Once. (Larry Stylinson)

Bruises.

We haven't spoke since you went away
Comfortable silence is so overrated
Why won't you ever be the first one to break?
Even my phone misses your call, by the way 

2015.

Gazing at his beautiful boy with green eyes slowly became a luxury Louis craved gravely but could not afford anymore. After that one meeting with Simon in his office, Louis wasn't the same. The boy painstakingly pulled himself up and away from Harry because what if Harry hurt him too? What if it hurt more than how much it hurt when Zayn left? His blue eyes evidently lost their bright oceanic charisma and his words got bitter. Louis lost Harry and he saw it happening in front of his eyes, he let him slip through his life and didn't take an action to stop it.

His throat was always dry, always parched for love that he pushed away, the love he wanted to cling onto so desperately that he couldn't even close his eyes without envisioning Harry's beautiful face with his dimpled smile, raspy voice, curly long hairs, kind personality and- he stops himself. He doesn't sleep anymore, the dark circles beneath his eyes grow darker with each passing day and it grows alarming how poorly he treats himself but no one notices, far too involved in their own nightmares. 

It all started when Louis came back to the hotel late at night from Simon's office, his clothes strongly smelling of smoke and tears to find Harry sleeping on the bed, his body half sitting with the television playing in the background. Louis couldn't help but soak into the warmth of his boy who fell asleep waiting for him. He lowered Harry's long limbs on the bed and for once, curled himself into Harry so that Harry was the big spoon. As if clockwork, Harry's body wrapped itself around his body and pulled him close, the ghosted whisper of I love you Lou hung between Harry's almost asleep form while Louis' eyes filled with tears and before he could stop them, they streamed down his face and soaked the pillow. From the next morning, Louis slowly started detaching himself from Harry who couldn't, for his life, figure out where and what went wrong.

Harry tried. He really did, but somewhere between the ghosted silence and sleepless nights, he came to terms with his new reality instead of fighting against it. They slept in different hotel rooms, sat in the farthest corners of each other in interviews, Louis went out with Eleanor more, while Harry was forced into monthly flings with different blonde models and both of them, slowly drifted apart but even so, nobody spoke of it. Harry grew snippy, Louis got bitter and it showed, it reflected how much they had changed in a month. It was evident to Niall and Liam that this time whatever was happening in between them, it wasn't like before, this time, there was no space for apologies, no, this time it was final. 

They endured every obstacle only to stand in opposite paths and ended up hurting themselves as they slowly tormented the other.

It hurt Louis physically to even think of living his life with a void named Harry but after Simon made him realize how necessary the distance was, what with all the pressure Harry was enduring just for his sake, how Harry was giving up his dreams for Louis who wasn't even worth a single flower Harry ever brought him, Louis gave up. Around the same time, Harry came to a point where he did not want more mental and emotional damage than he was already dealing with; it was also the point after which Harry wasn't sure he really wanted to be with Louis anymore but he loved Louis and they had always been in it for each other so he never wanted to leave. The emotional turmoil turned him into a person who was his worst nightmare and the dam of his patience broke the day he got the news of Louis' extended contract with Simon.

From being each other's living forces, they just slowly became a part of their lives and slowly, that nullified into oblivion. They were together but they weren't really and it was tiring them out. 

Harry was tired of circling around his own boyfriend so after a long day full of interviews and irrelevant questions, Harry found himself headed for Louis' hotel room instead of his own.