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The Journey (Part 1 of It Has Led Me Here)
She's all bright eyes and not much else when he first sees her. It's probably the dim lighting in the room, and all the tequila shots Louis has consumed over the past hour. She has more than just eyes, he's sure, but he remembers those the best, brown and mischievous. He learns her name, but promptly forgets it and is left with half-finished wank sessions for weeks trying to recreate her smell and remember exactly what her body looks like.
The second time they meet, he actually remembers her name.
"It's Eleanor," Harry tells him. "She's in my year."
His best friend's slow drawl can be endearing sometimes, but right now Louis would like him to just hurry the fuck up and tell him why exactly he'd been withholding this information from Louis up until now.
"And what else? What does she like, where does she live?"
Harry gives him a confused look that quickly turns into a smirk, just as Louis realizes that is probably a weird thing to ask.
"You into her?" Harry sidles closer to Louis on the battered couch at so-and-so's house party.
"I--" Louis sees how close Harry's face has gotten to his, and notices how he's whispering soft and cheeky like they're telling each other secrets. Which he supposes they are. "Yeah, maybe."
Harry's loud cackle startles him after the boy's previously quiet demeanor and Louis punches him. Harry will probably take it as a playful punch, but Louis' actually embarrassed, just has too feminine of a swing to actually show it.
"You've gone red," Harry intones, back to whispering. "You're in Uni and there are plenty of pretty birds around. You don't have to be so shy about it."
Louis think he's right. Besides, they've been best friends since secondary school. It's not like Harry will do much more than take the piss out of him. It's just... Louis' not really used to being so soppy. He doesn't just want to fuck this girl, he wants to... get to know her?? His mind reels.
"Yeah, I fancy her. There. Happy?"
"Very," Harry smiles his cheeky smile. "She is quite hot."
And. That was unexpected. Like yeah, Harry's also a male with a beating heart, but he'd never considered that they might ever fancy the same girl. Maybe Harry's just being extra supportive.
"I've been wanting to ask her out for ages, but she's never been single until recently," Harry continues.
So yeah, definitely not being supportive.
"You---"
"But if you're into her, you can go on ahead. I'm not really bothered."
Louis stares. He can't tell if Harry's telling the truth or not, but before he can decide, he feels a weight pressing down from the other side of the couch.
He and Harry both break free from their bubble to look, and because his life is a goddamn movie, it's none other than Eleanor.
"Hey, boys," she offers, Louis' eyes going wild as he works harder to commit her soft curves to memory this time.
"Hey, babe." Harry reaches across Louis' lap to give her a light kiss across her olive-toned cheek.
Louis feels himself getting hot. Harry's literally sprawled out against him, flirting with the girl Louis likes and that he said he'd back off from. All he feels is hurt and the mesh of Harry's top against his left forearm. Harry finally gets up, though the warmth in Louis' face remains.
Harry seems to notice.
"Have you met my friend, Louis?" Harry looks over at him and winks. "He's single."
Eleanor giggles like fairy music, and Louis slaps a hand across his still hot face.
"Is that so," the hot thing in the tiny blue dress actually giving him the time of day asks.
"It is so," Harry answers for him. "And he just so happens to've told me he thinks you're fit."
Eleanor giggles again, and Louis sinks further into the couch waiting for it to swallow him. Louis is usually more put-together and smooth than this, but he thinks anyone would be buckling under this type of awkwardness.
"Do you fancy a drink, dear?" she asks, and it sounds like she's talking to him. "You look a bit tense."
"No, that's quite alright," Louis manages.
"Nonsense," Harry insists, re-aligning himself and heading off toward the drink table. Leaving Louis and Eleanor alone.
***
It's about four cans of Loco and two rum-and-cokes in and Louis is warm in a different way. His head is resting against Harry's shoulder, the boy animatedly talking to someone next to him, body unsettling Louis' comfort every now and again. He doesn't mind.
