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Something’s gone wrong.

Something’s gone terribly wrong.

Reaching out, there is nothing. Grasping, frantically, for anything at all— there is nothing. Just a suffocating blackness, a darkness, an emptiness.

Then there’s pain.

There’s a crushing, mind-altering pain. There’s darkness and nothingness and a pain that weighs the heart down and electrifies the joints. Every movement feels like a bone breaking, every attempt to call for assistance like a dagger down the throat.

There is pain and there is nothing and something has gone so terribly, completely

wrong.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. This isn’t how it works, this isn’t what comes next.

But there is pain and darkness.

And then there is just darkness.

—

The morning light is soft and pleasant, pastel as it filters through the sheet curtains and lands softly on Harry’s sheets.

Harry’s head is

pounding.

The sun can bloody go to hell.

He groans, burying his face in his pillow to try to escape the bastard of a sun. “Mitch!” he croaks feebly.

There’s no reply. Damn it, it’s Sunday. Mitch’s day off. Harry groans and rethinks his life choices.

He remembers the excellent time he had last night and decides that he will never party to such a state of drunkenness again. It was a foolish thing to do, at his

advanced

age of 28.

At least, it was a foolish thing to do on a Saturday when he does not have Mitch around the next day to concoct his famous hangover cure.

Harry’s not going to last. He’s going to perish amongst the sheets. He will die a bachelor and they will find his bones and wonder what happened to such a strapping young alpha in the prime of his life.

Poor Harry, what a way to go.

He lays there in a haze of pitiful thoughts until the sun has shifted to fall across the floor instead of his bed, and it is only then that he looks up and sees that Mitch — lord bless the man — must have mixed up his famous hangover cure and left it at Harry’s bedside before leaving.

This is why Harry keeps having to fend off others trying to poach Mitch. Truly a masterful butler if there ever was one.

—

An hour later finds Harry completely free of that dastardly headache, feeling right as rain after downing the most foul tasting thing he could imagine. Works a treat, though. He sits at his dining table with morning paper in hand, mostly shuffling through the pages looking for the latest racing results. The Americans are getting a new president, the front page proclaims. He’ll have to inform Mitch of the news, the man has no cultural pride.

Harry’s flat looks down on a lovely garden that is, thankfully, far enough away that he cannot hear the screaming children that run through it. He watches out the window now as a young omega carries his small child forcefully away from the muddy pond. Harry wishes that omega the best of luck and thinks himself quite lucky that he’s avoided settling down up until now. Everything about courting, marrying, children… what a

hassle.

His mated friends so rarely have time to indulge his every whim any longer! Why, his nights of partying are growing rarer only because all of his friends keep bunking off with excuses of

the omega, you know

(or,

the alpha, unfortunately).

Harry could never live like that, tied down to a

routine.

Not when a whole world of opportunities lies in front of him.

He sips from his terribly burned espresso. Without Mitch he

is

rather hopeless at meals.

Harry gets lost in his newspaper, distracted by an article about a new park in the States coined

Mount Rushmore.

Ridiculous name, he thinks. Time passes the way a lazy Sunday loves to pass, like molasses; slow and golden. Harry considers ringing up Liam about another night out tonight, starts considering how likely it would be that he could get both Liam and Zayn on board again. Maybe even Niall this time, if he’s persuasive enough.

He’s still dreaming up these plans in his mind when he’s interrupted by someone violently rapping at the door.

Harry jumps up, smoothing his trousers as he goes over to the entryway. “Hold your bloody horses,” he shouts as the rapping becomes more insistent. “I’m either here or I am not, and either way you’re going to bring my blooming headache back.”

He wrenches open the door and comes face to face with Liam. “Liam! You sorry excuse of an alpha who left me stranded in Brantonbury Park last night. What’s the rush? I’ve got a telephone, you know.”

Liam huffs as he comes barrelling into the flat, rather rudely, Harry thinks. “Yes well telephones are only useful when we’re both at home, and I clearly am not.”

“Just you watch,” Harry says. “Someday they’ll make them so they can be wired into any building you go to, you’ll be able to bring it with you and plug it in in the pub!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, who would want to carry those big heavy things with them?” Liam says. “But that’s not the point at all, and you’re distracting me!” He runs a hand through his hair, and Harry only now takes in his unkempt and creased overcoat. Liam’s much too smart a dresser for this sort of look especially now that he’s mated Zayn.

“What can I do for you on this glorious Sunday?” Harry asks.

“Harry, this is serious,” Liam says. He strides over to the table and sits down in Harry’s chair at the head of the table, promptly downing the last dregs of Harry’s (cold) espresso. “I need you to hear me out about this.”

“Foreboding,” Harry says, pulling out a second chair. “Right, lay it on me, then. Are you off to war?”

“War’s been over for years, come on now,” Liam says. “No, this is a… it’s a favour. A personal favour.”

“How much did you lose at the races?” Harry asks. He tries to remember if any of the horses injured in the paper were any of Liam’s go-to’s.”

“No, it’s not money related. Or, maybe it will be, but it’s not me. In fact, if you need money, I can talk to Zayn, we can—”

“Liam my dear, you’re putting the cart before the horse,” Harry says. “Now it can’t be as bad as all that. Just spit it out, then.”

Liam takes a deep breath. “I have a friend who needs a place to stay.”

“Oh.” Harry blinks. “Is that all? Well that’s not a hardship. I mean, they can board in the summer home down in Cornwall if they don’t mind Gemma and her new beau kicking them out for a week in August. It’s not like any of us use it much anyway.”

“No, this isn’t that sort of situation,” Liam says. “It’s— he’s an omega. With a failed bond.”

Harry sits up straight now, heart clenching a little. “A failed— Liam! That’s a serious claim. Are you sure?”

Liam grimaces. “Beyond sure. They were at the altar and the bond didn’t take.”

“When?” Harry asks. Gossip like that should be the talk of the town in this society.

“Near two weeks ago. Took that long for me to find out where they’d sent him. It was a small ceremony; mostly the alpha’s friends and I didn’t recognize many of them. When it happened I just— Harry, I was in

shock.”

“How could you not be?” Harry muses, leaning back. A failed bond— at the

altar,

in front of all those people.

A failed bond is said to be a sign of infidelity. Bonds so rarely fail that when they do, most everyone knows about it because a failed bond means one of the pair wasn’t loyal— either physically or emotionally.

Although really, bonds are mysterious things. As far as Harry can tell, a bond is rejected if one of the pair doesn’t want to go through with it. But the threat of a failed bond comes with such a weight that most people wouldn’t dare to agree to being bonded unless they were truly sure their hearts were in it. He shivers. Yet another reason why Harry is

very

happily single.

“It took me almost two weeks to find him, and his damned fianceé was no help,” Liam continues, frustration showing on his face. “The man wouldn’t return my calls or answer the door, only found him finally when I ran into him at The Red Lion.”

“The Red Lion on Sommerset?”

“No, The Red Lion at the end of Cobbles Street.”

“Ah. The shady one.”

“That’s the one. Anyway, he wouldn’t tell me the institution until I damn near threatened to wallop him.”

“You couldn’t wallop a limping pigeon,” Harry says. “Wait, he sent his fianceé off to an institution?” It’s not unheard of, especially since omegas are usually blamed in the event of a failed bond (truly ridiculous, mind you), but Harry still gets a nasty taste in his mouth about it.

“Not just any institution,” Liam says. “Stanley Royd.”

“All the way up in Leeds?” Harry asks. “I had a cousin who was there after the war, said it was a nasty place. Good god, he wanted him disappeared, didn’t he?”

Liam sits back. “As good as abandoned,”  I asked around already, gave them a ring. He’s had no visitors, I’m sure nobody knows he’s there.”

“Who is this?” Harry asks. “And where’s the rest of his family in all this? Surely someone would have disagreed.”

An omega with a failed bond is mentally and physically in a precarious place. Most never recover unless they have extensive care, and usually only with the care of an unmated alpha, for safety reasons. This is why so often omegas’ doctors have to remain celibate. But surely at least his family would object to being institutionalised— usually that was only left as a last resort when recovery is beyond hope.

“My mate from university,” Liam says. “You remember me talking about him— Tomlinson.”

A lightbulb flickers on in Harry’s brain. “Louis,” he says. “The one you always go on about throwing the best shindigs and wild nights. That Tomlinson?”

They always have seemed to just miss each other. Liam’s bragged about Louis on more than a few occasions, how he’s the life of the party. Harry’s wondered a few times if Liam’s made up this mysterious great omega friend, considering how he’s heard about him so many times over the years but never run into him.

“That’s the one.” Liam nods. “His family’s mostly out of the country; one sister married an American and emigrated, think his mum and other siblings live in France. I haven’t been able to get ahold of any of them.”

“France is nice this time of year,” Harry says, because such things must be said about France.

“Harry, concentrate,” Liam says.

“I

am,

thank you,” Harry grumbles. “Yes, your amazing omega friend Louis who is so much better at throwing get togethers than I am, that Louis. He’s at Stanley Royd? Have you gone to see him?”

“I’ve rung but they won’t let me visit.” Liam looks deeply into the empty espresso cup. Harry should put the kettle on. “No unrelated unmated alpha visitors are allowed, they said it could negatively impact him.”

“Right,” says Harry. “That sounds reasonable.”

“It certainly does

not

since he’s got no

related

alphas visiting him,” Liam snaps. “He’s alone, Harry, in a place I wouldn’t particularly want to send even Corden.”

Harry scoffs. “You’d send Corden to the depths of the ocean if you could. Any of us would.”

“Quite right but besides my point,” Liam says.

“I sense we are coming to the aforementioned favour.”

Nodding, Liam fixes Harry with a serious look. “I can’t bring him out of there because I’m a mated alpha,” he says. “We aren’t able to bring an omega in crisis into our home, he wouldn’t react well to the scents.”

Harry frowns. “Hey now,” he says. “I think I’m seeing the direction you’re going here, and—”

“Harry,” Liam says. “You’ve got an extra room here and time to spare. Please.”

“I’m a happy bachelor!” Harry exclaims, hand to his chest. “I have no desire to settle down!”

“It wouldn’t be settling down!” Liam argues. “It would be you helping a mate through a hard time! He just needs to be somewhere safe! It’s only been two weeks, he still has the chance of recovery. I can’t leave him locked up in some godforsaken institution hoping that

they’ll

take proper care of him!”

Harry looks around his flat. It’s got all the trappings of a classic alpha bachelor pad, complete with dirty dishes in the sink that he’s hopeful that Mitch will clean without comment tomorrow. Nothing here shouts

mated couple.

“If I sign him out of that institution and bring him home with me, I’ll be practically signing a marriage contract,” Harry says.

“Not necessarily!” Liam argues. “Listen, I just need him recovered enough that he’ll be able to choose for himself where to go. Zayn and I are happy to help his recovery along the rest of the way once Louis is back to himself! He just needs, you know, close proximity to an unbonded alpha to reorient and clear the bond. You

know

that if I tried to bring him home right now, being in the middle of Zayn and myself would stress the omega in him out far too much.”

Liam is so under-complicating the issue. A failed bond for an omega puts them in an emotionally very fragile place.

Harry sighs, putting a hand to his brow. “Liam,” he says. “This is a lot to ask of a man.”

“I know it is,” Liam says.

“I have truly no reason to agree to it.”

“Your reason for doing it is because you are a good alpha at heart, and because if you don’t, I will be absolutely crushed. He’s one of my best mates, Harry. I can’t have him wasting away in there while there’s still hope to save him.”

Taking a deep breath, Harry absently starts folding the newspaper on the table. “Say I did agree to this plan,” he says. “This rather ridiculous plan. When would this be taking place?”

“Stanley Royd isn’t open to any visitors until Monday,” Liam says.

“So, a day.”

“A day.”

Harry grimaces. A rational alpha would immediately turn this down. Harry’s always considered himself to be a pretty rational alpha.

Unfortunately, he’s also got a soft spot for Liam, fool that he is.

“Let me think about it,” he says. If Mitch were here,

he’d

surely know what to do.

“Of course,” says Liam. “Take all the time you need.”

“All the time until tomorrow, you mean.”

“Well… yes, that is exactly what I mean, yes.”

Harry smiles ruefully. “You’ve always been too kind for your own good, Payne. I’ll think about it, but I make no promises.”

Liam slaps his knees as he gets up, like the old man that he is on the inside. “If you have any questions, let me know. But he’s the best man, Harry. He deserves better than this.”

Harry walks him to the door and watches him go. Then he turns around and surveys his flat. It’s a bachelor pad. The idea of an omega living here with him… Well, that would be just ridiculous. Preposterous.

He walks back to the table and shuffles listlessly through the newspaper. There are other families down in the gardens now, children running through the greenery, prams being pushed.

Of all the people Liam could ask, Harry is the least likely to be of any help. Of course he’d be there for his pals in a heartbeat, but something life-altering like this? Unreasonable.

He will simply have to politely turn Liam down. It only makes sense. An omega with a rejected bond is… well, he needs more than Harry has to offer, he knows that for a fact.

The rest of Harry’s Sunday passes with an odd bitter aftertaste, and even as he is falling asleep he is sure in his decision that this omega, Louis, would not thrive here in his little flat.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There is a

darkness

.

