Chapter Text
Harry stares at his phone, the screen illuminating his face in the darkness of his bedroom. It's just past midnight on a Wednesday, and the world outside is quiet, but inside his mind, a storm has been brewing since the notification appeared. Louis' name. In his DMs. After years of nothing.
His thumb hovers over the message, a battle raging in his mind. Part of him—the rational part that has worked so hard to build walls around his heart—screams at him to delete it, block Louis this time, and go back to the carefully constructed life he's built without him. He’s already lost years to Louis. Years of silence, years of pretending he doesn’t still ache when someone says his name. And now, on a random midnight, Louis is just…back?
But the other part, the traitorous part that still remembers the feeling of Louis' hands on his skin, the sound of his laugh, the way he'd look at Harry when he thought no one was watching, that part wants nothing more than to open it.
Harry debates, curses himself, paces the living room. He knows better. He’s not supposed to be the distraction anymore. He’s not supposed to be the side‑piece. He’s not supposed to be anything.
But eventually, he presses play.
Because the person who wrote ‘I’m a fool for you’ at nineteen apparently still lives by it at twenty‑five.
The familiar sound of Louis' voice fills the room, raw and unfiltered as always. It's a demo, Harry can tell. No studio polish, just Louis and a guitar, pouring his heart out into the microphone. But why would Louis be sending him a demo? They’ve not done that in years, along with everything else.
I went to Amsterdam without you
And all I could do was think about you
And I should've known
I went to Tokyo to let it go
Drink after drink, but I still felt alone
I should've known.
Harry’s breath catches. He remembers Louis sending him demos years ago, late at night, when it was just them. When Louis trusted him with songs no one else had heard. And now, after everything, Louis sends him this?
What’s Harry supposed to do with this? Every line slices him open, a dagger straight to the heart. Louis had traveled the world, smiling for cameras, moving on with Eleanor, living the life Harry told himself he couldn’t watch anymore. Happy. Whole. Untouchable. So what the fuck is he saying now? Is this some elaborate cruelty, some twisted joke? Because Harry once said “comfortable silence is so overrated” and Louis answers with this?
I went to so many places
Looking for you in their faces
I could feel it, oh, I can feel it.
Harry’s chest constricts, breath shallow. He grips the phone until his knuckles ache, presses the heel of his hand hard against his eyes as if he can block the sound, block the memory.
I'm wasting my time when it was always you, always you
Chasing the high, but it was always you, always you
Should've never let you go
Should've never let you go, my baby
Isn’t he with Eleanor? Like, aren’t they supposedly living their best lives, trying love for the second time around?
The chorus lands like a physical blow. Always you. Always you. Harry flinches, because wasn’t he always the distraction, the experiment, the side‑piece? Louis never loved him. Not really. It had always been one‑sided.
Should’ve never let you go.
Harry’s laugh is bitter, hollow. That’s why Louis went back to Eleanor. Isn’t it? Like Harry needs to hear another version of that truth, no matter how beautiful Louis’ voice is. That’s why instead of fucking Harry on the side, he tossed him aside. For her. For the person he always chooses.
The song ends, but the words don't. They echo in the cavernous silence of his living room, bouncing off the walls and embedding themselves under his skin. He lets the phone drop onto the leather sofa beside him, as if the distance could somehow lessen their impact. It doesn't. The silence is worse. It's filled with the ghost of Louis' voice, with every memory he's ever tried to bury.
He doesn’t know what to do. Reply? Demand answers? Ignore it, protect himself from another heartbreak? Because as much as this song whispers the feelings Harry once daydreamed about, Louis is still with Eleanor. Some things don’t change.
He stares at the ceiling some more, at the shifting shadows cast by the streetlamp outside. What is he supposed to do with this? This musical grenade lobbed into the carefully fortified peace he's managed to build. It can't be an accident. You don't accidentally send a three-minute demo of a song like this to the man you haven't spoken to in years. Louis had to have searched for his name. He had to have typed it in. He broke his own damn rules. He cracked open the silence, and now Harry is bleeding all over the place again.
Always you.
Louis sent him this. Louis broke his own terms. Louis cracked open the silence.
Harry whispers into the empty flat, “Why now, Lou?” his voice hoarse, almost broken. “Why the fuck now?”
As if in answer, the phone buzzes again. It's not a message this time. Louis' name flashes on the screen, insistent, demanding. A choice. Answer it and step back into the fire, or let it ring and let the silence close over him once more.