Sat next to him is Eleanor in all her glory. She's even prettier when he's drunk, and he doesn't think it's beer-goggles. It's like he's just now less scared to get a better look at her for fear of being caught.
The scarf she's been dawning all night seems to have fallen askew, and Louis fixes it for her. She smiles again, and they talk about a whole lot of nothing.
They talk about their ex's and their majors at University. They talk about their families, and then somehow about how cream cheese with chives is good on everything.
They fall asleep like that, but not before Louis wraps El (which he pleasantly realizes he's been calling her in his head all night) up into a comfy ball in his arms. He drifts off with her smell in his nostrils, and Harry's solid frame still acting as his pillow.
***
Somehow they're dating now, and it's weird because Louis' last relationship was back in sixth form and had ended rather messily. This feels easy in comparison, and that's why Louis thinks he was inclined in the first place. Eleanor never felt like a threat or a risk. She's soft and safe and nice, and with Louis' home life and the things he's had to deal with, she's exactly what he needs.
They go out to a lot of places alone at first, playfully disagreeing on restaurants and then finally settling for Eleanor's choice. He likes that. Soon though, Eleanor makes appearances at guys’ nights; unsurprisingly, everyone loves her. She can talk like one of the boys, and loves football just as much as Louis does. And then sometimes Liam heads off early to see his girlfriend, and Niall drifts off with some other mates to the next bar, and it's just Louis, Eleanor, and Harry.
And Louis hates those times. Not because he feels Harry is interrupting his dates, but because everything feels so natural. It feels exactly like it did when it was just him and Eleanor, but maybe even more relaxed because there are less times where Louis has to come up with something to say, and because he and Harry bounce off of each other like the lifelong bros they are.
And Louis hates it with a burning passion because it isn't supposed to be like this, is it? He's not supposed to want his best friend to come with him on his dates, is he? And it's even worse because Eleanor seems to feel just as chill about it. Or at least as far as Louis can tell by the hug she gives Harry at the end of every night and the equal and polite attention she always pays to the both of them during.
It's another guys' night fizzled out to three, and they are sat leisurely at a booth in a pub called Roscoe's. It's a school night, but Harry and Eleanor --who are both majoring in Business-- don't have any assignments due, and Louis can always just write his Elizabethan skit in the five minutes before class tomorrow. No big deal. Not like he's skiving off because nights like these are his favorite.
"So have you two shagged yet?" class-less Styles blurts about halfway through his banana milkshake.
Louis' face heats, but he brushes it off.
"And what business of that is yours?"
"Yeah, Hazza. Besides, it's not like you haven't heard us, what with you two being roomies and all," Eleanor adds.
Louis' face gets about 20 degrees hotter and he can't brush it off this time.
"What?!" he practically shouts, heading turning back and forth wildly between the two of them.
"I try to be polite, and leave the premises," Harry says, the picture of innocence.
"More like you like to come in without knocking and spend the night with us," Eleanor combats.
And she's right, but Louis didn't think she'd ever point that out. He never thought she got annoyed with it, never received any indication that she wanted any more alone time with Louis than she already has.
"You pretend you don't love it," Harry jibes, oblivious to El's possible critique of Harry's bad behavior.
"You know I do. It's just maybe Louis and I would have shagged already if you weren't around so often."
Harry's eyebrows raise, but's he's undeterred.
"I'd bet you'd do it even if I was there," Harry taunts. "If you wanted it enough."
"I don't think you could handle watching without having to touch yourself."
Louis just watches them go back and forth while he sits back and observes, hands clasped tight in on themselves. It's like watching a dance sitting somewhere closer than the front row. Their eyes gleam and their bodies look symmetrically ready to pounce right onto the table in front of Louis. Louis is feeling something, and while jealousy is unquestionably a part of it, there's something else to it he can't explain.
"I might, if you'd allow it." Harry turns to face him for the first time in what feels like hours. "If Lou'd allow it."
What? What are they even talking about? What is this conversation? What is this fucking acid-y feeling in his stomach?
