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Sometimes when he’s alone, Harry will scroll through the old pictures and videos on his phone from when they were together.
There are about two hundred, collectively. They’re a mix of selfies, pictures of each other, pictures taken of the two of them together, and videos taken while the other was unsuspecting. That was supposed to be their thing. Candids, sneaky clips taken while he was laughing, or singing, or cooking breakfast, or snoring in his sleep. Harry had this fantasy that they’d play the videos at their wedding, and everyone would coo and applaud them at the fact that they’d made it that far, even as non-soulmates.
He knows better now, though. Better than to try and fight against the inevitable pulls of fate.
Even though he’d thought he felt everything, he knew deep down it wasn’t enough. Emotions weren’t the binding of soulmates, but physical actions were, and Harry hadn’t felt any of those. Maybe Liam had. Maybe he’d been too scared to say that Harry was his soulmate, but he wasn’t Harry’s. It’s not even plausible, because that’s not how it works, but fate is an awful, twisted sort of thing. Harry is certainly aware of that by now.
All things considered, Harry is doing pretty well. He’s single, which stinks, but for the first time since he’s been with Liam, he’s allowing himself to kind of enjoy the fact that his soulmate is still out there. It’s kind of odd and a little sad that even with the three years he’d spent with Liam, he still feels his soulmate’s presence more.
Here are some things Harry knows about his soulmate by now:
His soulmate is pretty short, because often he can feel the imprint of a forearm on his head, as if someone is using him as an armrest.
His soulmate is bad at shaving and nicks his chin a lot.
His soulmate must be some kind of an athlete, because often Harry’s forearms and wrists are aching, and, curiously, the palms of his hands sting a lot, as if his soulmate is lifting weights or something. Or falls and scrapes his hands. Or something.
There are a lot of good things about being single, Harry’s learned. He likes to look on the positive side, so he spends a lot of time enjoying having no outside commitments, having his flat all to himself, and eating whatever food he pleases. Liam had hated avocado and bananas, and now that he’s not here, Harry can have all the avocados and bananas he wants. He put both in a smoothie one time on a whim and it hadn’t gone down well but at least he knows that now.
Liam was also allergic to dogs, so after a few months of living in an empty flat, Harry had decided to adopt a rescue puppy called Lola. Now, after a year, the labrador is fully grown and hungry all the time and she only bounds, she never walks or trots, which means she’s constantly lunging into walls and hurtling full speed into furniture. Harry wonders if dogs have soulmates. If they do, he feels really bad for Lola’s.
Of course, it’s not like Harry doesn’t miss having a boyfriend, because he does. So much, sometimes, he thinks it might kill him. He’s terribly clingy, and a big sap, and the most hopeless of hopeless romantics. He’s become sort of emotional, at this point in time, and all his friends have noticed the unfortunate development from glass-half-full-Harry to lonely, touch starved gay.
He’s pitched the idea on a Saturday. He’s out with Niall and Niall’s soulmate Shawn at their usual pub downtown, where they used to do double dates with Liam, and which they consequently don’t do anymore, but the energy in here is nice, and the fries are good, so they never stopped coming. Harry’s in a bit of a slump, has been lately, and it’s at the point where it’s rubbing off negatively on everyone. He stirs his cocktail with one hand and toils a strand of hair around his finger with the other, sighing every couple of minutes for no reason other than he has nothing better to do. Niall and Shawn keep exchanging odd looks, until finally Niall huffs and chucks a chip at Harry’s head.
Harry blinks at him.
“We’re staging an intervention,” Niall announces.
“Intervention for what?” Harry asks dumbly.
“ You ,” Niall exclaims.
“Obviously,” Shawn adds, unhelpfully.
Innocently, Harry takes a sip of his drink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Niall throws his hands in the air, and Shawn catches one, calmly folding their fingers together. Harry finds himself watching the movement a little sadly.
“Look at him. Pitiful.” Niall shakes his head. “You’re a sad bitch, Harry. We’ve gotta get you some help.”