There is nothing and there is a darkness, heavy like a cloud.

It feels real, feels solid. Like a fog that has blanketed his world, crushing down and suffocating.

Harry tries to lift his hands, to rub at his eyes, maybe clear the darkness from them. His movements are slow and groggy, like he’s swimming through gelatin. When he gets his hands even inches in front of his face, he can barely even make out their outline, the darkness is so thick.

Then the ground tilts.

The ground tilts and he falls, but the darkness around him is so thick, so cloying, that even as he stumbles it is as if he is falling through molasses.

The ground tilts and tilts and his head is hot and pounding, dizziness eating away at him and bringing a foul taste to the back of his mouth, acrid and acidic.

If he could just

see

, perhaps he could right himself. Perhaps he could escape wherever this place is.

His hands hit the ground and it feels like tar, rough and hot and immediately searing his palms. Harry yelps but the sound is lost before it leaves his throat. He doesn’t have time to roll onto his back before the ground tilts again and he’s tumbling now, down a rubbery embankment, like a rag doll tossed aside. Bruises bloom across his skin as he falls, and the temperature grows colder. It’s dropping with every moment, until the cold constricts around his very heart. It is as if he is going for a winter swim, but without the hope of being able to crawl out of the water and warm up in front of the fire. No, he is in a world alone now, cold and aching and sinking downward, downward, ever downward.

Then, in a sudden moment, he separates from the ground that he has been rolling down, and falls into open air. A searing, white hot pain hits at the junction between his neck and shoulder, and all Harry can manage is a wordless gasp as his every sense is awoken, his nerves on fire as he falls into the ever-darkness. The pain dances through him like the heat of blades fresh out of an oven, plunged into his skin, slicing cleanly through and tearing him apart.

There are no thoughts now, no hope for this to end, no wonders at how to escape. Only acceptance that this pain is all there is and all there will be.

Just this.

—

Harry wakes to a cool, damp cloth on his forehead.

“Mitch—” he gasps, throat raw. “Mitch, was I—”

Mitch appears in the doorway, looming as he tends to do. He has a cup of tea in hand that he brings to place at Harry’s nightstand with a grace that Harry thinks should not be attributed to anyone woken from sleep the way he surely was.

“Yes, sir,” Mitch says. The teacup clinks in its saucer as he sets it down. “Your throat may be a bit sore for a while; I have added honey to your tea to help soothe.”

Harry sits up, throwing off his damp covers. He’s drenched in sweat. “Thank you, Mitch,” he says. “What is the time?”

“A quarter past four, sir.”

Harry groans. He’s wide awake now, that’s for sure. He rubs at his eyes before reaching over and taking up the cup. “I apologise for waking you,” he says, before sipping. The tea is warm and sweet with the honey.

“Is there anything else you need?” Mitch asks. “Shall I draw you a bath?”

A bath sounds nice, although it will surely chase the last vestiges of sleep from him.

Then again, Harry has no desire to risk returning to that dream world again.

“Please do,” he says. “And prepare the car to leave at dawn. I shall have to visit the Paynes as soon as they are awake.” He takes another drink of tea.

Mitch nods. “Certainly, Master Styles.”

“Wait, no,” Harry holds his hand up. “You’ve missed details. Mitch, I am going to— I must—” he scrunches his face up. “I will be taking in a boarder, for an undefined amount of time. Please prepare the space as you see fit.”

“A boarder, sir?”

“An omega. He will be… troubled.”

“Will you be sharing the bed, sir?”

Harry wishes so badly to be asleep again. “I— no, I don’t think so. I’m not sure. He will be in the office, or on the sofa. Or perhaps I will commission a trundle bed.”

“A… trundle bed, sir.”

Harry is not cut out for this. He is not meant to shelter an omega. Is this not why he swore off courting years ago? “I don’t know, Mitch! I do not know what the omega needs! Please do whatever you think is best!”

He sulks into his cup, drinking the tea much too fast.

“Yes… of course, Master Styles.” Mitch takes the empty cup from him. “I will draw your bath presently, and then I shall ring the Paynes to inform them of our arrival.”

“Thank you, Mitch.” Harry sighs. “What would I do without you?”

Mitch simply hums as he leaves the room. Harry takes off the flannel draped across his forehead so that he can flip it over to the cooler side. He can sense a pounding headache starting.

Damn Liam.

—

When Harry arrives at the Payne’s, Liam comes barrelling out the door, which is impressive considering the sun has barely risen and Liam is known not to be an early riser.

He stumbles down the steps and opens the door to the car before Mitch can get out and open it for him.

“Oh Harry,” he says, climbing in, tie askew and waistcoat rumpled. “I knew you’d be willing to help. I told Zayn that if anyone could help Louis, you could.”

“I don’t think that we know yet whether I will do more harm than good,” Harry says. He’s grumpy now, having been awake much too long. “Liam Payne you are a fool to think that I will do anything short of ruining that poor omega’s reputation.”

“Living with an unmarried alpha is the least of his worries,” Liam says. Mitch pulls the car into early London traffic and the wind whips softly through the open window next to Harry, bringing with it the smell of soot and smog. “I fear the only reason his bond status is not more talked about is because he was removed from society so fast. The second he reappears with a scar I’m sure the rumours will be in full force.”

“Yes and everyone will assume he was cheating on his alpha

with

me!” Harry hisses. “At least recovering on his own would clear his name a bit.”

They both know, logically, that omegas so rarely reemerge from institutions after failed bonds. So rarely are they able to recover at all.

“I think,” Liam says slowly. “I think we both know that it is perhaps too late to worry about that sort of thing. His reputation.”

They do both know, really, that in a failed bond, society will

always

blame the omega. Harry knows how nonsensical it is. But it is ingrained, when people see that alphas can walk away scot free while omegas take the brunt of the pain, to assume that this pain is justifiably brought on the omega.

Why, if Harry were an omega he would never dream of taking a mate, for just this reason. The risk is too high.

Harry turns to watch out the window as their car rumbles through the noisy streets. “I will do what I can,” he tells Liam. “I just want you to know that if I do not end up the hero of this tale, that I said as much.”

“I know that,” Liam agrees. “I do. I just also know that you are kinder than you give yourself credit for.”

Ridiculous. Harry is pompous and full of himself as a happily bachelored alpha. He is

incredibly

kind to himself. Really the most unkind thing he is doing to himself is risking letting an omega into his life.

But the car is leaving London, and it’s too late to turn back now.

—

Stanley Royd is a full morning’s travel. Harry nods off as they exit the city and the views turn to farmland and cattle. He wakes up with a stiff neck somewhere around Nottingham.

“So there is… something I do need to let you know,” Liam says as Harry tries to stretch and get comfortable. He’s not usually one for cross country travel.

“A troubling start,” Harry says.

“Well you see, I did mention that the institution said that there were no unrelated unmated alphas allowed as visitors,” Liam says.

“Yes, thus the basis of your scheme here,” Harry agrees.

“Well you

see,”

Liam repeats, “It’s actually a bit more complicated than that. Because according to the records, Louis

is

married.”

“With a failed bond?” Harry asks, frowning. “That’s… a little odd, considering he’s been dropped off at an institution. Has the paperwork just not gone through yet?”

“I can’t figure it out,” Liam says. “The paperwork had to have been submitted after the ceremony and I don’t know why they would’ve. But… that

does

mean he can’t leave the institution with just anyone.”

“…Yes,” Harry agrees. “He would, I assume, have to leave with his alpha.”

“Right,” Liam says. “An unbonded alpha who claims to be his husband.”

“Liam,” Harry hisses. “Are you asking me to

impersonate

his alpha?”

“Well it’s not like

his alpha

is ever going to notice!” Liam shouts, clearly having dwelt on this for quite a while. “The man dropped him off like a hunting dog he didn’t care for anymore! He’s clearly not going to come back for him!”

“I assume he would be

notified

in some way that he supposedly made a trip all the way to Wakefield,” Harry says. “I think something might

tip him off

when his supposed husband is no longer where he left him!”

“And I’m sure if Louis were conscious enough to object we wouldn’t be in this situation at all!” Liam says. “But he’s not, and I’m getting him out of there, his alpha be damned! The man deserves better than to spend the rest of his life locked up in an institution.”

Harry sighs. “Yes, I’m sorry. Of course he does. How are we doing this, then? What’s this alpha’s name?”

“Aiden,” Liam says. “While we’re there, you’re Aiden Grimshaw. Annoying little man.”

“I can do annoying,” Harry says, trying to talk himself into this. “It’s so inverse of my personality that I shall just act opposite of how I really am.”

“Yes, just so,” Liam says, smiling ruefully. “I’m sure it will be a simple thing. If they ask, his birthday is December 24th.”

“Aiden Grimshaw,” Harry muses. “Very outdated name.”

The countryside speeds past them as their car puffs and shakes in that familiar way that cars do, and Harry tries to calculate how big of a mistake they’re making and how much trouble he is really in.

—

It is actually wholly and completely terrible how seamlessly everything goes off.

The beta at the front desk— because institutions are always staffed by betas, for the sake of neutrality— is an older, severe woman with a neat bun.

“Hello,” says Harry. Liam has opted to wait in the car, because he does not want to accidentally complicate things, so it is just Harry and Mitch.

The woman nods at him in the severe way of a teacher who is about to tell him off for playing in the courtyard between classes.

“I am, ah, here to collect my husband,” Harry says. “Louis— Grimshaw.”

The woman opens one of many large legers on the desk in front of her. “Name,” she says flatly.

“Ah— Louis Gr—”

“Your

name.”

“Oh yes. Quite right, sorry. Aiden Grimshaw.”

She nods, and pens something into the ledger. Then, she looks Harry up and down in a way that he doesn’t much appreciate. He’s taken off his overcoat and thrown it over his arm, and the collar of his shirt is unbuttonned, revealing a bit more of his neck and shoulders than maybe he should because it got

damn

hot in that car. Still, the woman doesn’t need to give him such an ill tempered look about it.  “Down that corridor, up a flight, door at the end of the hall.”

She points, and Harry’s eyes follow. There’s no one else around, and the corridor looks less than inviting. “Thank you

so

much,” he says.

The woman says nothing. She does not seem impressed. Harry hurries off in the direction she pointed, simply to get further away from her.

“Mitch,” he whispers when he thinks they’re out of hearing range. “Am I going to hell for this?”

“For kidnapping an omega from an asylum?” Mitch asks.

“Yes.”

“I believe I am not one to say, sir.”

Damn Mitch. Always knowing more than he lets on.

There is heavy wooden door after heavy wooden door, and after Harry’s past nearly a dozen, he finds the stairs.

Up on the first floor, he has to stop himself from practically running to the end of the hall. He’s sure he looks ridiculously suspicious, hurrying about like this.

“Door at the end of the hall,” Harry mutters. “Which end? By golly what if I take a stranger out of here?”

“It might be helpful to know, sir, that they’ve written the names of the patients on the doors.”

What would Harry do without Mitch?

“Thank you, yes that is helpful,” Harry says. When he gets to the end of the hall that is nearest the stairs, the door does indeed read

Louis Grimshaw

in scratchy script.

“I’m a fool,” Harry says to himself, pacing back and forth in front of the door. “Nothing good can come of this.”

Mitch stands patiently behind him.

Eventually gathering enough courage, Harry raps his knuckles against the door. When no sound is heard, he turns the handle slowly until the click sounds, and pushes it inward.

The light is dim, filtering through a small dirty window.

The room is dingy, small and nearly empty. There is a chest in one corner, a sink in another, and a bedframe with a thin mattress under the window. The tiled floor amplifies his footsteps and the peeling paint on the walls feels sad and disrespectful to the resident.

On the mattress, without even a blanket, lays an omega; surely the omega in question. He’s curled with his knees up to his chest, and his eyes are open, although they seem blank and unseeing. As Harry moves into the room his eyelids flutter, like he’s having an unsettling dream.

Harry knows the feeling.

“Hello Louis,” Harry says softly, speaking as if he’s a wild animal, which in many ways he is. He’s aware that Mitch stayed outside the room, guarding the doorway, and leaving Harry alone, an alpha with an omega who doesn’t know him. An omega going through a failed bond is living on his basest instincts to survive. Harry can’t smell any sort of emotion on him, nothing but the undercurrent of

omega

on his skin.

“Hello, I’m Harry,” Harry says. “I’m here to bring you home. Liam’s asked me to. You remember Liam, don’t you?”

There’s not the slightest bit of recognition, he doesn’t stir. Harry, for lack of a better option because Christ above, no one’s

trained

him for this, kneels down in front of the bed and gets his face a hand’s breadth away from Louis’, making eye contact with those unseeing eyes.

“I’m going to need you to help me out a little bit here,” he says. “Because Liam’s going to be very disappointed if someone realises that you’ve never met me before, so we’re going to have to fake it a bit.”

He gets a bit more of Louis’ scent this close up. The man smells of French white antibes melon, and for a moment Harry is a little intoxicated with it. It’s a subtle, soft sweetness.

“Please know that usually I

would

be gentleman enough to ask your permission before doing this sort of thing,” Harry says, getting a little bolder as he rocks back a bit. “I mean, buy you dinner first at the very least. But I think there’s a time and place for everything, and for you right now the place is not here, so we’d best be on our way.”