"I don't--"
Harry starts laughing then, and Louis doesn't get it. Doesn't get any of this. Eleanor joins in.
"It's a joke, baby," El soothes.
"You should have seen the look on your face," Harry squeals, apparently dying from the humor of the thing.
Funny. It was meant to be funny.
When Louis falls asleep that night, it's just Eleanor by his side and no Harry at his feet as is usual. He's restless enough that Eleanor eventually stops using him as an anchor and goes off to sleep on her own side of the bed. And when he does finally fall asleep, it's to frightening dreams about wolves that chase him but who, when he goes to chase them back, howl and run off like it’s Louis who is the wild animal.
***
It's Wednesday, and Louis is late for his Theatre class on the fourth floor. He's late because he had needed a wank when he'd woken, and felt as though he'd be walking around campus with a loaded and inappropriate erection all day if he didn't take care of it.
He hadn't even gone for the lube, just punched his fist around his dick dry and felt it strain as his body lifted up off of the bed. The door wasn't locked, but Louis didn't care. He let the thrill guide him, visions of his sexy fucking girlfriend dancing lithely against his closed eyelids.
He's being loud, he knows, but he can't help it. It's been ages since he's had time to do this, and as was discussed a few nights back with Harry, he and Eleanor hadn't exactly been intimate yet. Maybe it really is because Harry is around so often. Louis had gotten really close to fingering Eleanor once while they were at the movies, but Harry had reached past them to grab some popcorn from El's lap and Louis chickened out.
It's to the memory of the silk feeling of her panties stretched tight around her bulging clit that he touches himself to. The almost-heat. The smell that lingered on his fingers afterward when he licked them free from the salt of the popcorn.
Is Harry cock-blocking him? No, his best friend would never do that. But he did say he fancied Eleanor. Harry's probably gotten off dozens of times thinking about Eleanor. Her pretty mouth, her perfect tits, her creamy legs, her pussy.
Louis' hand speeds up. Yeah, Harry would probably fuck Eleanor given the opportunity. If Louis gave the word, Harry would probably pound her until she couldn't say words anymore and she got all squishy and messy. From what Harry's told him about his other sexual exploits, he'd probably pull out and make El taste herself before jerking his tip and coming into her open mouth.
Louis comes for a long time. When he's finished, his duvet is in need of a washing and his head is a wreck. He's furious. He's furious that Eleanor and Harry get on so well, but mostly he's furious at himself for getting off on it.
So yeah, that's why he's late and why he's flustered as fuck trying to find the second strap on his knapsack, probably appearing like a lunatic to anyone watching him jog across Manchester's pristine campus like this.
When he finally arrives, he takes a seat next to Niall. The boy's warm smile relaxes him a bit. Niall's only in this class because his Music degree requires a theatre credit, but his laid back nature and unabashed enthusiasm make Louis happy to attend this sometimes-boring period block.
"So what's been goin' on witcha?" Niall asks.
"Well--" Louis starts before being scolded by their Professor for talking. Niall, like him, probably forgot that Louis being late means they don't get their usual 5 minutes before class to bant before lecture.
"We're gonna do a little improv today," Mr. Wilkinson boomed, his statement making up for Louis' earlier annoyance at him.
"Ms. Nelson and..." Their teacher pretends to ponder for a moment. "Ah, Mr. Tomlinson, since you showed such enthusiasm to join us all today, how about you come on up?"
What Old Wilks doesn't know is that this hardly counts as a punishment in his eyes. Improv is the only real time Louis feels like he can be himself at this stale establishment.
Thankfully, he knows Jesy, and they tend to work well together as an overall. She smiles at him while the Professor gives background for the skit they are about to do.
"Now this isn't going to be like Year 1 where one of you works at a grocery store and needs to help the other find their way around, no no no," he bellows. "This is Theatre 3, and as such, I want something a little more emotional."
Louis heart beats fast. He can do emotional.
"Louis, I want you to pretend that Jesy is your wife, with whom you are madly in love. Jesy, I want you to betray him in a way you can never come back from." Without any more detail than that, their Professor waves his chubby fingers in the air to signal them. "Action."