“I’m not pitiful!” Harry retorts indignantly, sounding awfully pitiful. “I’m perfectly happy, you guys know this.”
“H, it’s been nine months,” Shawn says, not unkindly, and Harry juts his chin out, sniffing. “You can grow a baby and give birth in that time. That’s a long ass time. How long has it been since...you know?”
“What,” Harry mumbles.
“Got laid!” Niall bursts out far too loudly for a public space. Harry hisses at him to shut up. “Harry. Don’t tell me you haven’t had sex since the breakup, man.”
Harry sighs and takes another sip of his drink. It’s started to rain outside, pavement shiny and window all fogged up. Harry lifts a finger and draws a sad face in the glass.
“Harry,” Niall repeats. “Nine fuckin’ months.”
Harry draws an even bigger sad face.
“Do you see that, Shawny?” Niall says in disbelief. “We’ve got to do something about this.”
“I’m perfectly happy with everything I have right now,” Harry laments. “I have a dog and a nice place, that’s all I need. Anyways, Liam knew exactly what I liked and I don’t think I’ll ever find anyone else who does.”
Niall and Shawn glance at each other. “Nobody,” Niall echoes. “That Liam had got to be the most vanilla kid I ever met.”
Scowling, Harry stuffs three fries into his mouth. “So what?”
“We’re finding you a lay,” Niall replies pointedly. “So you can stop being all depressed on us all the time. Damn me if it doesn’t do you some good to have someone other than us to hang around. Get it? Get it?”
Harry puts his head in his hands and groans.
“What he means ,” Shawn continues, “Is that we care about you a lot, and we can see you’re lonely, and we know you guys used to fuck all the time and--don’t give me that look. All you have to do is just go hang around the bar for a bit until someone notices your cute ass, which won’t take long, mind you.” Niall pinches Shawn’s arm and they both yelp at the same time. Fucking soulmates. “Go order yourself a drink and look pretty.”
The thing is, Harry doesn’t want the first sex he has since Liam to be with some random boy he picks up downtown. It should be special. With someone he cares about. Like his soulmate.
“You can’t spend your whole young life waiting for your soulmate,” Niall says, and Harry realizes he’s spoken out loud. “Have some fun. You’re twenty-four and you act like you’re forty and haven’t found love, Jesus Christ. Go on over there. We’ll be watching.”
Harry whines miserably, but nonetheless pushes himself out of his chair and shuffles up towards the bar. It’s relatively crowded, and he has to shove through some people to wave at the bartender; he orders himself a fruity margarita, the first thing he can think of, and then occupies himself with scrolling mindlessly through his phone, content with doing so for the next while.
His drink arrives, and he looks over at Niall and Shawn, who are busy doing coupley things and being soulmates. It kind of makes Harry want to throw up.
Before he can, a body collides with him and sends him almost toppling over, clutching at the counter to steady himself.
“Woah there,” the body says. The person. The little man standing in front of Harry. Oh. “You good?”
Oh. He’s really cute. Maybe a couple heads shorter than Harry, or he’s exaggerating. Only one head shorter. Harry sighs a little sadly, and the man tilts his head in confusion.
“Yeah, thanks,” Harry laments, and then turns back to his phone. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Niall waving his arms frantically and Shawn facepalming.
The man orders a whatever, and then he looks at Harry like he wants to say something else. Harry doesn’t know what to do to prompt any kind of conversation so he just stands there awkwardly until the man offers a grin and then walks away.
Over at the table, Niall and Shawn are gaping at him.
Deflatedly, Harry slinks back over to the table and sits back down.
“Told you guys it wouldn’t work,” he says.
Shawn offers him a sympathetic smile and pats him on the hand while Niall shakes his head at the ceiling.
“It’ll all be okay,” Shawn comforts, and Niall snorts loudly, as Harry downs the rest of his drink.
☼
FindAMate.com is sketchy, poorly designed, and questionable at best, but after a week drags on with no success in finding anyone, Harry decides to adopt what he pegs as his last resort; playing his odds on this dating app that’s supposed to specialize in helping unite soulmates but mostly just runs ads.
