[A/N: Trigger warning for self-harm so if it makes you uncomfortable, please skip it. And I want to get it out there that I love you all, and if you ever feel anything remotely close to this or wanting to hurt yourself: I'm here. My inbox is always open and I'd love to talk to you, even if you're having a crappy day :) we can be friends, and I'd love to be there for you if you need it. Big love and cuddles from South Africa.]

The course of true love never did run smooth. - William Shakespeare

*LOUIS' POV*

I stood awkwardly between a chatting pair - Gemma and Dr. Michaels seem to find behavioural patterns of slightly 'loose' patients to be a suitable conversation topic - and a pair that seems to be letting off brooding energy - half of which belongs to Harry which is not okay.
Edith held no expression, but the same couldn't be said for the glare in her eyes. It was a glint of something underneath, a tiny bit of exposure that made my skin crawl.

Harry's jaw was as stiff as I've ever seen it, his fingertips pressing into my sides until I'm certain there are tiny bruises. I don't mind them for they wouldn't be the worst I've been on the receiving end of.

There's a familiar look in Edith's gaze. Besides being an unnerving muse for my person, Harry seems to be returning it but with less pleasant emotions. The hate is bright green and feral in his eye.

"Lou?" I'm polite enough to not throw a reasonable fit in front of everyone, and wait for a mere
two seconds before Harry diverts all his attention to me.

Maybe it isn't what I totally asked for when he crowds me against the pillar, blocking off the sight of Edith and any other company. He loosens his grip on his hip and I exhale like it's what I've been waiting for. It almost was. I brace myself on Harry's forearms for leverage.

"Hmm?" I may have to stand on my tiptoes to get anywhere with Harry, because the man's got a whole foot on me.

"I'm cold. We should go upstairs." He kisses my wrists, right on the little white gashes.

I gasp, pulling my hand towards my chest. The attempt is futile since he just holds onto them.
He gives a look that tells me not to do that again, but I've never been a good listener.

"Look at me." He must have noticed that I'm trying to peek over his shoulder.

He pins me with his gaze and I notice a slight flinch when his lips twitch. The numbing agent that masks his burns must be wearing off. He shouldn't even be moving around.

"O-Okay." I stutter because the coldness of the tiles has just seeped through my socks.

I follow Harry because I'm not familiar with the layout of the hospital, his incredibly large hand wrapped around my tiny fist.

"It was nice meeting you." Edith gets in when she realises Harry is not sticking around to have an actual conversation with her.

"Likewise!" I have to raise my voice a little in order for her to hear me.

"You too, Harry!"

He ignores her.

In the elevator, Harry is stiff and doesn't say a word save for the quiet request for me to move so that he may press the floor number on the panel. He tugs me by my hand and soon we're back in his room, that I've noticed he doesn't have to share with another patient.

"Have you met her before?" I ask once the door is shut and I'm cross-legged on the bed again
because no other place seems worthy.

"You could say that." He reaches behind him to untie the multiple knots in a single line down the back of the hospital gown.

"Let me do it." I make to get off the high-resting bed but he comes to me before I can.

He stands with his back to me, and get more than a few peeks at the bandages beneath that are now tinted red and yellow. The tape is lifting at the edges, causing the cloth to slant haphazardly.

"Who will change them?" I ask when I'm done pulling the strings of every knot. "Your bandages."

"I have to wait for a nurse." He says, slipping off the dirtied clothing - if it can even be labelled as such.

I am grateful to every divine diety that his back is to me, or else my cover would be blown with the deep red of my cheeks. With every move his arm makes, a tendon on his back would move in correlation. Each muscle was well-defined and his tapering waist was far from imperfect.

Where my butt was large and something absolutely hated about myself, his was smaller and more desirable. No one wanted someone with a huge bum.

I had little to no muscles, just a pudgey tummy and a little extra flab on my hips. No amount of food-deprivation could get rid of that. Harry was lean and utterly perfect.

"What are those?" I ask before thinking.

He pauses to look at me over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow for a moment. "Burns."

"No, I-I meant on your arm. The tattoos."

"Oh." He flexes his arm to get a better look at them. "They all mean something."

He comes to sit on the edge of the bed with me, wincing as he does. "Do you want me to-"

"No. Stay." He sighs. "Help me take them off."