Louis acts immediately, miming himself opening a door. "Honey, I'm home," he calls, throwing his voice and already lost to the scene.
Jesy, without speaking, lays down on the floor and begins knocking on it supposedly to simulate noise in the other room. Louis walks in place to go and investigate.
Jesy makes more noise, this time adding moans to the mix. Thankfully the class doesn't get riled up, as they’ve all made it through the prerequisite classes to which the humor has been lost. Not that Louis notices them anyway.
He focuses closely, completely in character. He approaches another imaginary door, and opens it, even adding his own “creak” sound for effect.
Jesy whips her head around, long hair falling fast over the worry in her shoulder, arms around an imaginary lover. Louis gasps and runs forward. He looks Jesy in the eye, and has an easy time pretending she’s Eleanor, her olive skin and amber eyes aiding him.
Louis falls to his knees.
“How could you?” he cries. Actually cries.
He buries his head in his hands, giving a choking sob as he imagines Eleanor in bed with another man. Someone who isn’t him. An actual ache of pain shoots through his wrists and he gives another sob, this one much more honest than the last.
“I love you.” Now that he’s started, Louis can’t stop thinking about Eleanor how this would play out if it were her he found here. “How could you do this to me?”
“It’s over, Louis,” Jesy proclaims, her own tears starting to matt her mane of brown hair.
“And… scene,” Mr. Wilkinson announces. “Genius, the both of you.”
***
When Louis gets back from lesson, he's feeling relieved and letting the sharp autumn air pump awareness into his nostrils, ears, and other extremities. Louis rarely pays attention to theoretical theatre lessons, but more often than not participation days are very cathartic for him.
He's still flying a bit and humming a Cranberries song when he reaches the door to his dormitory. He's only mildly worried when he finds the door already unlocked. Probably just Harry being negligent again.
Louis sets his bag down by the couch and goes to make himself his routine cup of after-school tea when he hears them. Voices, ones he separates and recognizes easily, coming from behind the door to Harry's room.
His free and relaxed feeling vanishes only to be replaced by that funny feeling he gets whenever the two of them are together. That feeling he gets when he wanks. Now though, without his hand on his dick, his anger is winning out. He knows they were friends before Louis had ever met Eleanor, but Harry had told Louis he would be out all day today and Eleanor said she was planning on catching up on some sleep. It's the lying that's bothering him, he tells himself. Not that they're there without him.
He does something stupid and walks the paces toward Harry's door, resting his ear gently against the wood so as not to be heard. Louis had always considered himself to be above this sort of intrusive and unhealthy behavior, but here his is, straining not to move, palms sweating, and ears pierced for the tiniest of sounds.
There's a bit of a garble, as this is actually a very old and therefore very structurally sound building, but Louis thinks he makes out his name. Then silence.
The tension is just too much for him. He opens the door.
Things aren't exactly as bad as he'd imagined them in his paranoid little mind, but Eleanor and Harry's position is still a bit incriminating.
Harry's hands are wrapped tightly around El's body and his forehead is rested against her shoulder so that Louis can't see his eyes. Eleanor doesn't seem to be discouraging this clingy behavior; she has Harry's head in her hands and is stroking tenderly at the boy's long and vaguely curly mahogany locks.
Now would be a very bad time for Louis to notice how nice Harry's hair is.
"What is this?" Louis demands, finally channeling all he's been feeling these past few weeks into his words.
El and Harry both startle and Eleanor at least has the mind to look a bit guilty.
"Lou, it's not--" Harry tries, but Louis doesn't care anymore. If Harry really wanted to pursue Eleanor, he shouldn't have been such a glaring supporter of Louis and her relationship.
"OUT."
Harry doesn't hesitate. Louis doesn't get like this often, but when he does he means business, and Harry must remember that.
As Harry scrambles from the room, looking confused and maybe even a bit teary-eyed (if Louis cared to examine it), Eleanor walks over to him.