He only finds himself swiping through when he’s by himself, and only when he thinks it’s appropriate to succumb to such an embarrassment, like in his dark bedroom at four in the morning. Like right now.
Harry really needs to go to sleep. He should really be asleep right now. He’s already scrolled through half the people in his age range and almost all of the guys, who are the only ones he cares about anyway. He’s just about to give up, just about to toss his phone to the other side of the bed and roll over, when...oh.
Oh .
It just so happens that the man in the picture staring back at him is that same man who’d knocked him over at the bar.
Louis, 26, is the heading under the first picture, a respectable car selfie. The description, underneath, sends Harry sitting bolt upright.
I’m a gay guy who hasn’t found his soulmate yet looking for some ‘no-strings-attached’ fun! I’m a regular dom who’s up for anything, looking for a cute guy, preferably bottom, to share his fantasies with. Lots of love!
What the fuck.
Because he has no self-control, Harry swipes through the collection of Louis pictures. There are a couple more selfies of him at the beach, him in front of a tree, him in front of the Statue of Liberty, him in front of the Eiffel Tower. There are a couple ones of him and a big curly-haired dog. Harry thinks the dog is cute, so he likes Louis’ profile.
Immediately, he gets a popup saying “ It’s A Match!” , and he stares at it for a good several seconds with his mouth open and his eyes wide. His thumb hovers over “ Send Louis a message!” and he watches the clock shift to five am.
In the morning. He will in the morning.
Harry tosses his phone to the other side of the bed and goes to sleep.
☼
He wakes up to more than twenty unread messages piled onto his lockscreen, all from Tommo91.
“Oh my god,” Harry says.
Tommo91:
Hi this is Louia !
Louis *
Saw we’re a match haha how wild is thay !
That *
Omg just realized the time
So sorry for spamming it’s like 6am for you
For both of us I meant haha we are from the same place
I’m only awake bc I had to walk my dog
He woke me up by standing on my chest breathing all over my fuckin face
His name is Clifford he’s exhausting
I’m tired
I should go back to sleep wtf
Anyways we should get together sometim
Time *
Sometime *
Followed by several more messages, all in similar style, with typos every now and then. Harry sighs deeply, and slides out of bed.
He’s brushing his teeth when another message comes in, just one.
Oh my god I’m so sorry
Harry perches on the edge of the bathtub, and makes the gut-wrenching decision to reply to Louis’ messages, despite his better judgement. The phrase “ cute guy, preferably bottom ” runs through Harry’s head on a loop as he attempts several different replies, before settling on the right one.
harry69420:
ASLJDGFHDLSJHFDLGHJ
IM LAUGHINGGGGGG
mate you went so hard at six am
sorry about your clingy dog he sounds lovely though
Immediately, Louis begins typing again.
Tommo91:
I had too much coffee yesterday aha
He is he’s a big dork
harry69420:
i feel that
had doubleshot espresso at 9pm
how r u ?
Tommo91:
Sleepy but pleased to finally be talking to you !!
Gotta say...thought you were cute the second I laid eyes on you
Harry’s brain short-circuits and all he can think is cute bottom cute bottom I am a cute bottom what the fuck.
harry69420:
*blushing emoji*
that’s very sweet of you to say
Tommo91:
Just telling the truth man ! :D
So about that get together….
Harry puts his head in his hands and screams.
☼
Date one is a little awkward, a little tense, a little forced, and kind of tainted by the gas-inducing Mexican food, but Louis is funny--he’s got a good sense of humor, a solid head on his shoulders, and there’s never a lull in the conversation. Because Harry is a dumbass and he had really liked sitting at a table with a hot guy making him blush, he decides to bring up a second date, and because Louis must also be a dumbass, he agrees.
Date two is definitely less awkward and in a more appropriate venue. They’re at a cute tapas place downtown, watching the nightlife out the upstairs window. Louis keeps pointing out super drunk guys wandering down the street and by the end of it, Harry is crying laughing, and so much that Louis manages to pay the bill without Harry even noticing. And Harry always notices.