I swallow nervously but nod. We stand and he faces me so that I may take off the few at the front. I haven't seen his scars openly before and it frightens me now.

"Do they hurt?" I bring my hands up to the first hidden mark, right below his torso.

"Yes." His words come out as breaths.

"I'm sorry."

He chuckles as I strip him of the medicinal cloth. "What for?"

"For you getting hurt."

His burns aren't as horrendous as I'd imagined. They haven't dameaned much of his milky skin, except for the little dips that rest in the center of each one. The edges are taut and whiter than his skin, pulling a thin layer closer to the open flesh to heal. Because the medicine has worn off, they've started to bleed again around the edges where the skin has formed weak
scabs.

"Mr. Styles. Are you ready?" A nurse walks in, loud and shuffling a clipboard.

"I'll-" My phone rings to disrupt me mid-sentence. "-be outside."

Harry nods reluctantly when the nurse starts to take charge, instructing Harry to take a shower with selected salts before she can re-do his bandages. I take my cellphone out of my pocket and leave the room.

*NARRATOR'S POV*

When the nurse conveniently turns to leave the room and go sort out Harry's bath, he spins Louis around by the waist to plant a gentle peck on the smaller boy's lips. Louis gasps quietly against his mouth, before blushing and reaching up to cup the side of Harry's face. It was so he didn't lose balance and as soon as they hear the bumbling Nurse Nora return, they jump apart.

Harry let's him go this time, he just needed a a good reassurance that Louis still cared for him when he was exiting. Now he knew that Louis did, and warily let him out of his sight.

"Hello?" Louis answers his phone without checking the name on the screen.

"Lou." It's Douglas. Louis' heart fails and his brain shuts down all at once. "I've been calling and you never answered. No one's at home either."

"Uh. Yeah I'm sorry. It's errand day and my parents are working."

"Oh okay."

Louis bites his lip, feeling smug about the fact that Douglas can't see his tongue dart across the skin.

He was supposed to feel guilty and worthless, thoughts he'd had all his life. Except, he couldn't find them now.

"So, I need to talk to you." Douglas says.

"About?" Louis does express genuine worry for him.

"I uh....it's personal but I'll meet you in a few?" Douglas is on the frantic side.

"Douglas, calm down. What's wrong?"

"I-I need to see a doctor, Lou. I'm so sorry." Douglas inhales deeply, his breath is shaky and scared. Louis' heart drops when he hears him.

"Oh Douglas. Please, calm down."

"I need to see you, Lou. I'm so sorry."

"I'll come to see you. Stop apologising-"

"No." He cuts Louis off. "No I am. I did something and I know you'll hate me. Please, Louis. Louis, I'm sorry."

"What did you do?" Louis has an inkling of what it may be.

"I-I....."

"Tell me, Douglas. What did you do?"

"I...I was drunk, Lou. It was Anthony's party and they dared me-"

"What did you do, Douglas?"

"Babe, I'm so sorry."

And Louis knew he couldn't handle something as sudden and so wrenching in a public place. There's a gents restroom a few feet away and he makes a beeline for it. All the stalls are empty, and Louis is grateful.

"Why....When?" Louis feels like there's something clawing its way up his throat, a rising bile of painful emotion that he'd have to bear.

"It was.....a month ago." And Douglas is defeated because not only can Louis hear it now, but he was able to pick up something fishy in his boyfriend's behaviour for approximately the same amount of time.

"And....why now?" Louis' eyes are stinging from the spring of tears and his nostrils flare, turning red from the flush of trying to breathe.

"I.....I thought you should know."

Louis can detect it in Douglas' voice now. Resentment and regret - but not for betraying Louis. It's when Douglas gives up on something, like the time he just couldn't get the car running again in the middle of a storm.

"I can't believe this." Louis covers his mouth with a shaking hand because he felt utterly shattered. "You cheated....and didn't tell me. You let me think-"

"It was a mistake, Louis." Douglas snaps. "It was when we had a fight and I couldn't think straight. I forgot-"

"You forgot about me. Which fight, Douglas?"

"It.....I...."

"It was more than once, wasn't it?"

"Yeah." Douglas knows what's coming and so does Louis. It's the end and maybe neither boy is hurting as much as they should.

Louis won't cry. He told himself that this wasn't his fault and he shouldn't feel as terrible as he does. Thing is, he cheated too and even though he didn't go past first base with Harry, Louis had enough morale to feel guilty.