He had hoped, somehow, that he could somehow

speak

Louis into wakefulness. Of course that’s not how that works, that’s how none of this works. But what Harry’s about to do is incredibly invasive, and at least this way he can defend himself later that he

tried

other methods first.

Reaching out, Harry gently lays a hand on Louis’ forearm. Louis

does

jolt a bit at this, breathing picks up, although there’s no lucidity that Harry is aware of. He’s down deep.

“You’re perfectly alright,” Harry tells him, running his hand down his arm, getting some warmth back in him. Louis’ dressed in a simple institutional frock, and it cannot possibly be comfortable. The poor omega must be

freezing,

in bare feet and legs exposed up to just below the knee. How anyone can think that leaving an omega in their most vulnerable moments in a state like this is beyond him.

Then again, most people who do not personally know someone in an institution have never been to one, have they?

“Come on, love,” Harry says. “Let’s breathe a little life into, just until we get to the car and Mitch can make our daring escape.”

Mitch does not comment, but Harry  knows he’s good at daring escapes.

“Now you may not forgive me for this,” Harry says, leaning down again, invading Louis’ personal space a bit more. “But I hope that you just hold it equally against Liam, because this was all his idea.”

Then, even though every muscle in his body is telling him that this is

terribly

rude and improper, Harry induces a bit of that alpha baritone in his voice and he whispers into Louis’ ear,

“Get up and come with me, Love, we need to get you out of here.”

Alpha baritones are considered barbaric, something never used by

society gentlemen.

They’re a throwback to that time when alphas were trained for crusades and invasions, when there were rumours of King Henry VI raising up an entirely feral alpha brigade. Or, in the most commonly cited uses of it, the feral armies of the Crusades.

Alpha baritones are

indecent.

But alpha baritones are also often the only thing that can be used in hospitals with comatose or dropped omegas, to get them to eat without intubation.

Nothing about the omega in front of him is giving

consciousness.

Harry watches with a sad sort of resigned horror as Louis’ limbs twitch and he sits up, eyes still open and lifeless, like a doll. If they were mated and married, this would be an act of love, of closeness, for an alpha to serve their omega this way in the hospital. They would praise Harry for doing the good, hard thing.

But they’re not mated, and this omega is foreign to him, and Harry hopes someday if and when he recovers from this failed bond, that he doesn’t remember any of it.

“Come on now,” Harry says, putting his arm around Louis’ waist to help hold him up. Louis walks with him as Harry guides him, and it’s reminiscent of when he used to guide his sleepwalking sister to bed. He shivers, probably from being so exposed in just the frock. Harry notes the only other thing he’s wearing is a thick gold band around his middle finger, the hand curled in a loose fist.

“Check the chest, Mitch?” Harry asks as they leave the room. He would like to think that Louis at least has some shoes in there.

Mitch does, and comes back to report it empty. Christ.

“Remind me to not give any sort of philanthropy to Stanley Royd,” Harry says. “I’m not enjoying my experience here one bit.”

The walk down the stairs is the hardest bit and Louis stumbles enough that Harry ends up half-hoisting him into his arms until they reach the bottom.

“Go ahead out and start the car,” Harry tells Mitch as they near the front desk. “If she asks too many questions I’m just going to have a little heart attack and pick him up and run out of here. I am telling you this so that you will be prepared for when Liam ends up making me a kidnapping fugitive.”

“Yes sir,” Mitch says, speeding up and somehow blending effortlessly into the shadows the way a good butler does. Harry will always be impressed by that.

When he passes the front desk, Louis shuffling along at his side, the severe woman only asks when they will be returning.

“We will play it by ear,” Harry says. “A few days of sunshine shall do him good.”

“Be sure that he gets some shoes,” is all the woman says.

As he shoulders the heavy wooden front doors open and leads Louis into the surprisingly bright sunshine, Mitch has already pulled the car around for them and pulls open the door.

“Thank you, Mitch,” says Harry. He waits until he hears the doors slam behind them and then sweeps Louis up into that same awkward hold from the stairwell so that he can deposit him more or less smoothly into the middle seat of the car.

“Harry!” Liam shouts. “You did it!”

“Shush,” Harry says. “Have you never done illegal things? Stop shouting my name all over the place.”

Both times that Harry has picked him up, Louis has been far lighter than Harry expected, and Liam confirms this as Harry slides into his seat and pulls the door closed.

“Louis, oh goodness,” Liam says, sounding forlorn. “He’s completely different to how he looked even the last time I’d seen him.”

“Well even a top institution can only do so much for an omega in his condition,” Harry says, “And I may be bold in saying it, but I do not think Stanley Royd is a top institution. The

dust alone,

Liam.”

Louis sits between them, head drooped, like a porcelain doll. Catatonic now that Harry isn’t urging him to move anymore. Harry feels the desire to bundle him up and keep him warm, but he doesn’t have much in the way of extra clothes, and he certainly doesn’t want to invade his space unnecessarily again so soon.

“Well heavens, let him scent you at least, Liam,” Harry says. “He

knows

you, I dare say he’ll like it a hair more than he appreciates me right now.”

Liam’s eyes are as sad as a basset hound’s, and he leans over to curl his arm around Louis’ back. As soon as he makes contact, though, Louis shudders away, swaying into Harry’s space and making Liam look

significantly

more destroyed about the whole thing.

“He doesn’t remember me,” Liam nearly wails. “Or even worse, he does and he hates me for letting this happen to him!”

“Hush,” Harry says. “Your emotions are going to scare him, you’re a big intimidating bonded alpha and apparently he’s too deep to recognise your scent, that’s all. I’m quite sorry I asked, here—” He shoulders out of his coat, which takes a lot of careful flailing to not at the same time run into Louis, who is still leaning into his space, and then drapes it over Louis’ legs. “He’s got to be downright uncomfortable here, and he’s going to be trapped in this small little cabin until midafternoon, the least we can do is make him a bit more comfortable.

“Should I—?” Liam asks, clearly still hurt and unsure now.

“Yes yes, come on now,” Harry says, waving his fingers in a

get on with it

motion. “Hand over yours, let’s keep him properly warm.”

Liam gets his coat off and Harry drapes it over Louis’ shoulders. It makes Louis’ frame seem even smaller, his chestnut brown hair a ruffled mess where it sticks up around the collar. Harry spots that gold band on his finger again and wonders if it was an engagement ring. Wonders if he should throw it out the window.

“At least this way maybe he’ll get more acclimated to your scent,” Harry says, adjusting the coat. “Thinking with his omega brain, isn’t he?”

“Yes of course,” Liam says. “I didn’t expect him to recognise me, no of course not. I just— I was hoping it wouldn’t be this bad.” He sniffs. “Oh Harry. He’s so small. Louis is so loud and full of life all the time, I never would’ve expected him to seem so

small.”

“I don’t know him at all,” Harry says, because everything is starting to feel absolutely insane to him. They’ve just stolen an omega, on a

whim.

“I don’t know him, I know nothing about what he’s like, and now you are expecting me to know how to care for him and help him recover!” He runs a hand through his hair. “Liam, this will never work. Why did I agree to this?”

“Because you’re a good man and a good alpha, despite what you keep trying to convince everyone,” Liam says. “Oh Harry, you’d love him. I always did say we should get the two of you together, you’d get on like mice and cheese.”

Is Harry the mouse or the cheese? “I worry that you will never properly see your friend as he was before,” Harry cautions him. “And you’ll have to be okay with that.”

Liam is back to looking like he may cry. “I’d do anything for him,” he says.

“I know you would,” Harry says. He looks at the omega between them. He can’t have an emotional breakdown about what he’s just done

now,

can he, because now is Liam’s turn. He takes a breath. “And that’s because you’re a good friend. But he’s here now and he’s my responsibility because thanks to you I am a hardened criminal, and so I suppose I’m just going to have to make sure he’s properly taken care of.” He glances toward the front of the car. “Or, Mitch will. Mitch is bound to be good at this sort of thing.”

Someone

has to be. Because Harry’s suddenly found himself in possession of a catatonic omega and if he admits that none of them have any idea what they’re doing, then surely all hell will break loose.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The thing about institutions, is that Harry has never been particularly fond of them.

His great aunt was in one. A quality one, according to the rest of the family. And Harry’s great aunt was prone to fits of hysteria (according to his great uncle), so an institution was in her best interest. She would get all the sunshine and fresh air she could ask for, and would have plenty of friends there to spend time with.

But Harry also has read all of the news articles about institutions, about the alpha doctors going around and using their alpha baritones to get patients to eat whether they want to or not, to move and exercise regardless of whether they want to or not, to basically go through all the typical parts of

living,

with no thought about whether that’s what the omegas need at that time.

And no one in his family, as far as Harry knew, ever visited his aunt. She had passed away when he was young, but not so young as to not notice.

Because that’s who always ends up in institutions. Omegas, and old alphas too wounded in the war to mentally come home.

The men in the club always chide Harry for how

soft

he is, too

soft

for an alpha, but at some point he does have to put his foot down and say,

actually I think forcing people to do things against their will isn’t that great, have we considered that?

So, suddenly having to employ his alpha baritone is a bit jarring, and Harry can confirm that he in fact does not like it one bit.

But here he is, sitting in his favourite armchair, just sort of

watching

the omega that has been deposited on his sofa.

“Sir.”

Harry jumps, startled out of his thoughts. Mitch is standing at his side, wonderful man that he is, with a tray.

“Your tea.”

“Right, thank you, Mitch,” Harry says, taking the tray. It’s evening, and Harry realises that he never even had lunch. The sandwich on the tray does look inviting, although he’s a little queasy.

Really, Harry had downplayed how big taking in an omega would be. Maybe he downplayed it because it would be easier to brush off as a task that Liam could find someone else to do for him, or maybe he downplayed it because he knew that he would end up saying yes, and didn’t want to think about how things would actually work out.

“Mitch,” Harry says. “Would you be willing to do a spot of research for me?”

“Certainly,” obliges Mitch. “What do you have in mind?”

Louis’ laying on the sofa, much like he was at the institution. The difference now is that Harry’s thrown a quilt over him, and added a pillow. When they had first arrived, Louis had been shaking, but he seems to have settled down now. Harry wonders if he should add more blankets, or perhaps have Mitch run out and get some bedding freshly laundered so that it doesn’t smell like him.

“I want to know everything I can about Aiden Grimshaw. Age, family, schooling. Anything you could find would help me out.”

“Yes sir,” says Mitch.

He stands there, at Harry’s side, a moment longer, and Harry glances up at him. “Did you need something?” he asks.

“You’re not eating,” says Mitch.

“Ah.” Harry looks down at his sandwich. His stomach turns over. “I’ll get there,” he says. “Give me a moment.”

“You’ll need to feel calm for him to feel calm,” Mitch says. “The more worked up you get, the worse any sensitive omega around you will feel.”

Harry growls, realises that he’s doing exactly what Mitch is advising against, and turns it into a groan, burying his face in his hands. “Damn it, I

know,”

he says. “Mitch, I was a

fool

to take this on.”

“Sir, a piece of advice?” Mitch asks, in that way that always makes Harry feel like he’s talking to a wizened old scholar.

“Speak freely, please. I need all the advice I can get.”

“Omegas often respond better the closer they are to someone who cares,” Mitch says. “Physically, I mean. Frustration is only natural at a time like this, but I dare say that your true intentions will be more than enough to surmount any fears of making him worse by the actions you take.”

“You speak as if you know this from experience,” Harry mutters.

“You speak as if you do not,” Mitch says.

Harry turns sharply to look at him.

“Apologies, sir, that was out of line.” He inclines his head in a bow. “I will gather the information you need.”

Then he steps back, and Harry is left staring at his tray.

The sandwich looks unappetising in the way that anything would look unappetising right now, but Mitch was right. Harry picks it up and takes a bite, choking it down as if he is trying to torture himself. It’s a good sandwich; tomatoes, rocket, roast beef and cheddar. He follows the bite with a sip of tea and looks back at Louis. Harry should’ve had Mitch make something for him before he left, who knows when the last time was that he was delivered a meal in Stanley Royd?

Taking the tray, Harry gets up and walks over to sit in front of the sofa.

“Hello Louis,” Harry says, because greetings are polite. “You need a bit of food in you, I bet.”

Louis’ eyelashes flutter in that familiar way and Harry wonders if that means he’s listening, somewhere down there.

“If you don’t get something down, recovery doesn’t happen,” Harry says. “So it would be in everyone’s best interest if we shared this, wouldn’t it?”

Louis doesn’t reply.

Harry tears off a corner of the sandwich and holds it up to Louis’ lips. “Once again, I do hope you will forgive me for this,” he says, “Because I know it’s terribly improper. But it would be so good if you would

eat for me just a little.”

The alpha baritone does make Louis shiver again, and he parts his lips. Harry feeds him like a baby bird, and feels guilty. Resigned. Liam should be doing this, his family should be doing this,

Aiden

should be doing this, presuming Louis wasn’t actually at fault for this bond.

He feeds Louis more careful bites and then pats his hair like he’s a dog. This leads to a short spiral about what sort of a dummy pats a man’s head, but Harry covers for this emotional spiral by getting up and returning to his armchair.