Date three is brought up as Harry is getting out of Louis’ car after getting dropped back home. Louis is looking at him with dumb blue eyes and Harry forgets they’re not soulmates, and he says yes.
This one is at a steakhouse, and Harry had neglected to tell Louis he’s a vegetarian, and Louis feels so bad he offers to buy him whatever he wants, which makes Harry feel even worse. Nonetheless, he orders a hysterical amount of side dishes, enough to make their rich looking waiter shoot them strange glares, and alternates bites of each one. Louis finds this pretty funny, much to Harry’s satisfaction.
Louis walks Harry to his door the night of date three.
“I’m really sorry about that,” Louis says sheepishly.
Harry laughs. “No, I had a great time. Thank you for the dinner. And the last two. I’ve had a great time.”
“I’m glad,” Louis replies. “So have I.” Neither of them find it in their interests to bring up the whole soulmate thing. Harry’s not sure there’s much of a point, for once.
There’s a moment of silence, and then, suddenly, Louis is leaning in, and Harry is letting him, and they’re kissing.
It’s not as if Harry hasn’t thought about kissing Louis before. He probably thinks about it a lot more than he should. But he still remembers Louis’ dating profile, and even though the kiss is soft, gentle, and Louis is all smiling and breathless when they pull apart, all Harry can think is I want you to dom me.
“What?” Louis says.
“What?” Harry asks.
“You want me to…”
“ What! ” Harry shrieks.
“Oh my god,” Louis says.
“I didn’t mean to say that out loud!”
“But you thought it?”
Harry puts both his hands on either side of his head. “I…”
“...want me to dom you.”
“I never said that!”
“You literally did.”
“Okay, fine.” Harry marches away and sits down on the front steps, crossing his arms. “You can go home now anyway and pretend this never happened and I will go on with my life and we’ll both forget all about this, and--”
“I mean I’d totally dom you.”
Harry gapes at him.
“ What? ”
“Don’t act so surprised.” Louis sits down beside him on the steps. “You read my bio, you were obviously intrigued by it. I dom for fun. You’re cute. You have bottom energy.”
“I do not!” Harry retorts, affronted. “You don’t know that I’m a bottom.”
Louis stares at him for four whole seconds before Harry sighs in defeat.
Harry straightens his legs. “My last boyfriend was only into regular stuff. Nothing crazy. I dunno. Sue me for wanting to try something new, I guess. He would’ve flipped if I’d ever told him the stuff I’d wanted to try.” He picks at a loose thread in his jeans while waiting for Louis’ response.
“Well,” Louis begins, very slowly, “If you wanted me to help you out with that stuff …” He puts a gentle hand on Harry’s shoulder. “...I would.”
There’s a moment of somber silence while Harry digests his offer. And then the word soulmate flashes through his head a thousand times, and he remembers that Louis is definitely not, and Harry says, “No.”
“No thank you,” he adds quickly, because this man has just offered to have sex with him, no-strings-attached, and he doesn’t want to be rude. “That’s very kind of you but I am a little scared so I won’t.”
“Oh,” Louis says. “Okay. No worries. I’ll see you later?”
“Yes,” Harry answers. “I think I will go inside now.”
“Inside,” Louis echoes.
“Yep.”
Neither of them move.
After another minute of complete silence, Harry begins backing towards the front door. He thinks it’s going pretty smoothly until his heel catches on a loose plank in the porch and he trips backwards, flailing wildly until his hand slams into the door handle and he catches himself, but only after he definitely bruises his palm. Louis has rushed forward to help, but he’s clutching his hand with wide eyes.
“Oh shit,” Harry yelps, and then sprints inside and all the way up to his flat.
He spends the rest of the night wandering around aimlessly, completely useless, and mind stuck on the way Louis had stood there, staring at the hand Harry had just hurt. Harry refuses to believe he and this man are soulmates. Refuses to believe that that dumb app was right. So he falls into bed at half past two, burrowing under his duvet with Lola’s full body weight on top of him.