"It's....I forgive you." Louis manages after plenty shaky breaths and rapid blinking to keep the tears at bay.

"Thought you would." Douglas scoffs.

"What-"

"You have been fucking someone. Who is it?"

"Douglas, I never-"

"Niall's been on about you and the idiot from Lost Lake. Is that true?"

How did this suddenly become about Louis' endeavours? "I didn't sleep with him."

"I know you didn't, because he wouldn't even want to." Douglas sighs loudly and it causes a
ringing in Louis' ear.

He flinches and tries to process what Douglas meant. "I don't understand-"

"That's exactly it, you never understand. You're this pathetic little whining princess who always demands things from people."

Louis gasps and his brain short-circuits, not allowing him to get in a word of his own to defend himself. Was this who he was to Douglas?

"I wouldn't be surprised if he never touches you. He's too good for you and he's in the fucking hospital for being fucking delusional!"

"Stop-" Louis chokes on the air he's supposed to inhale. He let's out a sob when Douglas goes on.

"Name's Harry, yeah? I know him and even he has some class. With how much a slut you are, I'm fucking surprised that he's put up with you this long."

Louis' shirt picks up as he slides down the back of the stall door, tears flowing freely down his face and his skin burning. He didn't want to hear all the things Douglas found wrong with him but he couldn't bring himself to hang up yet. He forgets that he's in a public loo and let's all his hurt out in cut-off little sobs that are smothered by his bony knees.

"Douglas, stop." He begs hopelessly. "Please, you don't mean it."

"Even now you're begging. You're hopeless, Louis." Douglas spits venom through the phone.
"And I hope Harry realises it too before he's tied to you."

The line goes dead and so does Louis' self-esteem. He crumbles as his heart does, curling up
into a fetal position on the tiles because he didn't deserve - according to Douglas, his now ex boyfriend - anything higher. He cried like a helpless child into his lap until his jeans were damp and his heart felt heavy.

Douglas felt that way about him for all these years, and he never let it out. He led Louis on until he became so dependant on Douglas that a break-up would cause physical heartache. He needed to be away from everything that could hurt him, jab at his already prone and vulnerable soul.

Could Harry really feel like that as well? Will he also get tired of Louis and leave him in a state much worse than this, because Louis felt something deeper with Harry and he knows he'd never handle this again.

The cloud got to him, it was a suffocating fog that make him stutter and choke until he couldn't breathe. It always showed up whenever there was a blow to his ego, an already fragile presence. It was what made him hurt himself, sit on the toilet seat or in the bathtub with only one intention: to let some of the pain leave.

One cut released some of the ache, the burn that seemed to prickle and scald the underside of his skin. It stayed there like a fizzing acid-based chemical until it got too much and he was forced to put an end to the torture.
He gets up and unlocks the door, grateful that nobody had entered while he was neck-deep in his emotional episode. Zipping up his jacket, he ducks from all the prying eyes as he scurries across the hallway to the elevator. The journey was the worst, because his iPhone burned bright red in his sweater pocket. His chest felt like it was filled with charcoal and he had no concern for whether Harry noticed whether he'd left or not. That makes him cry harder until he has to suck it up and walk outside.

He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his jacket, struggling to compose himself until he's inside his house and upstairs in his personal bathroom. He turns the dial and let's the water turn ice cold before filling his tub. Not bothering to strip down, he grabs his friendly box from his basin's cabinet and slips under the water.

The coldness immediately challenged the heat of his body, cooling him down to a shiver state. He fumbles with the box, trembling fingers and shaky breaths. It falls open and all the blades sink into the water. He grabs on, unintentionally giving himself a neat gash across his blue palm.

His Adam's Apple bobs as he swallows, he studies the blade like a precious raw material. Douglas' words float back into his mind and he starts to cry again, head against the back of the tub. His body shakes violently, creating further cuts on the fabric of his pants as the blades get caught in the material.

Slut.

Pathetic.

All he feels when the blade cuts skin is better. He feels relieved because he got to let out some of the stingy steam.

An hour later, Ed comes home because Phoebe lost Mr. Fluffles. Louis doesn't hear them because his head is lolled to the side, slipping further and further into the water. Ed discovers him like that and dials 911 because a breathing person shouldn't look that purple.

Notes