The sandwich tastes a little better after it’s been shared.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There is a tightness in Harry’s chest.

He feels an anger pulsing, deep inside of him. It grows slowly, like a python unwinding. An anger filling him with tight, coiled fury. It eats at him, muddling his thoughts until he’s beginning to drown in it, a simmering pot with the lid welded shut.

Harry doesn’t know what he’s angry at, can’t even fathom what he

could

be angry at, because his ability to think rationally slips away as he gives in. All that’s left before too long is rage, terrible horrible rage, that makes his bones crack and shift. The first thing that appears in Harry’s path, he knows for sure will get eaten alive. He’ll tear whatever it is limb from limb, and he’ll take pleasure in it.

There’s a red haze in his vision, great enough that his surroundings are hard to make out. If he only had a clear directive, he could hunt something down, or possibly someone. It would feel so good between his claws, so satisfying, the only thing that could sate this boiling rage—
—

The ringing of the telephone startles Harry out of a sort of half-sleep.

It’s been two days.

Two days of getting very little sleep because every sound in the flat seems to wake him. Every time Harry senses movement out of the corner of his eye, his inner alpha ends up on high alert, saying

Louis? Does Louis need something? Is Louis awake? Is Louis suffering? Is Louis in trouble?

It’s ridiculous but Harry cannot make his inner alpha see

sense,

that this is an omega he is helping nurse back to wakefulness before delivering to Liam and Zayn. He’s here because failed bond omegas in distress need unbonded alphas to help calm them. Harry is a means to an end in this situation, that’s all.

His alpha, unfortunately, has not gotten that memo. Or it has gotten that memo all too well, and is doing everything in its power to provide for Louis in the short time he will be here.

Some omegas with a failed bond will recover in a few weeks. Many take months. And that’s only with the proper attention. Omegas without any sort of alpha’s help would likely never emerge again. Harry hopes that Louis will fall into the first category, that he will recover fast, because if not, Harry himself may simply pass away of a newly imposed heart condition from the stress of living like this.

The phone rings again, that jarring

krr krr krr,

and Harry jumps up from his armchair to retrieve it.

“Yes, hello,” he says, speaking into the receiver. “Who is this, then?”

“Harry!”

comes Liam’s tinny voice.

“How is he? How is everything going?”

“Oh,

now

you remember how to ring,” Harry grouses. “He is the same, Liam! It has been two days and everything is the same and I am not made for this sort of stress! I was a happy bachelor for a reason, I cannot do this again!”

“Oh Harry,”

Liam says.

“You must remember—”

Then there is a scuffle on the other end of the line, and quiet bickering, before another voice takes over.

“Mister Styles.”

“Hello Zayn,” Harry says, a little happier to be dealing with Zayn. He’s loved Liam like a brother since they were wee things, but Zayn is the sensible one. “Please, tell me you know a way to help me.”

“Tea,”

says Zayn.

“Yes, I’m making sure he eats,” Harry sighs. “I was hoping for something more helpful.”

“No, you fool,”

Zayn says. It’s a very Zayn thing to say.

“Louis’ favourite things. He takes his tea with a little milk and a sickening amount of sugar. I’ve never seen him without at least one cuppa every hour.”

“Right,” says Harry. “Alright, more tea. Noted.”

There’s another scuffle on the line and Liam’s voice again.

“I just wanted to see if there’s anything we can do to help,”

he says.

“Like, we could come over?”

“No Liam we cannot come over, we’ve talked about this.”

“I was simply inquiring! I don’t know how things are going over there!”

“Liam, light of my life, it’s been two days—”

“Friends?” Harry interrupts. “This has been wonderful, but Zayn is right, I think that we are maybe not ready to host visitors at this moment.”

“Right, of course! And if there’s anything else you need, please don’t hesitate to ring.”

“If I were in need of a single thing, you would be the first people I would find,” Harry says. “I promise.”

“We

are

going to send over a few of Louis’ old things that he’s left at our place from time to time,”

Zayn says.

“I’ve been gathering them up as I find them, just so he can have something more dignified to wear.”

‘More dignified’, in this case, is code for ‘something besides the linen shirt and loose trousers that Mitch was able to locate at the bottom of your chest and get properly laundered until it was neutral smelling’.

“Thank you,” Harry says. “That would probably be very helpful, to have something that was already his.”

“Yes of course, they should arrive at some point this afternoon.”

After they say their goodbyes, Harry goes to sit back in his wingback chair. He senses he’s going to go through a monstrous amount of books in the next few months.

Louis lays on the sofa and Harry watches his even breaths. Hopes his body is repairing itself somewhere on the inside. The path to recovery and the path down deeper look very similar at this stage, from what he’s heard. He just hopes Louis’ on the right one.

—

On day five, Mitch comes to him.

“This is what I’ve been able to gather,” he says, handing over a small black journal.

Harry takes it. “Your face betrays nothing,” he says. “You could have gotten this man’s every waking thought or only his library card.”

“I did the best I could,” Mitch says, which clears nothing up. Harry opens the journal and finds in neat script (as is Mitch’s usual style), a list of attributes; full name, birth date (he’s younger than Harry), school (not as prestigious as Harry’s), friends…

“I know a few of these chaps,” Harry says as he reads down the list. “None of them particularly pleasant. There’s Corden, the one who always cheats at cards and then tries to blame it on his wife.”

“You do complain about him often, sir.”

The picture painted by the provided notes seems to be of someone who’s just generally a little younger, a little unpleasant.

“Nothing about a mistress?”

“Not that I’ve been able to find, although not all of my attempts have come home to roost.”

“Very American metaphor, that is.”

“I’m not at all sure that’s true.”

Harry turns the page and sees a list of all the clubs Aiden frequented. “Where did they even meet?”

“It seems they were introduced at a philanthropy night hosted by the British Museum.”

No wonder Harry hadn’t met either of them. He

hates

skeletons, and the museum has them chock-a-block

everywhere.

He’s much more a fan of the National Portrait Gallery and other art museums like it. Less bones.

“So what I’m gathering is overall, nothing here is particularly helpful in figuring out exactly what happens.”

“Well, sir—”

“Not that I’m complaining! You do excellent work, Mitch. This is just one of those things that I’m not going to learn the easy way.”

“On the contrary,” Mitch says, his voice as patient as ever even as his eyes imply that he would like to bash Harry over the head. Harry’s good at reading his eyes. “If you would just turn to the next page here—” he flips the pages “—You’ll find his home address is not listed as the same as Master Louis’ home address.”

“Well many do still see it as improper to live together before the wedding day, Mitch.”

“Yes sir, but no attempt was ever made to change his place of residence. I hazard a guess that there is a decent possibility that Louis’ home remains unoccupied.”

“Hm,” Harry muses. “You do make a compelling point there.” He glances over at Louis, who is in his customary spot on the sofa. Earlier Harry had made him sit up and drink enough water to keep him well, and something in Harry feared that every time he made Louis do that, he was forcing him further into his shell. “I do not wish to leave him,” he says. “I don’t know how much contact Louis needs, but I would hate to accidentally leave him much worsened.”

“I understand, Master Styles,” Mitch says. “My only suggestion, if I may be so bold, is that perhaps you could have a friend check in on the estate?”

Oh. Yes, of course. “I do not want to send Liam there,” says Harry, thinking through his options. “If there’s something odd to be found, I feel like Liam is fragile enough as it is. He calls almost daily already.”

But Harry

does

have other friends. A happy bachelor must surround himself with many acquaintances to make up for an empty bed, and Harry has

many

acquaintances.

“I’d love if you could make us a spot of lunch,” Harry says as he closes the book. “And then afterwards, maybe we should get ahold of Niall.”

—

Harry has accidentally found himself as a sort of shut-in.

He’s moved his wingback closer to Louis’ sofa, because the few books that he has stashed away in his library on healing failed bonds say that proximity is of utmost importance.

He finds, though, that the more this goes on, the more attached he is to Louis, and the more he worries about leaving him here alone. What if Harry’s presence is what’s keeping Louis’ omega grounded? What if the fact that he is not the one the failed bond happened with will cause more harm? What if while he’s gone, Louis surfaces to some extent and flounders without an alpha around? There’s just so many unknowns to grapple with, and honestly the more Harry ponders all the possibilities, the less he wants to leave anything to chance.

When they called upon him, Niall had been out of the country visiting his own family in Ireland. His husband Greg had picked up, and Harry does love speaking to a man who speaks for a living, but he doesn’t know Greg like he knows Niall, and this is a job that Harry is pretty sure only Niall can carry out.

But it’s now been eight days since they brought Louis home and settled him onto the sofa, in those eight days, Harry’s ventured no further into the outdoors than standing at the open window and watching the park below.

“I will make sure to signal the moment anything changes,” Mitch promises. “If he so much as twitches a finger, you will know about it.”

“I believe you Mitch, I do,” Harry says. “But there is so much that could happen below the surface, that we would never know about…”

“He is surrounded by your scent, here,” Mitch says. “He will still feel your presence in that way. Some fresh air may be necessary for keeping your sanity.”

Harry wants to growl that he is

perfectly

sane, thank you. But Mitch does have a point. Niall is meeting him down in the park at noon, because Harry didn’t trust Niall’s scent in the flat, and because Niall is the sort of person who refuses to get a phone, so it had to be in person.

Harry hates that Niall won’t get a phone. The man lives so proudly in the past.

“FIne, I shall go and be back as fast as I can,” Harry says. “Come find me immediately if you need anything.”

“Of course, Master Styles.”

Harry takes one last lingering glance at Louis. He’s under two quilts now, because it was chilly in the morning, and Harry could swear that he’s more receptive now, taking in more when Harry speaks. That’s probably an odd sort of wishful thinking, though, because Mitch is right. Harry’s sanity cooped up in this room day in and day out is wearing a little thin.

He forces himself to turn around and leave.

It’s a gloomy sky today, and when Harry emerges from the building, he’s hit with a sharp wind. It’s

summer,

for Christ's Sake, it would be nice if the weather would act like it.

“Harry Styles, as I live and breathe!”

Harry turns just in time to be tackled into a bear hug from Niall.

“Christ, Niall, you’ll knock the very soul out of my body like that.”

“Sorry,” Niall says, standing back after a moment. “You’re just a right sight for sore eyes. Ireland’s nice and everything, but I’m a lightweight over there. It’s good to see someone I can easily drink under the table.”

“Ah yes, absolutely hilarious you are,” Harry says. “See if I ever buy you drinks again.”

“You never buy me drinks

now,

old boy.”

“And I never will again!”

They’ve begun walking, across the street and under the trees. Harry keeps glancing back, searching for his window to make sure Mitch isn’t waving out of it.

“So I do take it from your letter that this is a more serious occasion than most,” says Niall. He’s stuck his hands in his pockets and his strides are long enough that Harry, although taller, has to run to keep up.

“It is,” he agrees. “I need you to do a bit of work for me.”

“What, got a wall that needs spackling? A fence to paint?”

“A home to break into, more like.”

Niall stops. He turns and pins Harry with a look. It’s a look of pure delight. “Now

this

is why I love London,” he says. “Do you owe someone a debt? Did someone steal your favourite deck of cards?”

“You see me in such a petty light,” Harry sighs. “No, none of that. I have a friend staying with me who’s landed himself in a bit of a state, and I’m trying to find out how he got there.”

“Oh yes, we’ve all heard about this friend,” Niall says.

“You’ve—” Harry splutters. “How? I haven’t even

gone

anywhere!”

“That’s exactly how!

The

Harry Styles, suddenly avoiding society? There must be a reason! And someone mentioned seeing you and Liam up north a week ago. What’s up north then, Harry? Did you find yourself a special little omega finally?”

Grimacing, Harry sticks his hand over Niall’s mouth. “Shut

up,”

he hisses, suddenly paranoid. “I don’t know who told you that we were up north, but I would appreciate it very much if you would correct them. Liam and I weren’t up north, we were… in Cornwall. Down in Cornwall.”

Niall looks unimpressed. He reaches up and removes Harry’s hand. “A weak defence,” he says. “Tell me the truth or I’ll spread it all the more.”

Harry looks around, but no one seems within earshot. “Fine,” he whispers, pulling Niall off the path and under a more dense area of trees. “We’ve got an omega staying with us, yes, but he’s— it’s not like that. He’s got a failed bond.”

Niall’s eyes widen. “Louis Tomlinson,” he says. “Why, you’ve got Louis Tomlinson!”

“How on

earth

do you

know

that with so little to go on?” Harry whines. He’s tired of being out of the gossip loop.

“He’s the talk of the town!” Niall says. But then he settles down. “Corden and Simon are friends with his alpha,” he clarifies. “Nasty couple of guys, they are. Keep going on about how it must be Louis’ fault. I’ve met Louis a few times and he seems like the best kind of fellow, always up to help a friend or have a good night out. Don’t know what went wrong there, but I do feel for him.”

“Well I’ve never met him before this, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get to see that side of him,” Harry says. “But Liam’s persuasive and now I’ve got an omega living with me and I’m just trying to piece together what happens. So how do you feel about breaking into his home and looking for clues?”