“What do I do, dog?” he asks her miserably.
She sneezes, and then promptly goes to sleep.
Body on autopilot, Harry takes out his phone and opens his chat with Louis.
harry69420:
about your offer…..
Five minutes later, he receives a response.
Tommo91:
Can I come over tmrw ?
☼
“Boundaries,” Harry repeats.
“Yeah. Like, how much pain you’re into, how far you wanna go. Etcetera.”
There’s a half eaten pizza and two identical untouched glasses of Pepsi in the middle of the coffee table. They’d made a point of eating before talking, and Harry’s glad they did, because he no longer has any appetite, but he’s also regretting eating, because he kind of wants to throw up right now.
“What if I don’t know my boundaries?”
“Then we test stuff out,” Louis shrugs. “We try something, you tell me if you’re into it, if you are, we keep going, if you aren’t, we move on.”
“So what stuff are we testing out exactly?” Harry asks. He thinks, in hindsight, he’s handling things pretty well, asking all the right questions and not even being awkward about anything. Louis whips out a piece of paper from his back pocket and shows it to Harry. His stomach feels like it falls out his ass.
“We’re trying all this stuff?” he exclaims. “Petplay...ageplay... daddy kink? ”
“Only if you want to,” Louis clarifies calmly. “That’s why I’m showing you the list, so you have an idea of what you want to and don’t want to do.”
“Well I’m not calling you daddy, so jot that the fuck down,” Harry says.
“That’s fine,” Louis laughs, and hands him a pen. “Cross it off.”
Harry crosses out ‘daddy kink’, and then ‘petplay’, ‘ageplay’, ‘watersports’, ‘sensory deprivation’, and ‘roleplay’ in quick succession. He also crosses off ‘voyeurism’ and ‘milking’ because those sound fucking terrifying.
He presents Louis the list after he feels confident in most of what remains. Louis’ eyes scan the words there slowly, and his mouth quirks up in a little half smile.
“Looks good to me,” Louis says. “Safewords?”
“Pardon?”
“In case you don’t want to do something or aren’t feeling comfortable anymore. Red is usually the most common safeword, orange is take a pause and check in. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Harry answers, feeling a little dizzy.
“Shall we take this to the bedroom, then?”
Harry’s eyes dart to Lola, who’s asleep by the front door. “Okay.”
Louis stands up and offers Harry his hand, which Harry accepts a little reluctantly, but follows him to the bedroom. The bed is made neatly and the curtains are letting light in and Harry’s feeling awfully nervous. That is, until Louis leans in and kisses him, and then he doesn’t feel that nervous anymore.
Louis is a great kisser. He seems to know exactly what Harry likes. It’s been a while since Harry’s properly kissed anyone, and Liam had been a pretty tentative guy who never wanted to go too far while kissing, so this is nice. Definitely super nice. But then Louis pulls back slightly, and whispers, “Strip.”
Harry is clumsy, and this is probably something that Louis already knows. If he didn’t already, it’s proven when Harry tugs his shirt off, gets tangled while pulling it over his head, trips on the edge of his bed frame, and is barely caught by Louis in the process. Louis is laughing when Harry finally manages to free himself, which isn’t very sexy, but it is pretty funny.
“Looks like you’ll need some help,” Louis observes. “Get on the bed, yeah? On your back.”
Harry does, and watches Louis take off his shirt effortlessly, before he climbs on the bed as well and positions himself over Harry, leaning in to kiss him again. Amidst all of it, Louis manages to unbutton Harry’s jeans, and starts peeling them off easily.
“You left spanking on the list,” Louis murmurs into Harry’s mouth.
“Yeah,” Harry breathes.
“You ever been spanked before?”
Harry shakes his head.
Louis leans back, and rises from the bed. “Hands and knees. Leave your briefs on.”
He thinks he looks more weird than hot right now, but Louis doesn’t seem to think so. He strokes down the expanse of Harry’s back with one hand once he’s settled, and then tucks the tips of his fingers under the waistband of Harry’s pants.
