The Princess and The Outlaw

Burning Hearts

"Well, well, well." The monotonous beckoning was accompanied by a clicking heel of undoubtedly ridiculous leather boots. Louis was putting his away his textbooks in exchange for his sketchpad in this ominous section of the school hallway until the voice of someone who drove unsettling chills down his spine interrupted him. "If it isn't the fairest princess this old fuckin' town ever did see."

Around this moment the sound of others followed the first and Louis released a tired sigh, slamming his locker door shut. He remembers the first time this estranged other cornered him and seemed to preen at the sight of Louis' fear, when the psychopath became known as Harry Styles. Laughter used to follow any odd comment until Harry put a stop to it; none but he was entitled to the privilege of passing a remark towards Louis.

"And the outlaw who defiled him." Louis was ready when Harry turned him around, pressing the former's back against the steel lockers with a smug grin.

Harry always chewed gum and how he hid it against the inside of his hollow cheek, satisfying the image of a terrifying squirrel. He had the bone structure of an immortal whose duty was seduction and the haunted green shade of his irises where the most stunning feature on the man.

"It isn't defilement when you beg as much as you did, baby." A pair of lips was suddenly seeking Louis' but what needed to be seen was captured already. Harry was denied his kiss when Louis turned away, hardly flinching when that edge of darkness crept into his companion. A forearm collided with the locker beside Louis' head, blocking a route of escape. "Not in the mood, princess?"

Louis met Harry's gaze apathetically and swiped his thumb over a red stain on the latter's throat, digging his nail in merely to cause a wince. He showed Harry. "Carry make-up wipes with you from tomorrow, Styles."

And so the reality of their sick relationship crashed down once more. Harry met Louis a year ago and has since treated his boy as nobly as his bleeding morale would allow. However, being a man of little values meant Harry's virtuous deeds had several cracks. They slept together once two months ago after Harry distinguished Louis as the one against whom all others paled in comparison. It fell apart when Harry's inability to conform to monogamy overpowered his instincts.

Louis would draw blood from Harry before he allowed the man to touch his body again, but he knew the one thing reserved just for him were Harry's kisses. The man's lips never touched another's besides Louis'; he did not watch slasher movies or publicly embrace anyone except Louis. He sat in the library with Louis before dates the latter was blackmailed into, carved a crown that fitted Louis' finger from wood and came to the boy's rescue when a trip to the grocery store got ugly from a violent protest.

"Fine." Harry sniffed and while a cruel glimmer floated in his eye, he said nothing. "Ready for your appointment?"

Other than emotional ruin, Louis was facing the inevitability of a horrible flu. He could not sleep with the pain that pounded across his skull or the nausea at dawn. Every morning he took enough painkillers to leave him numb for eight hours before Harry dropped off his lunch and reprimanded him for falling asleep in the gym under the bleachers.

"Yeah." Louis shoved his bag and books at Harry, knowing they would not fall, but kept his sketchpad. He started walking and Harry caught up to him, juggling all his possessions effortlessly.

"Have you been feeling any better?" He asked, getting out the keys to his monstrous vehicle that's isolated in the barren parking lot.

Louis briefly glanced out of the corner of his eye at the man. Something like exhaustion swept over him at the sight of nonchalance coupled with blissful self-preservation facing him in the form of the man who took his virginity and fell back again on the bodies of others. There were days when Louis felt like coping would not be a chore but more often it is true that Louis felt cheap.