A Grocery List Pinned to Blue(smut)(larry)

Part 2

It happens again, because of course it does. Because it's impossible to neatly half two lives that had merged together over eight years. So, it happens again, and it happens again on April 16th. Louis thinks he should make a calendar, and x off every time it happens. It could be cyclical, a pattern, like when his mum taught Lottie and Fizzy to mark off the calendar in the kitchen with a small dot every month when they started their period.

Louis has had too many women around him in formative years, if he's considering marking off a calendar in a way comparable to getting his period. It is similar though, because he could look at the calendar in the kitchen and predict the weeks when the already over-emotional teenage girls in his house would collapse into distress. Not to, like, stereotype, really, maybe. Sort of. Anyway. He could keep track of his own emotional distress, or something. Fuck.

Anyway, it's a jumper, this time. Harry has had enough bloody clothing over the years that it's really improbable and unfortunate that Louis can pinpoint the exact time period of this one, but he supposes that's just how his life is going to be. It's dark red, almost a maroon, and Harry got it from a thrift shop up in Manchester. It was the year after Louis finished school, when Harry was still getting through his art history degree. Harry was working at the student gallery, sitting behind a desk and reading through his hours, because who the fuck goes to student galleries? Louis was working full time at that posh Italian restaurant they could never afford to actually eat at. Louis always brought home the leftover specials when he could, and sometimes the cook would sneak him extra lasagne. The cooks loved him there, Louis isn't sure why. He wasn't an amazing waiter – he got orders wrong with some frequency, dropped plates. But the cooks always babied him a little. He thinks that is maybe the way of people – everyone can always see themselves in other people, somehow. Everyone can relate, in some way. Louis thinks maybe the cooks saw themselves in the boy who counted his tips obsessively, picked up extra shifts, packaged up any available leftovers with obsessive care. The boy who always looked tired.

Louis doesn't miss those days, when he remembers how hard they struggled. How his work clothes came from strokes of luck and persistence at thrift shops, how he had to polish black wingtips that were several years out of style. He doesn't miss how thin Harry always looked, how many layers he had to wear from October to May, to keep from shaking out of his skin. He doesn't miss how powerless he felt, how desperately he felt he was failing to protect Harry.

He remembers finding this jumper the day after he burnt a hole in his last white work shirt, remembers his urgency to find another, because his shift started three hours later. He was flipping through the racks, eyes glazed over with the pointedness of his search, but he remembers his fingers carding over the worn, almost cashmere softness and paused. He tried it on for himself, at first, and the sleeves fell over his hands, the hem down past his hips, and remembers almost smiling, almost relieved, because it'd be perfect for Harry.

It was £4.99, more than Louis would usually let himself spend on clothing at that time, but he wanted to make Harry smile. Always wanted to make Harry smile, always wants to make Harry smile.

He comes across the old jumper, now thinner, holes where Harry's thumbs would nervously poke through, the seam of the hem half undone, in the back of the closet. He's looking for a tie that fell off the rack, and his fingers brush over something so soft, familiar.

It was Harry's fancy jumper at the time, the dark red giving a sense of dressiness to his faded black jeans and worn leather boots, and he always looked so good, always felt so comfortable when Louis would run his hands over his shoulders, proud.

Louis pulls it out from where it's tangled behind trainers he doesn't wear, sinks to the floor and smooths it over his thighs. Harry hasn't worn it in ages, because both of them kept getting paid more and more and they could afford real cashmere, from proper shops, and their fancy clothes turned into blazers and trousers, clean lines and adulthood. He pulls his knees, covered in jumper, up to his face, breathes in. He can almost smell Manchester, their second flat, smaller than the first, closer to downtown, the brick wall view, the third floor hike.