“Feel pretty good if I do say so myself.” Niall grins. “Anything that would piss off Corden and Simon feels right up my alley. I don’t know his fiancee — Aiden, right? — but I doubt I’d like him.”

“I do worry I’ll end up being wrong about my suspicions,” Harry admits, “But from what I’ve heard about Aiden so far, I’m much more likely to blame him for whatever went down.”

“So, ransack his house for clues, maybe a hidden mistress somewhere. Anything else?”

“If he’s got a nest anywhere, take some things from near the bottom,” Harry says. Near the bottom is most likely to be purely Louis’ scent, and not Aiden’s, if he was ever let in. As an afterthought, Harry adds, “And find out what brand of tea is in his cabinets.”

“Incredible, what a mission.”

Harry smiles, and slaps Niall on the back. “This is what I like about you.”

He turns to head back to the path, and happens to glance up toward his window.

Mitch is out on the terrace, staring him down.

Shit.

Shit.

—

Louis is

on the floor.

“My apologies, sir,” Mitch says as Harry veritably sprints into the flat. “I didn’t think it wise to touch him.”

Louis is on the floor, on the carpet that defines the sitting room space. He looks like he’s just rolled off of the sofa, quilts and all, but Louis hasn’t moved a

muscle

without being explicitly told to with Harry’s alpha baritone. Simply

rolling off the sofa

seems like such an impossible option.

“Louis,” Harry says, falling to his knees. Louis’ head is partially hidden by the quilts that tumbled on top of him, and Harry’s afraid to move anything, but equally afraid that something’s very

wrong.

He lays down so that he’s at eye level and lifts the quilt, so that Louis’ face is uncovered.

Louis blinks at him.

Louis

looks

at him.

“Louis,”

Harry breathes.

Louis’ eyes roll back in his head and he lets out a deep, shuddering sigh.

And he passes out.

—

This isn’t like the odd, liminal half-state state that Louis was in before. After Harry makes a terrible screech and demands Mitch check his vitals, Mitch assures him that Louis seems to be doing perfectly fine, physically, and that this is likely his body taking over after Louis moved too fast to a state of alertness.

In other words, Louis’ exhausted.

Harry carefully untangles him from the quilts and picks him up, laying him back on the sofa and arranging the quilts and pillows around him. But he can’t bring himself to move back to his wingback, instead taking a spot at the corner of the sofa where Louis’ head is, so he can sit and listen to the reassuring sound of Louis’ deep, even breathing.

“Would you like me to ring Liam?” Mitch asks at one point.

Harry pauses. “I would not like to get their hopes up,” he says.

Like mine are,

he doesn’t say. “I think we will wait a bit.”

“Very well, sir.”

Harry holds the newspaper with one hand, an article on the front page about a red gem said to be related to the rumoured feral alphas of time past; a fascinating story by all accounts. But his mind drifts, and with it his other hand, until it lands on the pillow next to Louis’ head. Why did Louis wake up? What was the connection? Was it because he was searching for Harry? Or, worse, was he somehow waiting for Harry to leave?

It could be that Louis’ omega has decided Harry is an enemy alpha to be run from.

Did he pass out from fear? Or from relief of a familiar scent?

Harry is going to go insane.

He turns back to his newspaper.

He reads none of it.

His eyes flit over the words, unseeing. He listens for the sounds of Mitch, busying himself with something or other in Harry’s bedroom. Harry’s often wondered what Mitch does to get rid of his scent so thoroughly. He would never have even known Mitch was a beta if he hadn’t

told

Harry when he was hired. Maybe that’s what Louis needs; for Harry to cover his scent so that he does not feel like he’s around any alphas at all. Is that is? Does Louis feel so betrayed by an alpha that his body does not want to be around any at all?

Something tickles Harry’s fingers and he jumps a little before looking down and realising his hand has, of its own accord, entangled itself in Louis’ hair.

Harry quickly removes his hand.

But a few moments later it happens again.

Louis seems to be taking no notice, and it’s— calming. Harry slowly brushes at the soft strands laying across the pillow. Then, emboldened, he cards his fingers through Louis’ hair.

Louis doesn’t move, but it feels like he breathes easier.

That is

certainly

Harry projecting.

But that doesn’t stop him from doing it again.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There’s a pressure behind Harry’s eyes.

He rubs his palms across his face, tries to ease said pressure, but to no avail.

He feels

dangerous

. Feels an anger beginning to alight inside of him. The pressure behind his eyes mounts, until he’s almost blinded, spots appearing in his vision. His palms are rough and calloused, and when he rubs his eyes they sting his face.

God

he feels like a wound up spring, like a rubber band about to snap.

And when he snaps, he’s not going to be able to come back.

The burning, coiling anger inside of him eats away at him, until he snarls and snaps. Harry wants to

hurt

wants to cause

pain

, he wants to

punish

everyone who’s ever done him wrong.

There’s no one to punish but himself, though, no one that he can see and no one that he can scent. He tears at his skin like a moth destroying his cocoon, and feels the shreds fall to the floor. His calloused hands burn like the pain behind his eyes, the pain in his heart. He’s got to get out of here, got to

fight

—

One cool, soothing touch encircles his wrist like an ice cube.

Harry wakes up.

—

Harry wakes up with a jerk and a gasp, and finds that his neck aches.

He’s hunched over the sofa in the worst sort of position, and

everything

aches. He’s not young anymore. His book must have fallen from his hand at some point, and Mitch was kind enough to put his bookmark in, not that Harry has any idea what he was reading.

He goes to lean forward, to stretch and try to work out the knots in his back, only to realise his left hand, which was buried in Louis’ hair last he checked, is indisposed. Pinned in place.

Harry glances down and realises that Louis’ hand is wrapped around his wrist.

Oh.

Oh.

Harry is in so very much pain, so very out of place shoved onto the end of this sofa with his back curved like a cane, but Louis has reached for him. Also, something is scratching against his wrist, as if Louis picked up a stone before he grabbed Harry, but it’s against the back of his wrist instead of the underside so it’s not too bad.

Harry settles down as best he can. What can he do now? He cannot reject Louis’ grasp.

He can only sit, and allow it to continue. Louis has reached for him.

The sun is beginning to set now, the room aglow in golden light. Mitch appears with a cup of tea, and he pulls up the thin side table that rests normally next to the wingback chair.

“Your tea, sir,” Mitch says, voice low and quiet.

“Thank you,” says Harry.

The tea is warm in his hand.

Louis’ grip is tight around his wrist.

Louis has

reached for him.

Harry drinks his tea and feels his heart flutter for someone he doesn’t even know.

—

At some point, in his sleep, Harry had found his way to the floor. One arm twisted up at an awkward angle, dangling on the edge of the sofa. He wakes with a sore shoulder, but all things considered his injuries could be much worse; he’s not as young and spry as he once was, and he’s always had a bad back.

In the blurry morning hours as sunlight filters through the sliver of a gap in the curtains, Harry struggles to right himself, make proper sense of his surroundings. The blankets from his bed have been thrown over him, a sign that Mitch has been here.

Louis is on the sofa still, underneath his own quilts. He breathes slow and deep, as if he’s just having a good night’s sleep, as if he’ll wake up any moment. His arm is still outstretched, his hand around Harry’s wrist with a stronger grip than someone in the state he’s been in should have.

This close, Harry takes a moment to dwell on Louis’ long lashes, the way they paint his cheeks. He’s never been comfortable taking this long a look before, when Louis’ eyes were open and unseeing. But now, he looks relaxed. Whatever changed yesterday, Harry prays it’s a step in the right direction.

Also, the unfortunate facts of life are making themselves known; Harry

really

has to use the loo.

He sits up, shuffling the blankets off, and then briefly wonders if it’s worth it. He’s going to have to remove Louis’ grip.

But it’s only brief, because the call of nature is urgent.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, reaching up and putting his other hand over Louis’. His grip is

strong,

and unyielding as Harry tries to pry it apart. This actually may be an issue. There continues to be a feeling like a garden rock being held underneath his fingers, too, which pushes in more the more Harry resists.

“Love, you’re going to have to help me out here,” Harry says. He refuses to use his alpha baritone on something like this, something that isn’t directly impacting his health (although if his bladder were to let loose right here, that would certainly affect the health of at least

one

of them).

“Mitch?” Harry says casually, looking around for him.

Mitch appears at the entryway to the kitchen. “Sir?”

“Could you lend some assistance?” Harry asks. “I’m not sure what the best course of action here is.”

Mitch pauses, and he pauses for long enough that Harry starts to worry. “I’m not sure I would know either, sir,” he says. “Would you… like me to try?”

“Yes, please.” Louis’ grip feels like it’s grown, if anything,

stronger.

“I’m in a bit of a bind.”

Mitch comes over and bends down, studying their point of connection. “He has an excellent grip,” he remarks.

“I am aware, thank you Mitch.”

Reaching out, Mitch presses two fingers at the point of connection between Louis’ fingers and Harry’s wrist. Instantly, Louis’ grip goes slack, his hand falling like dead weight.

“Holy hell,” says Harry, rubbing his wrist in shock. “What did you do to him?”

“I merely touched him,” Mitch says. “Somehow, I think it was enough that I was not the one he desired to hold.”

Harry would love to think on that more, but unfortunately he does

desperately

need to relieve himself, so instead he puts those thoughts aside and sprints out of the room.

—

While there, he takes a moment to freshen himself, neaten up a bit with the razor and change his outfit from day clothes into… other, fresher day clothes. By the time he reemerges, the smell of eggs is emanating from the kitchen. Harry’s stomach rumbles with the thought of runny egg on toast and a fresh brew, hopefully while perusing the morning paper.

But then he looks at the sofa and all thoughts of that are instantly forgotten, because Louis is there, and he is awake.

“Ah,” says Harry, coming to a dead stop in the doorway.

Louis’ sat up. He’s still on the sofa, as he has been, but he’s now vertical; the quilts have fallen around him in a heap. He’s leaning forward, hands gripping the cushions, and his eyes are wide like a scared animal, darting from object to object in the room, until they land on Harry.

“Hello,” says Harry. “Ah, welcome. To my home.”

Louis stares at him. His grip on the cushions visibly tightens, knuckles white.

“It’s okay!” Harry hastens. “Uh, I didn’t. Kidnap you or anything. You don’t know who I am. Actually, I— I

did

kidnap you, technically. But with permission. Ah! It was Liam! Liam’s permission. He asked me to, actually. But I have done nothing improper! You can ask my butler! Or Liam! Actually, I should ring him. Right now.”

He slides over toward the phone, never taking his eyes off of Louis, who does the same back. That is, until he has to actually dial, because

blast

these new phones that don’t use an operator.

When Liam finally picks up, Harry babbles.

“Liam,” he says, looking Louis in the eye as he speaks. “It would be quite wonderful if you could, ah, please make your way over here at your earliest convenience.”

“Oh Harry, we were actually just going to—”

“Liam please, I think that this is much more urgent and you would be very appreciated right here, um. Not to alarm you, I mean. Everything’s fine. It’s just that Louis is rather awake, I believe—” he puts his hand briefly over the phone and says to Louis, “Not that it’s not terribly rude to talk about you in the third person, as if you’re not here, I’m so sorry—” then uncovers the phone, “Really, though, please Liam, it is actually fairly important, I think, that you come and explain some things.”

“Is everything alright?”

asks Liam, which is not what Harry needs right now.

“Harry, you sound—”

There’s the familiar scuffle, and then Zayn’s voice cuts in.

“We’ll be right over.”

“Thank you, yes, I would— we would very much appreciate that. Oh!” He motions with his free hand to the phone, looking at Louis. “Would you like to…?”

Louis blinks. He glances down at the receiver and back at Harry, both across the room and very far from him. He slowly shakes his head.

“No, of course not. Yes, Zayn, Liam, please make your way over post haste. Thank you. Cheers.”

He realises that the line has already gone dead and puts the phone down.

“I— would you like something?” Harry asks. “Some— tea? Eggs? Oh! Is Mitch making

you

the eggs?”

Louis stares at him, and Harry thinks that’s probably a no.

He doesn’t want to get closer, because he is doubting very much that Louis has any idea what is going on right now, and doesn’t want to be a strange alpha wading into his personal space. On the other hand, Louis likely doesn’t have any idea what’s going on right now, and every instinct Harry has is screaming at him to

help

him, to

comfort

in some way.

“Would it be acceptable if I sat back down?” Harry asks, motioning to his wingback chair. “If you wouldn’t like me that close, I will happily stay over here. Or sit at the dining table, perhaps.”

Louis looks at the chair, and then back at him, and then slowly nods. Harry takes slow steps over to it before sitting gingerly.

This feels like a disaster. This feels quite bad. Who thought this would be a good idea? Why did they not plan better for this?

“I’m Harry,” says Harry. “I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that.” He pauses. “You’re Louis. Obviously. I mean, it may not be obvious if you’ve got the amnesia, and I suppose I don’t know that you don’t. So just to be clear…”

Louis has dark circles under his eyes. He seems like he’s taking in too much information all at once. He doesn’t respond.

“My butler is making breakfast,” Harry continues. “His name is Mitch. Wonderful man, honestly. I’ll have him whip up a second plate, of course. You do need to eat.”