“You’re so tense, babe, take a deep breath,” Louis encourages, and Harry does. “You ready?”
“Okay.”
There’s a second of anticipation, and then...well, Louis just hits him. It’s exactly what Harry expected, except probably a little harder, and hotter, and louder, even with the sound muffled by Harry’s underwear.
“Good?”
“I think so?” Harry says, and he’s not lying, because it’s not bad, but it doesn’t really feel like anything. It’s just Louis slapping him on the asscheek.
“Again?”
“I think so.”
And so Louis hits him again, except harder this time, and now it feels like something, and it stings like mad, and he swears loudly before he hears Louis yelp.
“What?” Harry asks, and then realizes he’s shouting.
“N...Nothing,” Louis says, but he sounds funny. “Again?”
“Yes.” Harry’s warming up to the sensation now. Other than his right hand stinging for some odd reason, the pain is kind of pleasant.
The third time Louis hits him it hurts. Harry lets out a gross sounding screech of pain and, strangely, so does Louis. Suddenly, the warmth of Louis’ body beside the bed is gone, and there’s a loud crash, and a new, aching pain blossoming in his tailbone.
“What the fuck,” Harry says, clutching his ass with both hands, and when he turns, Louis is on the floor, and Harry’s dresser has tipped over.
“Ow,” Louis says.
“Are you--” Harry is cut off by Lola running into the room to view the damage, but instead of colliding with what she expects to be floor, she runs full speed into Louis head. Louis curses as Harry’s face starts to hurt, and suddenly he realizes exactly what’s happening.
“You’re my soulmate!” Harry yells, and a frantic Lola knocks his lamp over, which falls and shatters. Harry takes a step towards her in an effort to prevent any more breakage, but he’s also stupid, so he steps directly on a shard of glass, which sends Harry toppling over and sprawled out on the floor, right on top of Louis.
Of course, it’s only reasonable that when he lands on Louis, his wrist instantly begins to ache.
“I think my wrist is broken,” Louis grunts.
“I’m so sorry,” Harry says tearfully.
“I don’t even know what’s my pain and what’s yours.”
“Literally all of it yours, I’m so sorry. I’m clumsy.”
Despite Louis’ probably-broken-wrist, he still laughs. “I can tell.”
Lola trots over and licks Harry’s bleeding foot, and that makes Harry panic, because he really does not want a terrible flesh eating infection--that comes from dogs licking wounds, right?--and he does not like the idea of Lola consuming his blood.
“I’m bleeding,” Harry suddenly announces frantically, and then realizes he’s still on top of Louis. He rolls over, and Louis sits up, wincing.
“Lemme see.” He grabs Harry’s ankle with his good hand and spins him around, squinting at what is probably a gruesome open wound, but underwhelmingly, Louis just pinches the piece of glass and pulls it out. It feels like nothing. Harry’s a little disappointed.
They look around for a moment to survey the damage of the bedroom. The place is a tip and looks like a tornado ran through. Harry looks at Louis.
“So,” he starts, and all he can think is, So that’s why my palms are always stinging.
“We’re soulmates,” Louis says, and after an exchanged appalled glance, they both burst out laughing.
“We look ridiculous,” Harry gets out through a fit of giggles.
“We’re soulmates! We have an excuse to look ridiculous.”
Abruptly, Harry hears the sound of his front door unlocking, and two pairs of feet noisily stomping into his flat.
“Fuck,” Harry says.
“ Hazza, you weren’t answering your phone! Where are you? Oh my god.”
Niall is standing in the doorway, gawking at the complete destruction of the bedroom, and Harry and Louis, both half naked, on the floor. Shawn follows quickly in his wake, expression identical to Niall’s, and Harry and Louis both look at each other, faces blank.
After a minute, Niall puts his face in his hands, and, grumbling something under his breath, strolls back down the hallway. Shawn sighs and goes to close the door.
“We’ll come back later.”
the end :)