Reason To Be (A Zouis Family AU)

Part Four, Chapter Eight

"Hey, are we ordering in tonight or -"

Harry stops when he gets to the kitchen and sees Brad standing between the counter and the island; heart dropping into his stomach when he sees the flip phone held in his hand, the pure anger on the nearly twenty year old's face.

They had fought on Friday, the split lip the reason he hadn't been able to go home, the reason he had broken his promise to Niall when his little brother needed him most. Yesterday was better. The day after always is.

But this. This is about to be worse.

"What the fuck - is this?" Brad says slowly, enunciating every single word, voice practically a growl.

He freezes. He doesn't know what to say or what to do - he already knows that there's nothing that will diffuse the situation, nothing that will stop the inevitable shouting and then the punches, then the sex afterwards to make up for it. He's so used to it by now.

He wishes he wasn't.
He wishes things had stayed as innocent as they used to be; because he still loves Brad even after all of this time and he knows that it's wrong. He knows that he doesn't deserve to be treated this way but there are times when he's been selfish and in the wrong and unkind, and he thinks that maybe this is punishment instead.

(Nobody deserves to be punished like this though. He knows that too, inside.)

"Brad, I -" he starts, but Brad doesn't want to listen anyway.

He never does. A huge part of Harry is sick of it.
The rest of him is naive - believes that eventually, Brad will listen again; he'll be good to him again.

He isn't sure he'll ever truly understand how he feels or how he's meant to feel - on one hand, he knows that Leila has been right, about everything; on the other hand, he doesn't want to believe it because he and Brad are meant to be in love.

(Meant to be and are are different things though.)

"Don't even try! You're cheating, you've been fucking talking to someone behind my back, sleeping with someone and -"

Harry's head snaps up at the accusations, heart thrumming against his ribs as he takes a tentative step forwards. "What? No - Brad, I would never! Come on, we've been over this so many times. I - I -" he starts to say 'I love you' but finds himself to get the words out this time around. He winces. "I wouldn't do that," he says instead.

Brad scoffs. "You don't fucking love me," he says.

He isn't sure what really snaps inside of him at that, but the words are so manipulative and he's done with falling for them. "Stop saying that!" He yells, and Brad looks furious, taking a step forwards that has Harry stumbling back before he quickly speaks again. "Read the messages, Brad! There isn't a single thing on there other than messages to my family and a couple people from class -"

"You still fucking lied to me! You hid this piece of shit and now you just expect me to forgive you?" Brad spits, holding the cheap phone up in the air.

Harry feels his heart ready to burst in his chest from how fast it is racing, and he shakes his head quickly; he wants to appease the fight but now that he's started yelling back, he can't seem to stop. "No, okay? I don't! But what else was I meant to do!? You've had my actual phone this entire time -"

"So it's my fault you're a sneaky fucking liar!?" Brad yells, so loud that Harry flinches at the sound, chest constricting again because this isn't what he wants and he's so close to chickening out and just apologising even though he doesn't know what he's really done wrong. He'll do what he always does, the hand on the belt and the suggestive eyes, a night in bed when all he wants is to sleep and not do the things that Brad wants to do - because it works. It's the only way he knows to calm things down, stop the fighting.