Mitch, to his great credit, appears as Harry is speaking about him. He’s carrying a silver tray in each hand, placing one first in front of Louis, and then the second in front of Harry.

“Mitch, you are one of the best,” Harry tells him. “See? Mitch is excellent at this sort of thing.”

Louis looks quite interested in the food, but interacting with it would mean detaching his hands from the cushions, which he doesn’t seem inclined yet to do.

Harry picks up his knife and fork, hoping that eating his own will encourage Louis to do likewise.

“Please,” he says, even as his own voice is becoming grating to his ears in this otherwise silent room. “Eat your fill.”

Then Harry eats.

It’s so, so very awkward. His bites sound so loud.

But after making it through the first piece of toast and egg, along with a good third of his cup of tea, out of the corner of his eye, Louis picks up a piece of toast and takes a small bite.

Victory. Victory! Harry could dance around the room in pride.

He doesn’t, because that might send the wrong message, but he

could.

Instead he eats in silence, and although Louis mostly just picks at his food, he’s awake and alive and moving and that’s excellent.

—

“Sir,” says Mitch. “Liam and Zayn have arrived.”

Harry has been concentrating very hard on slowly drinking the last of his tea, rather engage in any sort of fruitless conversation with Louis, who is hunched over his half-empty breakfast as if he’s afraid someone may steal it.

Looking up at Mitch, Harry asks, “They are?”

A knock sounds at the door.

“Yes sir,” Mitch says, going to answer it.

The second he does, Liam bursts into the room. “Where’s Louis?” he shouts, barrelling in like a dog let off the lead, only stopping because Zayn grabs his shoulder and holds him back.

“Harry,” says Zayn. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” says Harry.

“Yes yes,” says Liam, practically dragging Zayn forward. “Now’s not the

time,

now where is Louis?”

“He’s right in front of—” Harry says, but he turns back to the sofa and finds only the quilts and abandoned tray. “He was just here,” he says in a bit of shock.”

“What do you

mean

he was

just here,”

Liam asks. “You’ve

lost

him?”

“Liam,” says Zayn. “Calm down or I am sending you back into the hall until you do.”

Liam gives Zayn a pathetic sort of look but Harry’s turning back to where Louis no longer is. There’s not many places he could actually

go.

He stands up and slowly makes his way around the side of the sofa. It’s not backed against the wall, because Harry’s favourite curio cabinet caught the light so well behind it.

When he rounds the corner of the sofa, he finds exactly what he feared he might; Louis is there, ducked low to the floor and up against the back of the sofa, looking for all the world like a trapped animal.

Harry looks back at Liam and Zayn, who are in a very low, very quiet argument, then back to Louis. He squats down and keeps his distance.

“That’s just Liam,” he says. “You remember Liam, do you not?”

Louis’ shaking and Harry hates everything that has brought him to this point. But after a few minutes of being frozen in place, he nods. Harry has a flashback to watching his niece for the first time, how he accidentally rammed his knee into her crib after turning the lights out, and the fear in her eyes from

large intimidating uncle Harry

looming over her and trying his best to hold back the cursing.

“He’s not mad at you,” Harry says for good measure, because he suspects this is Louis’ omega reacting more than Louis himself, but he can’t know for sure. “He’s… upset. But not at you.”

Louis stares at him some more, and god damn it, Liam coming over was supposed to

solve

this issue, not make it worse.

“Do you want him to go?” Harry asks. “He can come back later, when you’ve had some time to work yourself out, if you’d like.”

Pause. Wait. A subtle shake of the head.

“Alright,” Harry says. “I’ll let him know he can stay as long as—” a raise of the voice, “ — he’s

able to control himself.”

Liam makes a quiet sound of outrage behind him, but Louis nods and that’s good enough.

Harry stands up and walks a few steps back toward Liam and Zayn. “This is, I think, a quiet house for right now.”

Zayn nods immediately. “Of course,” he says.

Liam looks a little devastated, but Liam did always have a whole lot of faith in the world that Harry never found justified, so Harry suspects that he’s just going to have to spend some time readjusting his views.

“Let’s sit?” Harry asks, motioning to the chairs. But then he reconsiders, thinking of Louis’ quilts on the sofa that probably all smell like him now. “Actually, let’s make our way into the dining room, shall we? Louis can join us if and when he wishes. Mitch, could you whip us up some more tea?”

“Herbal, for me,” Zayn says.

“Of course,” Mitch obliges.

The dining room has enough of a view of the sitting room that Harry is able to keep an eye on the sofa and wait for Louis to emerge. Zayn and Liam sit across from him, Zayn looking carefully composed and Liam looking, well, downright heartbroken.

“I’m

sorry,”

he sobs (quietly, as per Zayn’s constant reminders), “I didn’t

know.”

“It’s quite alright,” Harry says, wishing to get past this emotional bit. He’s never been great at handling Liam’s emotions, having often when they were younger been known to tell Liam that he simply must ‘sleep it off’ whenever he got weepy. “This is just the way life goes sometimes. We deal with it and we move forward. Stiff upper lip and all that.”

“How has everything been?” Zayn asks, delicately. “Have you spoken?”

“Me?” Harry asks. “Oh,

I’ve

spoken plenty, to be clear. I’m absolutely excellent at speaking.” He pauses. “Has our friend spoken back? Well not yet, but I would give it time.”

Zayn nods. Liam’s eyes are watery.

“You’re a good man,” says Zayn.

“I’m nothing of the sort, I’m just the only one who was available,” Harry corrects him. He sees movement through the doorway and surreptitiously zeroes in on Louis, climbing out from behind the sofa. He’s in the clothes that Zayn had brought over nearly a week ago, and now that he’s standing for the first time of his own will, they do seem a touch rumpled and in need of a freshening up.

Oh. Niall is meant to break into his estate. Hopefully Louis will not want to head home with any haste, that wouldn’t bode well.

“I think that the best thing for him is just more rest,” Harry says. “It’s gotten him this far.” He makes eye contact with Louis from across the flat. “I would be happy, of course, to continue hosting him for as long as he needs. It may be a bit quieter here than at your place, although of course he does know you better and may be more comfortable in your presence than mine.”

Mitch steps in with the tea, momentarily blocking Harry’s view as he serves the drinks.

Zayn picks up his teacup and swirls it, his drink looking distinctly thinner than theirs. “While the initial plan was that once he surfaces he would head home with us, I do wonder now whether that would be the best thing for him…”

Liam looks heartbroken, as is his habit at this point. Harry is very glad that Zayn is not the jealous type, because he might be starting to get worried otherwise.

“It is still early days,” Harry points out. “This sort of thing can take time.”

When Mitch excuses himself, Harry looks up to find that Louis has come as far as the entryway to the dining room. His wide eyed stare has been replaced with a look of scared determination.

He clears his throat, leading Liam to jump and turn around in his seat.

“I am not,” Louis says, “a child.”

His voice is scratchy from disuse, and it honestly sounds painful to hear. He’s also shaking a little, as if this bravery he’s displaying is a bit of an act.

“Of course you’re not,” says Zayn, and he’s shifted to that voice that he uses when Liam is being petulant. Somehow Harry’s never thought Zayn could use that voice with anyone else, and he wonders how long the three of them have been so close. “Nobody said you were. You

have

just had a very serious event happen to you, and recovery can be easier in a quieter, more scent-free environment.”

Louis looks like he could heave at any moment, like standing is a lot of work.

“Please,” Harry says, “Come take a seat. Mitch will bring you some tea as well.”

He hesitates and Harry can almost sense his urge to flee back to the safety of the sofa, but eventually relents and takes careful steps into the dining room, seating himself next to Liam in one of the tall wooden chairs. The only other free chairs were on the other side of the table as opposed to directly in front of where Louis had been standing, but for Liam’s sake Harry’s still glad he took that one.

Still in his patient and authoritative voice, Zayn continues. “You are welcome to stay wherever you want,

of course

you are. I am simply laying all the facts out there, and I do not want you staying in your own home.”

Louis sits and stares at the table, gaze interrupted when Mitch sets another cup of tea in front of him. “I do not know how long it’s been,” he says eventually.

“Three weeks,” Liam says immediately. “Give or take. Less than a month.”

“I…” Louis scrunches his eyes closed. “I’m missing a lot of memory. And there’s a constant pain behind my eyes.”

“That’s pretty normal,” Zayn says. “Considering.”

“Considering?”

“Considering you spent two weeks in Stanley Royd,” Harry says.

Louis looks to him with a horrified expression. “And who are you, then?” he asks. “Are you from there?”

Shaking his head, Harry hastens, “I’m just a mate of Liam’s,” he says. “And Zayn, to be fair. I’m a friend with room enough in my flat to spare when you needed a place to go.”

Louis looks down at his hands, fiddling with the band on his finger. “And Aiden…?”

Liam’s face hardens. “I do not want you going back to him. I never liked him.”

Whatever Louis was about to say, he abruptly shuts his mouth and stares resolutely into his tea. Harry can sense this was an argument they’ve had several times before.

When Liam realises that Louis isn’t about to snap back at him, the way Harry senses he usually would, he relents. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I am not implying that you’re not of sound judgement.”

“Well clearly I am not,” Louis rasps. His voice has been growing stronger but it still sounds like his throat is rough. “Considering I can piece together enough of a memory to know that the last thing I remember was walking up to the altar.”

Harry feels like his heart is constricting.

“Harry here is a good man,” Zayn says. “We’ve mentioned him before, he’s the one who parties a bit too much and never wants to settle down.”

Louis glances over at him. “That makes you a good man, does it?”

“It makes me very available to help,” Harry supplies. “No pups or omega to attend to, just the possibility of running off to join the circus.”

“And if you stay here, you can always change your mind and call us up immediately,” Liam says. “We’ve got the guest room and you’re welcome to it in the short term or the long term.”

“I don’t think I’m actually welcome to it in the long term,” Louis says, eyeing Zayn, who snorts. “But I also am living in a fog,” he says. “I get the feeling that I understand very little of what’s gone on here.”

He twists the band on his finger again.

“I never wished to be a burden upon anyone,” he continues, “And I would much rather be back at my own home.”

Shit,

thinks Harry, and wonders how he can get ahold of Niall before he ends up arrested.

“That’s not a good idea,” Zayn says. “A failed bond doesn’t resolve itself just because you’ve surfaced. You’re going to have a difficult few weeks, if not months. Surfacing this early is a surprise in and of itself.”

“Yes, as I well realise,” Louis says. “But I am not and will not be a charity case.”

Harry scoffs. “So you’re prideful,” he says.

Louis squints at him. “I do not

know

you,” he says. “We are not

friends,

all I am aware of is that I have been dumped on you like a half drowned kitten.”

“I happen to like kittens.”

“If you two are going to bicker, then this may not work out,” Liam says.

“Now look here,” Harry says. “I am giving you a place to stay and I am simply going to force you to accept it and to like it. Clearly this is the best option. I am an unbonded alpha with no scenting conflicts, and I have the extra space. I simply

insist

you accept my offer.”

Louis stares him down in a way that would be a bit more intimidating if Harry didn’t know just how close he is to passing out. “Fine,” he says curtly. “I accept,

for the time being.

But do not consider me charity.”

“Charity

is the fundraiser I am going to this weekend for Ramsay McDonald,” Harry says.

“You

are a friend, and all friends exist in a constant state of being indebted to all of their other friends, because humans are not capital.”

“I now assume that Liam has orchestrated a careful plan to keep the two of us from ever meeting so that I would never learn how annoying you are,” Louis says. He seems to gain strength from his jabs. Or perhaps from the tea, as he was surely dehydrated despite Harry’s best efforts.

Harry nods. “This will be good,” he says. “I believe we get along well.”

“You get along like a house on fire,” Zayn says. “Liam, I believe this must be the end of our visit.”

“So soon?” Liam asks, eyebrows drawn.

“We will be back, I’m sure,” Zayn says. “But we have an appointment to keep, and I wish not to exhaust Louis more than he already has been.”

The four of them stand, and Harry embraces first Liam and then Zayn. Louis steps back and puts a chair between him and the rest, Harry notices, and Liam seems to thankfully get the message not to try to approach him.

After saying another set of goodbyes, Mitch closes the door behind them and begins to tidy up the tea. Harry turns to Louis, whose hands are on the back of one of the chairs, and once again white knuckling the wood.

“I will admit,” Louis says, voice significantly softer and shakier, “To putting on an act. Far be it from me to disappoint Liam Payne more than I have to.”

Harry does understand that notion very well. “Do you need sleep?” he asks. “Food?”

“I think,” says Louis, “I need you to catch me.”

And then his eyes roll back in his head in that familiar way, and he falls.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It feels like there is an ocean in Harry’s ribcage, crashing and breaking and demanding to be let loose.

He wants to tear his skin off, wants to pull apart his ribs until everything inside of him that is demanding can free itself and take whatever it is after. A wild animal prowls inside of him, and he feels the rage of it like a drum beat thrumming through his bones.

There is nothing he can do. He is being eaten up from the inside out, and yet even if he were to tear himself apart, this anger inside of him would not leave him, it would merely take him over.

He wonders, in a vague and far-away sense, what the point of the rage is. What is the reason for his anger?

