You Leave Me Wanting, All Wistful And Wandering Hands. A Flicker Of Flame Turned Ember, Essence Now Obsolete.

You leave me wanting, all wistful and wandering hands. A flicker of flame turned ember, essence now obsolete.

When I think about your skin my fingertips bleed. You are new moon all ache and empty. A delicate obsidian, a silence.

I think the two of us know what color she would be. That spicy sweetness sits tucked behind your teeth like bubblegum, the very sight of her reminds me of summer. A perfect silhouette who glows amoxicillin in the sunset, I watch you get sick to swallow her. I wonder if this is why when she looks at me I go cold. Her heat burns hot, illuminates in flamingo and fuchsia, I bet she blooms like a French rose. Spread her across my skin like calamine, but I think her brightness might burn us both.

“Of course I’ll prove it to you.” He responded letting his lips curve up into a smirk.

He knelt down by the bedside and reached out caressing Draco’s cheek, pulling him in. This time their lips met cautiously in a gentle press of warmth. Draco reached up and intertwined his fingers into Harry’s dark curls pulling him closer. Harry breathed a small sign of relief against his lips and leaned in, pressing his fingertips along Draco’s chest, bending into his body warmth. Harry was just losing himself in the kiss when Draco paused, pulling away a bit.

“What are you still doing on the floor, come up here with me.” Draco demanded, a little breathless.

Harry didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled to his feet and practically dove into the pile of blankets next to Draco. Draco wrapped his long arms around Harry pulling him flush to his chest. Harry shivered as the hot heat of Draco’s body bloomed across his exposed skin. He moved closer and pushed their lips back together. They lost themselves in each other. Harry couldn't think of anything but Draco’s hot breath on his neck and the way his body moved under him. 

Being with Draco felt like making up for lost time, like grinning in the face of the war, like they couldn’t have been more inevitable.

One of my fav excerpts from my new fic Infiltrate the Slytherins

Your eyes are dark coal mines and I think if you let me search in them long enough I just might find a diamond. I guess I’m trying to say that the hot heat of our bodies could force the charcoal of burnt embers into the structured unbreakable. In eighth grade I learned that miners used to dangle canary’s into the depths ahead of them, if the birds came back alive they knew there was oxygen enough for them to descend. Maybe that’s why I gave you my body first, wanted to see if you could sustain my breath and I found out you left me gasping. Dark tunnels echoing around me as the oxygen vanished into desolate space.

Falling

Louis Tomlinson/Harry Styles 

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35413789

Summary: Louis has avidly avoided listening to Harry’s new album for so long and now it’s chosen to ambush him in a grocery store.

TW: blood, injury, alcohol abuse

They were about 10 minutes into making dinner when it all started to go awry. First Ben noticed that there was no meat for the burger patties. Then about three minutes later Louis noticed they were out of cabbage for the coleslaw as well. Niall offered to run to the store, it was late enough at night that there shouldn't be too many fans he argued. But Niall had brought all the groceries they had in the first place and Louis felt horrible sending him off to the grocery store a second time. So Louis had grabbed a black beanie and some dark sunglasses and hopped in the car.

~~~~~~~~~~

Louis stands in the fluorescent lights of the grocery store staring down at the bright green cabbages. He picks up a medium sized cabbage and is rolling it in his hands to check for blemishes when his concentration is broken by the sound of a voice. Freezing in his tracks Louis lowers the cabbage back into its place and grips the handle of his shopping basket so hard his knuckles turn white. He quickly looks up above him and just as he suspected he sees a speaker.

“Fuck” he swears out-loud before looking side to side to make sure no one actually heard him talk to himself in a grocery store.

He’s avidly avoided listening to Harry’s album for so long and now it’s chosen to ambush him in a grocery store? He honestly should have expected as much. The store is quiet and Louis can hear the lyrics quite well. He knows he should put his basket down and leave immediately. He knows this could throw him into a spiral that could last weeks and yet he can’t help himself. He turns towards the vegetables and spaces out.

Harry’s voice immediately spikes a visceral reaction in him. He can feel an ache tugging at the center of his stomach right below his navel and god he misses him so much. Then the lyrics start to sink in.

He listens as Harry describes the way a drink and his wandering hands have ruined a love he once held dear and Louis' heart drops to his stomach. He suddenly feels nauseous. He’s not ready for this. He doesn’t want to hear Harry’s apology after all these years standing in an empty grocery store watching passerby in the mirror over the vegetables. He turns to go a second time but again is stopped by the pure desperation in Harry’s voice as he asks plaintively “What if I’m someone I don’t want around?”

Suddenly it’s all too much and Louis feels his breath start to quicken in his chest. He looks down at his clenched knuckles. Tries to focus on the tile of the floor beneath his feet but he can’t stop listening, can’t tear himself away and suddenly the floor starts to look exactly like the tile in his old house and he’s back 3 years.

~~~~~~

Louis wakes up tangled in the white sheets of his bed as if he has been thrashing about all night. As he peels his eyes open it takes him a couple seconds to get grounded before his heart clutches in his chest as he realizes the pillow beside him is ice cold. He wonders if Harry even bothered to come home last night or if he’s passed out in the throes of whatever party he refused to miss last night.

Last week when Harry had gone missing like this Louis had found him in the bushes by Niall's house, his clothes ripped and dirty. It had taken hours of searching to find him so by the time Niall called to let him know Harry was safe he had already forgiven him.

