next to you ❀ l.s.

twenty - who i am

"This cycle you're living isn't healthy."

Louis had his fingers wrapped around a steaming mug of tea, sitting beside Harry on the couch. They had spent the entire night tangled up in Harry's freshly-changed sheets and each other, their chests rising and falling in synchronized breaths. It felt wrong if Louis thought too hard about it, so he didn't.

Harry's nose scrunched, adorable and innocent as ever. Naive, maybe, if Louis wanted to think pessimistically. "What cycle?"

"Every time you dissociate, you run back to Steven, or to someone else." Louis paused, giving Harry a moment to process. "Why?"

Harry didn't reply for a long time. Finally, he stated bluntly: "I don't like that word."

Louis could easily see that he was trying to redirect the question, but at least he was talking about something. "What word? 'Dissociate'?"

The curly-haired boy visibly cringed. His grip on his tea cup tightened, his knuckles flexing.

Louis's face softened with a mixture of empathy and understanding. "Have you ever, like, seen someone about it?" he asked carefully. "Like, someone professional, I mean."

Harry nodded, almost tentatively. "When I first moved out of my mum's house, I went to see a psychiatrist. We had a few appointments, but it was super expensive and nothing really helped. He basically just officially informed me that I was a freak and sent me on my way."

"I'm sorry. That's so fucked up." He wondered out loud, "Do you know when it's happening?"

Harry paused, then nodded slowly. He took a tiny sip of his tea, his lips engulfing the thin rim of the cup for only a moment, the movement so brief that Louis doubted he actually drank any. "I always know it's happening. It just doesn't feel real, I guess. I can't stop it."

Louis didn't interrupt, but he reached for Harry's hand. Both of their fingers were already warm from their tea cups.

"It's . . ." He swallowed hard, then tried again. "It's sort of awful." His voice was soft and shaky, and Louis traced soothing circles on the back of his hand. "It's like falling in slow motion -- you know it's going to hurt like hell when you hit the ground, but you can't do a thing about it."

Louis felt a bit like a therapist himself -- almost condescending, as he hummed curiously and sipped his tea in a much too sophisticated manner. He had so many questions, but Harry was finally speaking openly, and he couldn't help feeling terrified that he would say something to send him clamming up again.

"It makes everything worse," Harry confessed quietly, interrupting Louis's train of thought before he could settle on his most pressing question.

"What do you mean?"

Harry lifted his gaze to meet Louis's again. "You've seen it. I'm a freak. I'll let anyone do anything and everything to me and I'll just sit there silently and take it."

"You've only done it twice in front of me," the older boy tried to comfort him, sensing Harry's unnecessary embarrassment. "And it's really not as bad as you think."

Harry shook his head. "Three times," he replied, recounting, "Last week in my apartment, after our 'date,' and in the bookstore." Heat spread across his face as he said, "I was so embarrassed when I . . . when it was over. It was way too soon, I know, but I had such a stupid crush on you, and I thought I ruined everything the very first time we hung out."

"That day in the bookstore . . ." Louis trailed off. The memory of Harry reading but not reading, staring blankly at the pages, still haunted his mind. "What happened? With Steven, I mean?"