But more than that, louder and more insistent, the cacophony of noise that tumbles through his head blocks those thoughts, destroys them and replaces them with the desire to

hurt, attack, destroy.

It’s all inside of him and like a cornered beast he feels the anger growing, until he’s sure that it will burst from him whether he wants it to or not.

—

Louis Tomlinson has been here near two weeks, and Harry’s friends are beginning to complain.

Actually, they started complaining nearly a week ago. He’s a little charmed by it, if he’s honest. Harry has always been a bit convinced that if he stopped nagging his friends to go to gatherings with him, that he would simply never go anywhere at all. Instead, after only a week of being a shut-in while waiting for Louis to surface, he had started receiving visits and calls from all manner of friends, wanting to know if something was wrong and if he’d contracted tuberculosis or something similar, and after hearing that he was fine, demanding that they come to the club, to the coffee house, to golf, to the seaside. It’s nice to know that he is such a fixture in his friends’ lives.

It’s unfortunate that he will continue to turn them down.

After that first afternoon when Louis surfaced, he’s not been nearly as awake or feisty since. Logically, that makes sense. He expended quite a bit of energy, Harry thinks, trying desperately to convince Liam that he was okay, because if Liam thinks he’s okay, then Liam will be happier and less worried. Harry thinks he would, if given the opportunity, have done the exact same thing.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it?

In that moment and in the following days, upon realising just how much energy Louis expended in that little facade, Harry has fallen head over heels for the man.

It’s a terrible thing, and he’s not proud of it.

But Louis is a quiet force in this flat, now, and Harry has become hyper aware of wherever he is or whatever he’s done.

Despite Harry having a small study that doubles as a (rarely used) guest room, Louis has shown no inclination for it. Instead, he has returned time and again to the sofa, fully claiming it as his. The only change now that he’s surfaced and conscious is that he’s taken a few more linens and other articles for it, to transform it from a sofa into a small nest.

A small nest right smack dab in the middle of Harry’s flat.

Which, see, Harry is

fine

with. He is

fine

with this. He’s always been more fond of his wingback than the sofa anyway, it’s no big loss for him.

But also, what comes with nesting on the sofa is an increase in Louis’ subtle sweet scent, until Harry is smelling white antibes melon all around the house. And there’s nothing wrong with

that,

except that maybe Harry is getting too attached. He may be a bit too fond of the white antibes melon scent, and there’s nothing he can do about it, because the omega in his house is recovering from a failed bond and Harry could never dare take advantage of that.

(He would never dream of doing such a thing! Of approaching Louis in such a delicate state! And even having these thoughts is troubling to him, because he

knows

that the moment would not be right. They have crossed life paths at the wrong time, and that is simply how these things go).

Louis, for his part, is quiet. Even now that he is awake, he is nothing like the omega that Liam used to describe, so full of life and energy. Harry finds him asleep in his sofa nest more often than he is awake, and when he

is

awake, he spends long hours staring into space, hands clenched or fiddling with his ring. There must be so much, Harry reasons, for Louis to work out and think through. Louis’ bond mark must surely be faded by now, but even so, the mental effects are still there. The broken longing, the emptiness where a parallel soul should reside. A failed bond working out how to become whole again is a physical and mental task, and often the omegas who go through it are never what they once were.

Maybe Harry is a little grateful that he has only met this Louis, and not the Louis of before, so he cannot yearn for what no longer exists.

So, Harry’s friends keep contacting him, and he keeps politely turning them down. The scent and pheromones of an unmated alpha offer a healing comfort to omegas in times of need, and while Louis has

never

asked Harry to stay home, Harry still feels the need to be there, in his presence. If his scent gives Louis even the slightest balm of comfort, he will sacrifice ever friend on his social calendar to help.

Every friend, that is, except one.

Louis is asleep on the sofa when Harry leaves, and he’s glad of that, because he’s never had to announce his leaving before. Doesn’t know what the protocol would be. “Bye, I’m off to see a friend”? “I’ll be back in a while”? Would Louis even care, or would he just be confused by the offered information? Harry would rather not know the answer to that, actually.

So Harry slips out, confident in Mitch watching over him, and heads down to the front door. It’s not been

that

long, yet opening it into the warm sunshine feels like exiting a cave he’s lived in for months on end.

“Harry!” Niall shouts, enveloping him in a hug as always. “I’ve heard you’re a recluse now!”

“The rumours are, as always, vastly overstated,” Harry says, aware that they actually sort of

aren’t,

this time. Ah well.

“I’m sure they are,” Niall laughs. Then he leans forward and

sniffs.

“You smell like someone,” he says.

“Niall!” Harry scoffs. “You’re being terribly rude!”

Niall’s eyes light up. “It’s Louis, isn’t it?” he asks, grinning.

Harry puts his arm around Niall’s shoulder and steers him swiftly into the wooded park. “You’ve got quite the mouth,” he says. “Louis is a

guest

at my home still, if that’s what you’re asking. A

guest

who is

recovering.”

“Love does not only happen when it’s convenient,” Niall says. “But I’ll let you believe otherwise.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “How your husband can stand you babeling on like this,” he says.

“My husband puts on his radio voice and repeats everything I say onto the BBC, and the people say that he’s very smart for it,” Niall laughs. “If they only knew it was coming out of the mouth of an irishman!”

“Yes yes, they’d be horrified,” Harry supplies. “Now, I assume you’re here with news…?”

“Getting right to the point, I see. Well yes, I may have a bit of news.”

The sunshine dances across Harry’s skin as they pass under the foliage of the park, and Harry has to make a conscious effort not to search for his window above them.

“I did go to Tomlinson’s place like you suggested,” Niall says. “Honestly very good security, I was surprised.”

“Troubling thing to say.”

Niall shrugs. “Everyone goes through a wild rebellious phase at some point,” he says. “Anyway, I did manage to get in. Up through the storm cellar, if you were wondering.”

“Sure, obviously.”

“Yes, and I must say, the place looked like I wasn’t the only one with that idea.”

Harry looks up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it looked like someone else had broken in, gone through about every personal belonging in the house, and flung them all about.” Niall has a puzzled, thoughtful expression. “Honestly, for a moment I wondered if I had already come in and searched and then simply forgotten, but I’m very good at being neat and tidy when I snoop. Whoever it was clearly didn’t care that they were being so obvious. Clothes, books, you name it! All over the floor.”

“Christ,” Harry says. “So it wasn’t just Louis not picking up after himself.”

“Not the way it looked, no,” Niall agrees. “And made it harder to snoop about, let me tell you. I tried my best, and I certainly couldn’t find any traces of another alpha or what have you. Or omega for that matter. I did find his wedding bands, though. Tucked all nice and safe in a box that had been put up on a shelf in the kitchen. Odd choice for it.”

“Wedding bands plural, as in also the engagement ring?” Harry asks.

“That’s sure what they looked like. Left them there, although honestly they didn’t seem like they were worth very much.”

“Yes, thank you for not stealing my guests’ jewellery.”

“Not a problem!” Niall says with a bright smile. “So, sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Certainly didn’t come up with anything suspicious, no garments that smelled like anyone else or what have you, but it wasn’t exactly easy with how much the place had been torn apart.”

Harry nods. “No, it’s good to still have that ruled out.” He kicks a rock along their path absentmindedly. “You didn’t smell anything at all? Just Louis’ scent?”

“And Aiden’s,” Niall adds. “I mean, I can’t say for sure it was him I suppose, since I’ve not actually met him, but the wedding bands smelled strongly like the both of them, and I assume that whoever was ransacking the place would’ve at least taken those if they had found them.”

“Right…” Harry nods slower, calculating. “Yes, so I suppose whoever broke in before you must have been terribly good at covering their own scent.”

Niall stops. “By golly, you would be right,” he says after a beat. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“I mean, it’s entirely a possible thing to do. I’ve never gotten a handle on what Mitch smells like.”

“Yes, but that’s one of those secrets of the trade, isn’t it? Although I suppose maybe an angry ex-butler could have done it.”

“Perhaps,” Harry muses. “Still very impressive.”

“Absolutely,” Niall agrees. “Wish I’d known that trick back when I was a young lad breaking into the local nunnery.”

“Christ, Niall.”

“I just gave them a fright is all, it was fine.”

Harry slaps him on the back. “I’m sure you did,” he says. “What do I owe you for this?”

Niall scoffs. “I’d never accept money for this,” he says. “That’s what would make it a criminal act.”

“I truly think we’ve passed that point,” Harry says. “But I’ll buy you a good many drinks the next time we’re at the club.”

“I think the next time that happens you’ll be wedded and bedded,” Niall says.

Harry gapes at him. “I’m a happy bachelor!” he insists. “Niall, how inappropriate!”

“Mated and gated?” Niall muses as if he didn’t hear. “No, that’s not how that saying goes. “Bonded and mounted?”

Harry slaps his hand over Niall’s mouth with a fury. “We are in

public,”

he screeches.

Niall waits patiently for him to release his hand and then says, “I remember now. Absconded and bonded, that’s how it goes.”

—

Mitch opens the door as Harry approaches, and when Harry crosses the threshold he realises that Louis has woken up.

“You’re awake,” Harry says, stating the very obvious. “How long have you been awake?”

Louis blinks at him, looking very much like being awake was not by choice. “Since about twenty seconds after you left, I’d wager,” he says.

It’s a rather more blunt answer than Harry was expecting. “Did I wake you?” he asks, apologetic.

Louis scowls. “I’m pretty sure I woke up because I couldn’t smell you anymore,” he admits, clearly unhappy about it.

“Ah, I’m so sorry,” Harry says. “I’d not have left if I’d known—”

“No,” Louis grouses. “You have every right to come and go as you please from your own flat. I don’t want to

keep

you here like a

hired servant

in your own home. For godssake at least Mitch gets to leave once a week.”

“And I do appreciate it,” Mitch adds.

“You’re recovering,” Harry reasons. “I know it’s frustrating, but— it’s good that your inner omega is willing to attune itself to someone else, that means you’re able to detach yourself from the— the failed bond.”

Louis scoffs, his fingers working at the quilt in his hands like they’re trying to solve a puzzle. “It’s shit,” he says. “All I’m doing is attaching myself to yet another alpha. That’s not

better,

it’s just

different.

You’re not an expert on failed bonds, you’re not a doctor. You don’t

know

what this will do to me.”

Harry bites his cheek hard, until a ridge starts to form. He walks into the middle of the room and sits down in his wingback chair. “I’m not an expert,” he agrees. “And I’m not a doctor. But I do have experience.”

“I saw the stack of books in your room on the subject,” Louis says. “That hardly counts as experience.”

“How about this?” Harry asks as he unbuttons the collar of his shirt. He pulls it aside carefully, feeling for the slight bumps in his skin. It’s far enough down his shoulder that he rarely has to worry about it accidentally getting exposed to people.

Louis frowns, leaning forward. “That’s… a scar,” he says, a little more tentative. “Why do you have a scar?”

“Failed bonds only mentally affect omegas, but the mating bite does leave a scar on everyone, regardless of the bond.”

Harry’s is faded by now, but it’ll always be there.

Louis sits back, looking stunned. “What happened to him?” he asks quietly. “Am I… did you do this to make up for that mistake?”

Harry rolls his eyes, feeling a bit of spite bubble up inside of him. “I atoned for that mistake years ago,” he says. “I brought her home and cared for her for nearly a year, until she was able to leave on her own two feet. You’re not some chance for me to fix past mistakes. You’re here because I remember what she went through, and I know that failed bonds who go into institutions don’t come back out.” He laughs, a little bitterly. “I don’t even know why the bond failed, is the worst part. Maybe it was her, or maybe my cold feet was enough to do it. Either way, I’m not making that mistake again.”

Louis doesn’t respond. He’s silent. When Harry faces him again, his face is blank, unreadable.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. “I’m not some innocent baby of an alpha who’s just here to do good. I wish I was, but it turns out we’ve all got scars. If you want me to ring Liam and have them pick you up, I’m willing. But you’re here because I remember what it was like for her, and recovery was hard but it’s something that everyone should get to have, regardless of why it happened.”

He pushes himself up, standing and (for lack of a better option) heading into his room. “Actually, just let Mitch know if you want Liam to come get you. I’m going to go draw myself a bath.”

The knocking and rumbling of the pipes in the bath drown out any sound that Harry might chance to overhear, and he assumes that when he comes back out Louis will be gone.

So he takes extra long in the bath, because he’s going to miss that sweet melon scent.

—

When Harry emerges, towelling wet hair and stripped down to his waistcoat, Louis is—

Exactly where he’s left him.

And fast asleep.

Harry looks helplessly at Mitch.

“He did not wish to leave,” Mitch says, expression carefully blank. “I would caution you from such intense emotional outbursts followed by multiple hours in the bath in future, though. I think you did pile quite a bit on him that he wasn’t expecting.”

“Well nobody ever expects things of me, do they?” Harry grouses. “Is the evening newspaper here yet? I’d really like a nice mindless distraction about now.”

“Yes sir, I’ll fetch it.”

Harry makes his way into the dining room and considers whether perhaps Louis might like it if he invited Liam and Zayn over. It could be a nice compromise, so that it doesn’t look like Harry’s abandoned his life to care for Louis, and also it would undoubtedly cheer Liam up a bit.

