FIC: you always make it hard for me to stop
AO3 | LJ
~14,000 words
Louis has a national championship to win, the Dallas heat to battle, and a rivalry with Trier to rekindle. Harry Styles is from Trier. He complicates it all. National Forensic League (Speech and Debate) AU.
FIC: as a memento from me (harry/louis)
author: aliferuined
pairing: harry styles/louis tomlinson
disclaimer: 100% fictional in every way
word count: ~16,000
summary: five lives in which harry and louis didn’t end up together, and one in which they did.
warnings: there are five lives in this, so it involves people dying (but not staying dead).
favourite fics picspam - from the love to the lightning by mentalistecbm
“Read me something you’ve wrote,” Harry says, voice husky and warm.
Louis’ breath hitches, and he isn’t sure how he does it, but he wrenches his eyes away from Harry’s, turning his body so that he can get a journal from the drawer. “It’s pretty shit. Don’t laugh.”
“I won’t laugh.”
“Promise?”
Harry tilts his head. “Promise.”
Louis takes a deep breath. “I thought I understood it, that I could grasp it. But I didn’t, not really. I knew the smudgeness of it; the pink-slippered-all-containered-semi-precious eagerness of it. I didn’t realize it would sometimes be more than whole, that the wholeness was a rather luxurious idea. Because it’s the halves… that halve you in half. I didn’t know, don’t know, about the in between bits - the gory bits of you and gory bits of me.”
Louis chances a glance up through his eyelashes.
“Fuck, Louis,” Harry breathes.
Louis smiles, and grabs a pen, steeling himself and scribbling down onto a blank page, I think I really like you.
I think I really like you, too.
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“Are you cold, Louis?”
“If you can manage, I can, curly.”
“Here.” Harry sidles in behind him, resting his chin on Louis’ shoulder and covering them both with his stupidly big coat. Louis hesitates a second before falling back and fitting himself against Harry, grudgingly keeping his face blank. “Better?”
“A bit,” Louis shrugs, trying not to shiver as Harry’s breath tickles his ear. Harry hums against him and Louis feels it travel down his spine and, honestly, when the hell did this bloody happen?
“Ah, look, the Pont Neuf!” Harry points at the bridge looming over them, one arm still tight around Louis’ waist.
“Are you trying to impress me, Styles?”
“I’ve been trying all day. Is it working?” He can hear the smugness in his voice.
“I went to Paris in Year Ten, too, you twat, I know what the bloody Pont Neuf is!”
“Fine, fine.” Harry puts his face closer to Louis’ again, both arms warm around them. “I’ll stop pointing out the sights. I like it better like this anyway.”
“Wrapped around me like an octopus?”
“Yup. ‘S cosy.”
Louis lets a shaky breath, watching it turn into smoke. “Can’t argue with that.”
the grand tif scene-by-scene picspam - harry & louis first meeting
“Um, you all right in there?” says a voice, obviously holding back laughter.
There is a person in his classroom. A witness to his current state. Louis stares at the roof of his cardboard cube of shame and considers remaining in this box for the rest of his life.
No. This will not do. A Tomlinson never admits defeat.
“Yes, perfectly all right!” he says cheerfully. “That was entirely intentional.” He begins to shimmy out of the box with what he assumes can only be the utmost agility. “Gymnastics, you know. Working on my floor routine.”
Free of his recyclable prison, he looks up to see who has caught him in this predicament.
Oh. Oh.
Louis is struck with the sudden urge to light himself on fire. His would-be rescuer is a young man, which Louis had known from the voice, but he had not been prepared for this. Dark curly hair, green eyes, and a smile that Louis likes so much that he feels slightly violated. And no one should look that good in a plain white t-shirt and cargo shorts. He’s leaning against the doorway to Louis’ classroom, staring at him.
Louis blinks. He’s still there. Self-immolation is looking more and more appealing. At least Zayn could flirt with that hot fireman he’s obsessed with over Louis’ smoldering remains. Some good could come of this yet.
favourite fics picspam - show me lights by mentalistecbm
it’s almost misleading; beautiful and elaborate mansions and posh little shits riding around on their world-class horses, and then green and green and more green suddenly making way into stages of different size and effort and huge crowding of colored tents and hundreds of people milling about. harry puts his window down, feels the wind in his face and music blaring out from speakers. grins.
“we don’t know this song,” louis points out, shifting uncomfortably over on the passenger seat. harry bites his lip and stares straight ahead, too smug with the knowledge that it’s his fault.
“no, you don’t know this song. i do.”
louis gasps; harry glances over, sees him with his hand over his heart, face affronted. “how rude.”
“got it on the ipod, go ‘head, yeah.”
it’s a nice song, fun and lively like most of this band’s songs are, and harry belts it out while he tries to find the parking spot relatively close to the camping area. lou is listening intently, trying to catch the lyrics, and harry laughs, accepts the smack upside his head because, god, so worth it.
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“What’s your favorite, then?” Harry asks. He’s got these wandering hands, the fingertips that trail over every dusty spine on the shelves, peering at the titles as he walks past. “Out of all these books, which one do you love the most?”
Louis trails behind him. It feels like his shop has expanded a bit, has made a temporary space for this boy and his silly hair and his questions.
“I don’t think I can choose,” he says. “I love them all for different reasons.” Loves them for making him laugh and making him cry and making him feel less lonely sometimes, when the flat seems too empty and Louis pads down the steps where there are characters waiting for him, infinite worlds bound together by ink on a page. “Why would I want to choose?”
Harry pulls one of the spines out, his finger tracing over the yellowing pages, blurred from wear and overuse. “Everyone has a favorite,” he tells Louis. “That’s just the way it works.”
“Says who?”
Harry shrugs. He’s got awfully broad shoulders, expansive and wide. “Says me.” He smiles. Teeth and dimples, Louis thinks again, and he wonders how many people have gone weak over them.