This tends to be the pattern. Louis and Harry fight. Harry runs off to whatever party is the craziest or the most packed. Louis worries until past midnight shaking until he finally falls asleep. Harry disappears. Louis worries too much. Harry gets found and Louis forgives him.

Louis thinks he forgives too easily. He thinks if he just was firmer with Harry. If he just told him how worried he is maybe things would be okay. But it’s hard to be honest when you're terrified. And the way Harry’s been acting lately terrifies him.

Louis shakes his head to clear his thoughts, pushing himself out of bed and grabbing some running clothes. He’s angry enough at Harry for disappearing again that he figures he’ll go on a run before unearthing his body. He needs to have a clear head before he speaks to Harry again and running helps. He shoves his shirt over his head hurriedly before padding downstairs to find some clean socks and shoes.

It isn’t till Louis reaches the bottom of the stairs that he realizes something is wrong. When he looks towards the kitchen he notices that the light is on. He definitely remembers turning it off last night. Relieved he realizes that Harry must have come home after all.

“Harry?” He calls tentatively not wanting to startle him. He waits a couple seconds but doesn’t get a response so he pushes his way through the kitchen door.

The sight that greets him leaves him frozen in shock.

The first thing he sees is Harry’s body strewn limp and pale across the hard tile floor. Then he notices the curle of blood pooling out from Harry's left hand, stark red against the white tile like a wine stain. The sight of blood shocks Louis into action and he scrambles across the floor towards the unresponsive boy in front of him.

He calls Harry’s name several times lightly hitting his face trying to wake him up before remembering to check his pulse. As Louis reaches for Harry’s right hand to find a pulse he slips in the blood on the floor and clumsily crashes against his chest. When his head lands on Harry’s chest he breathes a sigh of relief as he hears a heartbeat in his ear.

“You really scared me this time Haz” He whispers before righting himself and reaching for the cellphone in his pocket.

He calls Niall because no one else knows about how they find Harry every other morning. Niall answers the phone with a slightly frantic hello as if he already knows the news that's waiting for him. At first Louis can only breath across the line, the shock in his system intermingling with the relief of company.

“Louis? What is it? Is Harry with you?” Niall barks bringing Louis back to reality.

Louis answers, willing his voice not to shake with every bone in his body. “Niall, he’s with me but he’s not responsive. He has a pulse but he’s covered in blood. I found him on the floor of our kitchen. I don’t know what to do, do I call an ambulance?” He rushes glancing around the kitchen trying to take stock of what has actually happened. He sees a half empty bottle of whisky on the countertop with its lid off and as his gaze drifts to the floor he notices glass shards scattered around him. Looking down at himself he realizes he’s kneeling on the shards and he watches as dark inky blood starts to well from scratches on his knees. He realizes he can’t feel the cuts, his whole body filled with a bone deep numbness.

“Alright Louis, it’s okay. Take some deep breaths.” Niall’s the level headed one. Louis has always known that. “Stay next to him and try to wake him up. Maybe splash some cold water on his face” Niall continues. Louis follows his directions robotically filling a glass at the tap and walking across the glass strewn floor back to Harry. He dumps the water across him but Harry gives him no response.

“He's not responding, I don't know what to do” He tells Niall, voice weak and shaking.

“Okay sit tight and stay with him” Niall commands in a gentle voice. “I’m calling 911 and then I’ll drive over to be with you while you wait for them to arrive”

Louis breathes out full of immense gratitude and listens to the click as Niall hangs up the phone.

After that he gets lost in the blur of things. Niall arrives, he remembers hugging him sitting with Harry's body. The paramedics arrive loud and colorful. Louis can’t understand how they’re so calm, so collected, when his Harry is still laying sprawled out pale and unresponsive before them. The paramedics ask him questions he can’t answer while they move Harry to a stretcher. Niall leaves in the ambulance. Louis does not, he’s volunteered to grab Harry clothes and meet them at the hospital.

As the ambulance pulls out of his driveway he's left shaking bleeding from his knees into the pool of Harry’s blood in front of him. It takes him minutes to move to a standing position and inch backwards out of the kitchen. When he looks behind him, he is transfixed by his bloody footprints trailing across the previously pristine floor.

~~~~~

“Um excuse me?” Louis jumps as he hears an unfamiliar voice directly to his left.

“Sorry, just could you move? I need to grab one of those cabbages.” He turns eyes wide and frightened to see an old woman gesturing to the vegetables in front of him.

He breathes a sigh of relief. He’s fine. He’s in a grocery store. Harry’s okay, they’re just not on speaking terms. Louis' body is still shaking and he finds it hard to catch his breath so he pushes past the women and moves to the front of the store.

When he reaches the door he finds it difficult to pry the shopping basket from his grasp; his fingers feel frozen and numb, like they don’t belong to him anymore.

I don’t know when I realized it, but it could have been last night. I was sitting in a pile of my freshly washed sheets, my left hand precariously balancing half a corn tortilla smothered in peanut butter.

Licking the drip off the lowest corner and barely saving my clean bedding I refocused on the list of side effects of brain tumors pulled up on the phone in my right hand. Something about the night felt too calm like when the sun comes out after a storm but you still don’t have power.

I remember thinking forward to the next morning, picturing the way nausea would swell in me as if the butterflies in my stomach were celebrating the last warm day before giving in to the freeze. As I fell asleep the only thing I could think of was brittle fragments of monarch orange shattered across wet concrete.