping against the windows, and their breathing—loud, uneven. Too real.
Harry’s still pressed against him, forehead touching Louis’s, both of them catching their breath like they’ve surfaced from something too deep. But then Harry stills. His eyes flick back and forth across Louis’s face.
“Shit,” he mutters. It’s not loud or cruel. But it hits.
Louis blinks, the haze cracking just a little. Harry pulls out gently—too gently—and Louis sucks in a breath, sharp and involuntary, because he feels it, the absence, the shift, the slick reminder of everything they just did starting to trickle down his thigh. Harry stumbles back a step, like the room's suddenly too small for him.
“Fuck,” he says again, this time louder pulling up his jeans. He runs a hand through his damp curls, eyes wide, frantic. “What did we just… fuck, Louis.”
And Louis just lies there—half naked, wrecked, shaking, used. There’s something achingly familiar about the silence, like déjà vu soaked in humiliation. He pulls in a breath through his nose, blinks up at the ceiling.
He doesn’t say anything.
Harry paces like a trapped animal.
He drags his hands through his hair, still damp, still shaking, muttering half-formed sentences that don’t land anywhere. “We—we shouldn’t have—fuck, Louis, we can just—” He laughs once, thin and panicked. “We can pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Stop.”
Louis sits up slowly. Deliberately. He doesn’t bother covering himself at first; he just looks at Harry.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says, voice steady in a way that feels earned.
Harry freezes.
For a second, Louis thinks—hopes—he might lie. That he’ll soften it. But Harry’s shoulders sag instead, the fight draining out of him all at once. He nods, once. “Yes,” he says quietly. Then, like it might make it better if he says it faster, “Of course I did it on purpose.”
Louis swallows.
Two weeks later, he’s lying on his couch again. Legs draped over the same arm.
His phone buzzes with a notification. Some headline from ABC News. He clicks it out of instinct, thumb moving before his brain catches up.
Harry Styles faces backlash over ticket prices for Together, Together tour.
Scrolls. Sees a screenshot. Two tickets.
$1,532.80.
Just for floor seats.
The VIP ones cost more. So much more.
Louis closes the article.
Orders Box tickets.
Stares at the ceiling.
He hasn’t heard from Harry since that night. Not really. Just a one-line text the next day:
I’m sorry.
That was it.
Louis hadn’t answered.
He hates him.
Well. He should.
He doesn’t.