"Louis, what the hell?"
It's not what he expects, but it doesn't matter. He was having such a good day, and had finally gotten to the point where he actually believed El and Harry's chemistry was all in his head.
"What the fuck was that? You told me you were having a lie in, and not feeling well, but here you are looking completely fucking fine and holding Harry like you'd never hold me."
"Lou--"
"I don't want to hear it," Louis cries, collapsing on the bed, defeated. "I just can't believe you'd do this to me. That he'd do this to me."
"Louis!"
He perks up at her demanding tone, looking over to see her panting and red in the face. Beautiful even when she's betrayed him.
"What I've been trying to say is that I was having a lie-in. Harry texted me about getting a low grade on our Economics essay, and I told him to come 'round so I could try to cheer him up. That's all it was."
Louis closes his eyes and breathes for a moment. He'd let all his pent up anxieties about their relationship turn him into some kind of untrusting monster.
"I'm sorry," he tries. "I shouldn't have--"
She cuts him off with a kiss that, while unexpected, is completely welcome.
Once they finally stop to catch their breaths, Eleanor begins speaking.
"I know you've been feeling jealous and insecure lately."
"That obvious, was it?" Louis has always been able to get through tough situations with a bit of cheeky sarcasm.
El laughs before finishing.
"Yes. And I think I know what the problem is."
"And what's that?" Louis' getting back into the swing of things, tantrum forgotten and fingers inching up against Eleanor's bare back under her soft camisole.
"Well," she whispers hotly against his ear, inching closer. Right where he wants her. "Maybe I just need to better show you how much you mean to me?"
Louis might be dense sometimes, but he knows exactly where this is going, and holy hell is he on board.
He thinks he can feel her wetness against his leg, practically humping him standing up, but maybe it's just his overexcited and stimulated imagination.
He doubts it because before he can even complete a second thought, she's on him against the baby blue of Harry's bed sheets. And shit. He's in Harry's room. Harry, who he just wrongly accused of cheating with Louis' girlfriend and banished from the apartment.
"What about Harry?" Louis asks.
"What, can't get it up without him?" she teases, and no. Definitely not.
"You know that's not what I meant," he grouses. "I mean, I just sent him running."
"Aw, it's sweet that you care, babe. Especially since you're about 15 seconds from coming in your pants. You're a good friend."
He thinks she actually means that, and he grins dopily before remembering what he's supposed to be doing.
"I need to get him and apologize," Louis explains, fetching his phone from his knapsack that he'd deposited earlier on the floor in his rage.
"Babe." El is using her come hither voice, which he's only heard a handful of times. "You can just text him."
She spreads her legs as she talks and Louis gets a fabulous view of her panties that oddly kind of match Harry's bed sheets, pulled taught over where she's so swollen.
"Yeah, I'll text him."
And text Harry he does, with the fastest 'hey sorry youi can cmback mizzunderstanding' he can manage before jumping back into bed and getting his tongue in Eleanor's waiting mouth.
He literally can't wait, and despite her teasing, Eleanor isn't really doing much to move things past kissing, so he takes the initiative; he plants her face-up on the bed as she'd done to him only moments ago. He might not have had sex with this particular girl yet, but that doesn't mean he's never had sex.
He runs his hand up the softness of fabric along her sides, lifting the shirt up enough to glimpse a tan slice of skin. He growls at the sight and, once again, attaches himself to her mouth. Now, Louis' usually a fan of kissing. He could kiss someone all day and never get bored. But right now he can fucking smell El's tangy scent, and he just wants inside.
His girlfriend seems to be on board because it's not long before she's rutting up against him, and trying to usher his skinny's down his legs. He helps her clumsy fingers and rids himself of the troublesome garment, tossing them God knows where.
"Come on, pants as well," she breathes, and he's never heard her like this. She sounds turned on, and Louis did that.
He acquiesces and removes his briefs.
"Bit unfair of a distribution here, love," Louis grins.
