Young & Beautiful

It’s a mixture of relief and raw emotion and it’s a lot. It’s everything.
But before Louis can touch a gentle hand to his cheek, before he can search his face, label it, give
it a name he’ll keep in his bones forever, Harry’s leaning forward with his red, open lips and wet
cheeks and damp eyelashes and he—
He kisses Louis.
He’s absolutely kissing Louis, one hand in his hair, one hand clenched in his jacket, and he’s still
crying and Louis is dying. Maybe already dead. It’s soft, alarmingly soft, and slow as the drip of
rain, fallen from wet leaves. Like he’s being careful, like he’s savoring, like he’s handling
something precious even though Louis feels as if he’s locked in marble. So opposite of their last
kiss, of their panicked desperation.
Then Harry gasps for breath through his tears that, apparently, have kept flowing and he breaks
off before Louis can even begin to kiss back—and then he’s pressing a kiss to the corner of Louis’
mouth and, yes, Louis is most certainly already dead.
He can barely grasp the situation, can barely keep himself upright and Harry’s shuddering breaths
collide with Louis’ cheeks as he presses wet kiss after wet kiss to his cheekbones, jaw, nose,
forehead, temples, eyelids, the little space between his eyebrows, the bit between his lips and nose,
his chin—he’s just kissing Louis, little wet, sweet dabs that are reverent and careful and sighing
and crying and Louis’ face is moist with Harry’s tears and Harry’s kisses and it’s the most perfect
fucking thing in the world, with the sun rising, the wind whipping through the windows and
licking his skin icy.
“I thought,” Louis begins, tangling his hands in Harry’s hair and staring, just staring at Harry’s
pink cheeks and the way his eyelashes flutter with every press of his lips to Louis’ face. “I thought
you needed a friend?”
Harry stops, pressing one last hiccup-y kiss to the space near Louis’ left ear, and he shakes his
head, his grip on Louis tightening.
“I just need you,” he says, eyes finally meeting with Louis’. They’re shining. They’re fucking
shining and they’re brighter than the rising sun, more important than the rising sun, warmer than
all the suns in every stretch of the endless universe. They’re the collisions of stars and the
supernovas, the moons, and the nebulas and they’re everything. “I don’t know what I’m—I don’t
know anything,” he says, holding onto Louis, face alive. “I just need you. And you’re so much
more—you’re so much. And I—“
“You left after I kissed you,” Louis says, bewildered, breathless, swirling his fingers against
Harry’s scalp, causing his eyelids to flutter like the broken wings of a moth. “You left and I
thought—“
“You’re more than that,” Harry says, impassioned, gripping, burning. His eyes are clearer, drier,
his eyelashes still damp and sparkling under the dim lights and speckles of fresh, barely awoken
sunlight. “I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t. Not with you, Louis. You’re more.”
Well.
“You can, though,” Louis says, soft, bringing his hand to Harry’s face and brushing his thumb
across ever plane, every stretch of soft skin.
Harry closes his eyes, leans into the contact, cherishes the touch.
Louis is going to die.