The Switch (l.s)

11. A Peek Into The Past*

CW: Sexual Content, Minors - any chapters now marked with a * indicate sexual content. 

Heterosexuality was always a forced agenda for Louis' entire life, and up until he was 15 he completely believed he was straight. The moment that had Louis second-guessing his entire sexuality would be one that haunted him for the rest of his life. It was an insidious memory that he kept under lock and key in the back of his brain, except occasionally it would break free and derail his life for a few days. If he allowed it, sometimes even weeks but that was a very rare occasion. It had only occurred twice in his life, the first being a few months after the day it happened. When the bottled-up stress had him sleeping a whopping 2 to 3 hours a night. He stopped showing interest in his schooling career, curled up into the fetal position in his bed for days on end. It was bad, so bad that his mother forced therapy onto him. And so began his first-ever interaction with professional help. It took a while but it did work and he was able to force himself back onto the tracks and chug along in life. The second time was shortly after his 18th birthday, and it was more of a drug-fuelled bender to escape the reality of his actions. He didn't tell anyone where he was going, who he was going with, or anything along those lines. He skipped town and spent 2 entire weeks clubbing in another city. To this day he can't recall most of his escapades there, except for the fact he felt like he was floating on clouds the entire time.

Louis Tomlinson's fear of men's changerooms started at the age of 15. It was specifically locker rooms that had no privacy that made him the most uncomfortable. All his issues began in the locker room after soccer practice on a Wednesday afternoon. Surrounded by an array of prepubescent males (excluding the few that had been blessed to have sprouted early, growing hair in explicit places). Everyone had filed into the steam-filled room, some with towels tightly wrapped around their hips for privacy whilst others had no shame in flaunting their entire body. It was a way boys could boast that they were rapidly becoming "men", but little did they know they were still naive teenagers with just a dash of testosterone. They didn't know what manhood was, not for a while anyway. The air was dense with the smell of sweat and AXE body spray. Louis was used to it, he knew to never maintain eye contact and to get in and out as quickly as possible. Until that day. This time while he was digging around in his bag for fresh clothes, he found himself subtly looking at the abundance of bodies around him. All while being aware of the churning discomfort in the pit of his stomach, which intensified each time someone removed a towel. Louis would look down at his own body, at the tiles in front of him, and then at a different body. The paranoia that others were staring him down was starting to sink into his brain, adding to the rising panic.

This was until he laid eyes on Marcus. Marcus Ingram, who was almost 17 and well into puberty at this stage. Louis spent a few moments of his eyes flickering between fixating on a particular tile directly in front of him, and Marcus' toned body a few feet away. The imprint of honey kissed skin with ridges of muscle would be something that Louis would want to scrub from the back of his eyelids for several years to come. Marcus was the first person Louis had noticed that had the beginnings of dark brown hair at the base of his torso, mostly hidden by the crimson towel wrapped against his low lying hip bones. As Louis focused on the hair, he became increasingly curious to see what would be hidden under the towel. And that was the first moment that Louis felt that immediate surge of panic, as the realisation of his thought process sunk in.

He could feel the sweat immediately seep out at the nape of his neck, as if the panic needed an immediate out of his system. Which then followed with his throat beginning to swell up in sync with his heart rate launching through the roof. This would be the first panic attack Louis Tomlinson experienced, but most definitely not the last. Louis had no idea the type of feeling that his body had just succumbed to, so with shaky hands wrapped his towel a little closer around himself, grabbed a handful of clothes from his bag and headed towards the private shower stall. Anywhere away from the wandering eyes of someone else. Because if anyone had the slightest inkling about Louis' feelings, he'd for sure be bullied for the rest of school. And shit like that sticks with you for life, and he refuses to spend the rest of his life in a city where people knew he was uncomfortable around men. He moved quickly but not in a way that would draw attention towards him. Or so he thought.