El looks confused for a split second before she thankfully takes the hint and lifts her arms for him to remove her cami. He does just that, admiring the view.
He's about to reach for a condom where he knows they are in the bedside drawer, but El stops him.
"Wanna feel you for real," she intones, and Louis thinks he's blacked out.
"Are you sure, babe?"
"Just pull out before you come."
"Why, so you can taste it instead?" Louis always thinks this kind of fucked up shit and wishes he was this ultra confident person, but never seemed to find it in himself. Now, though, it's like he's a new person. He's the fucking Tommo. Top at sport and great at theatre, and about to bang one of the hottest birds on campus.
His newfound confidence thrums through him, and he gently fits himself inside her, looking down into her amber eyes. He doesn't break eye contact as he fucks. F.U.C.K.s. Like hard, and with abandon. Literal abandonment of all his fears and hang ups. He just pounds and pounds and she feels so good, and her sounds.
And with that, the door bangs open.
It's Harry, of course it's Harry.
"You --" the curly haired boy starts. "You said I could come back, I thought--"
"I didn't mean back into the bedroom, you--"
Before Louis can finish his thought, El tightens up around him, and reaches down to play with her clit and what the fuck.
Harry is in the room, likely shitting himself, but it feels too good for Louis to not follow his girlfriend's lead. He turns from Harry entirely and resumes fucking her with enough force for the headboard to shake.
Eleanor is moaning louder than she had since they started, and hey, maybe getting watched is her thing? Louis couldn't disagree that it isn’t doing it for him on some level as well.
Now more intensely aware of how his ass looks from Harry's view, Louis continues to plunder El's tight silkiness. He can feel himself getting close, and knows Eleanor couldn’t be far off. He hears a kind of soft whine from behind him. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it though because the sound seems to prematurely spur on Eleanor's orgasm. The clenching of her pussy along with the knowledge that Harry's sound made her come, Louis follows her lead, riding it out inside.
Post orgasm, Louis is all trembles, and he quickly pulls out before he accidentally collapses on the girl beneath him. He realizes too late that he's come in her, and that he really really wasn't supposed to.
Seemingly reading his mind, Eleanor coughs out a, "don't worry, I'm on the pill."
Anxiety momentarily relieved, Louis relaxes his shoulders and settles next to her, more than ready for a sleep. But Eleanor is talking, and he's about to respond through his sleepy haze until someone else responds.
Right. Harry's still in the room. Harry just watched them have sex. Harry's still in the room.
Louis chances a look up at him, and sees that the younger man is flushed, appearing sweaty in the coolness of the room. Harry's focused on Eleanor, so he doesn't notice when Louis looks down and yep, Harry's hard. His best friend is hard because he just watched them fuck. They just fucked in front of his best friend.
And worst of all, he'd gotten off on it.
Best to analyze that later, he thinks.
He does his best to cover up under the sheets. The robin's egg color is soothing for a dull moment until Louis realize they're not his. They're in Harry's room. No wonder Harry just barged in here like nothing.
"We just fucked in your bed," Louis states dumbly, cutting off whatever conversation Harry and El were having.
"Yeah," Harry acknowledges, and his voice sounds different somehow.
"Sorry."
That has Eleanor laughing next to him, and next thing he knows the three of them are all giggling like this is a totally normal thing that just happened.
"I always assumed you bottomed, though," Harry directs at Louis with a playful smirk, and Louis smacks his hand against his face in exasperation. And it feels normal, in a way. Except that Louis and Eleanor are naked and Harry is still hard.
Despite this sordid detail, Harry moves to sit on the bed, and despite all the odds, they all three stay up talking for hours until someone's (probably Louis') stomach rumbles.
It turns out that Louis is a lot less jealous now that he's gotten laid, and he even makes jabs at Harry about how he clearly wants to have sex with his girlfriend. Harry just shrugs and smiles mysteriously; Louis laughs and Eleanor spreads herself between the two of them as they munch away their Chinese takeout.
What a good day. What a good, completely normal day.
***