Now that he sits at the dining table, in the spot that gives him the clearest view of Louis, something in Harry settles. Louis didn’t leave. He was given an out and he chose not to take it.

Harry has to remind himself that this is a matter of convenience, of helping Louis in his recovery. This has nothing to do with anything between them.

But his inner alpha is still satisfied.

He opens the newspaper that Mitch has brought and begins reading an article about the American president’s new scheme that he’s calling

fireside chats.

“Mitch, look, it’s your people,” he says happily.

“Yes sir,” says Mitch, not glancing up from his polishing.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The anger is coming more often now.

Harry doesn’t know where it’s coming from, or why. He can’t think sometimes, with the way it clouds his mind, clouds his thoughts. It simmers under the surface, like a pot on the stove with a burner that’s been forgotten at the lowest setting. Working away until it slowly, ever so slowly, crumbles and burns away every other piece of him.

Sometimes Harry is aware that this is a dream, aware enough to not wake up having scraped his fist red and raw against the wall. His knuckles are red and bloody now, the only outlet for his anger.

The anger, bitter fueling anger eating him up inside. The need to fight, to maim, to kill— growing until it’s all-encompassing. Harry growls, feeling his canines lengthen in his mouth. A beast of the old country, like they always told tales about. He is a creature made only of rage, ready to lash out at a moment’s notice.

He prowls around like a trapped lion at the zoo, ready and waiting to attack the first thing that moves.

His howls split the night.

Too much, the rage boils over.

—

Harry wakens, gasping, to a hand on his shoulder.

“Master Styles,” Mitch says quietly.

“Yes,” pants Harry. “Thank you, Mitch.”

“Of course, sir.”

Sitting up, Harry looks around his dark bedroom. Nothing is out of place, save for the slowly growing collection of clothes surreptitiously stashed in Louis’ nest. He’s been doing it for nearly a month now, and with Harry acting as the resident alpha it only makes sense.

He looks down at his hands and observes the knuckles. The back of one hand is red and a bit raw, but not bloody as he’d dreamed.

“Are you in need of a nightcap?” Mitch asks.

“Thank you, Mitch,” Harry says. “Actually, you may see yourself off to bed, I can pour my own drink tonight, I believe.”

“Very well, sir,” Mitch says, and fades into the shadows the way he’s so fond of doing.

Harry gets up and pads out on slippered feet into the rest of the flat.

Louis sleeps peacefully on the sofa, buried under quilts and clothes. He’d accompanied Harry outside and into the park earlier this week, and Harry is terribly proud of him. He wonders how long it will be now, before Louis finally decides to leave, to go back home.

Walking into the kitchen, he gets out the bad scotch — because good scotch is for guests and he can’t taste the difference. Pouring himself a glass and adding a few extra large pieces of ice from the ice box, Harry walks back into the sitting room, planning on standing contemplatively by the window.

But Louis’ woken up, either by the clinking of the glasses or because he just tends to wake whenever Harry does these days. He blinks sleepily at him, sitting up and pushing aside the blankets.

Rather than go home and reclaim anything, Louis’ chosen to claim a few of Harry’s smaller outfits, which doesn’t  help Harry’s inner alpha in the slightest.

“Are you interested?” Harry asks, pointing to the scotch in his hand.

Louis shakes his head. “Shite taste,” he says, which is bold enough that Harry muffles a laugh.

“Perfectly fair,” he says. Walking over, he stands next to the sofa and looks down on the park, on the lush grass of spring on the verge of summer. There’s rustling in the trees and shadows flitting across the grounds, probably from bounding deer just out of sight.

“Did you know that they’ve taken a photograph of the loch ness monster?” he asks, because the best thing for making conversation is whatever he’s most recently read in the newspaper.

“I did see,” Louis says. “Looks like hastily piled rubbish, if I’m honest.”

Harry thinks a real monster makes as much sense as anything else. “I hope he’s real,” he says. “There’s not enough magic in the world.”

“Magic, is it?” Louis asks, lazily looking over the back of the sofa at him. “I think there’s more than enough of all that, and it never ends up in humanity’s favour.”

Harry hums. “Very cryptic for so late at night,” he says.

“You know they’re talking about trying to recreate feral alpha armies over in Germany,” Louis says. “That was magic, I’d say. Certainly didn’t make any logical sense.”

“Feral alpha armies are things that omegas made up to scare their children,” Harry argues. “LIke trying to say that Goliath from the bible was a feral. It’s all fairy tale nonsense.”

Louis messes with the ring on his finger. “I’d like that to be true,” he says. “For it to be fairy tale nonsense.”

“If it weren’t, someone would have recovered it in the Great War,” Harry reasons. “If there were ever a time we needed ferals, it would have been then.”

“Maybe it’s a secret held by people who don’t want it to get out,” Louis offers. “They could have fled to America, for instance, in the middle of it all.”

“America was in the war too, though.”

“Yes, but the fighting never reached them, did it? A fair amount of desperation happens when the war reaches your own soil.”

Harry sips his godawful scotch and tries to wrap his head around what Louis is arguing. “So what I’m hearing is that you think the loch ness monster is fake, but feral alphas are real.”

“No, no,” Louis hastens. “Feral alphas shouldn’t be real.”

Shouldn’t.

“Hmm.” The shadows dance across the park below them. “I think that any secret to the feral alphas is probably lost to history, like Roman concrete.”

“As it should be,” Louis says. “Imagine the sort of ugly and

permanent

structures people would insist on making with Roman concrete.”

They fall into silence as the moon drifts across the sky.

“When you—” Louis starts and then cuts himself off. “When you had a failed bond, before. Did you love her?”

Harry’s heart always feels like it’s being doused in ice when he thinks about it. “She was nice,” he says, slowly. Carefully. “We were young. I had assumed that any feelings I didn’t feel would come eventually. Maybe she felt the same.” He sighs, looking down at his glass. “At the time, my mother wanted it very badly, for me to settle down before my father passed away. I think that if our bond had succeeded, we still would have lived very separate, very lonely lives.”

“And you were there for her afterward? The whole road?”

“I bore her no ill will.” He swallows. “Her parents wanted to send her to an institution, thought the idea of me helping her through it would be barbaric, since we weren’t together. But she’s awake and living this way. I knew that I could give her that.”

Louis doesn’t speak and Harry chances a glance back at him. “Did you love him?”

It’s a bold thing to ask. It’s not been that long.

“I thought so,” Louis breathes. “I posit that perhaps he did not actually love me.”

A fox shrieks somewhere outside.

“I think that bonding is incredibly complicated where our society makes it seem so simple,” Harry says eventually. “There’s not much that I can think of with greater weight than bonding the wrong person, but we so often give it away like it’s nothing and hope for the best.”

“It often works out,” Louis says.

“And when it doesn’t, it’s often not shared,” Harry offers.

Silence.

“I don’t think my family even knows,” whispers Louis.

He’s rubbing the gold band on his finger.

“Will you tell them now?”

Louis blinks and shakes his head like he’s just realised where he is. “It would just worry them unnecessarily,” he says. “There’s nothing to be done at this point. I’m burning my old life and starting over and that’s that. What they don’t know can’t hurt them, all the way off in America.”

“President Roosevelt,” Harry observes. “They’re off the gold standard now, over there. Big news.”

Louis laughs a little. “Yes, fascinating. Thank you for being a one-person newsstand.”

He does love the news. It’s better in print than on the radio, no matter what Greg says.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” Harry says as he drains the last of his scotch. “Will you be able to get back to sleep?”

“Will you?” Louis asks.

Harry smiles ruefully at him. “Eventually, I’m sure,” he says. It’s been harder to sleep these days, and he chalks it up to his alpha being more protective of an omega in the house.

“Then I’m sure I will too,” Louis says, rearranging the bedding on the sofa.

Harry places his glass in the sink and caps the scotch, then heads back to his room, glancing for only one more moment out toward the window.

The wildlife in the park tonight seems busy.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Harry’s running.

He’s not sure why he’s running, except that he knows he has to. He knows there’s a purpose. He’s been

told

to run, surely. That must be why it’s happening.

He’s running to get somewhere and he doesn’t know where, but running is the only thing that sates the anger. Not enough, not nearly enough. But enough that he can stop the growling snarling gnashing. Enough to keep himself from devouring the first person he sees, whole and all at once like the beast that he’s becoming.

“Running helps,”

someone had whispered.

Harry runs and he bares his teeth but keeps himself in check.

The anger boils beneath the surface but doesn’t overflow.

—

“Are you

sure

about this?” Harry asks. “There’s no time frame, this might be much too soon.”

“If there’s no time frame then it

can’t

be much too soon,” Louis says.

Harry sighs, exasperated. “You jolly well know what I mean,” he says.

Louis looks up and laughs at him, downright

laughs.

The cheek. “We are going to the club for a matter of two hours, tops,” he says. “We will have enough drinks to be polite, and we will leave. It is Liam’s birthday, and I would like to impress him.”

While this is not the Louis that Liam used to boast to Harry about, this is also not the Louis that moved in here with Harry a handful of months ago. This one smiles and laughs and says terribly sarcastic things.

“Fine,” Harry says. “But if you find yourself running low on energy, you must tell me immediately and I will bring you home. It will be of no use all of these months of recovery if you blow it all at once.”

“Yes, fine,

Papa.”

Harry splutters. “The cheek!”

Mitch, who has been sent on a few separate trips to Louis’ old residence to retrieve fresh clothes, appears with a newly laundered suit. “Master Styles, yours will be done next,” he says as he hands it to Louis. “I presume you are planning on the blue one.”

“With the green lapels, yes please Mitch,” Harry says. “For the love of all that is holy, Louis, at least use the guest room to change in.”

Louis, already half undressed, pays him no mind. “Wouldn’t want to use up all that extra energy by changing rooms now,” he says. “You want me to be fully energised tonight, do you not?”

Harry, in protest, turns around and faces the wall. The

cheek

of him.

—

The air in the club is thick with the smoke of cigars, cloaking all the alpha and omegas scents that would otherwise permeate the space.

Harry, because at some point he cannot deny his baser instincts, has his hand resting on Louis’ lower back as they enter. The cloying, thick smell that he used to experience on a near daily basis is foreign to his nose now, it’s been so long since he’s been properly out of the flat.

“Zayn, Liam!” Louis shouts, sprinting over to them and leaving Harry to immediately pursue.

Liam, clearly not expecting them, knocks over his chair in his haste to get up and get to Louis. He wraps him up in a bear hug so tight that Louis is lifted off the floor, and Harry has to hold himself back from saying mothery things like

be careful

and

well don’t break him, then.

Zayn gets up with more grace and greets the both of them with a knowing smile.

“Zayn,” says Harry. “My god you’re

showing.”

“Shush,” hushes Zayn. “If any of the old men here notice they’ll bar me until the pup pops out.”

Zayn and Liam offer them seats at the table, and Harry greets Niall and his husband Greg as they sit.

“So this is the famous Louis,” says Niall, holding out a hand in greeting.

“I’d hate to think famous,” Louis says, shaking his hand and then Greg’s. “Famous is rarely a good thing.”

“Around here, most people are famous for how many drinks they downed on a particular evening,” Greg says. “Although Harry here holds most of those records.”

“You’re being modest,” Harry says. “You’ll drink me under the table and be on air the next morning.”

“It’s a gift,” Greg supplies, doing a fancy little bow.

“Yes yes, everybody here has terrible habits.” Liam waves his hands as he sits back down. “But Louis! Harry didn’t mention that you were coming! I’d thought that I’d only just convinced

him

to leave the house.”

“On the contrary,” Louis says. “You convinced me, and I’ve brought him along.”

It’s more true than Harry wants to admit. He’s grown quite used to being around the flat, and maybe stumbled into a life of accidental happy domesticity.

“Well, on an occasion like this, I’ll take as many of my friends around me as I can get!” Liam says. “It won’t be too much longer before we’re going to be spending all of our free time keeping a child alive. Zayn has assured me I’m not allowed to be an absent alpha, so my nights at the club are numbered.”

“Isn’t that what a nanny is for?” Niall asks. “I thought we were all going to get nannies.”

“Liam didn’t want one,” Zayn complains. “We’ll see how fast he gives in when no one in the house is getting any sleep.”

Christ, Harry barely gets any sleep now, he can’t imagine having to factor a newborn into that. A commotion back at the entrance momentarily distracts him from his thoughts, though; a group of noisy friends filter in, clearly already a little heavy on the drink. After a moment Harry picks Corden’s voice out of the bunch, and feels a little uneasy. He doesn’t know exactly how closer Corden and Aiden are, but he knows they’re connected somehow.

He glances over at Louis and can tell that Louis’ zeroed in on them too.

“Should we—” Harry asks.

“No,”

Louis says, voice low. “It’s fine, this is society and they’re to be expected. I don’t want it to spoil the evening.”

Harry nods, tightly. If Louis says it’s fine, then it’s fine. And if he keeps one ear open for the table behind them, then so be it.

—

There have been several rounds of drinks, and several games of darts, and Harry is not keeping as good an ear on the table as he could be, but mostly because he is very much instead thinking about and acting on the idea of getting as close to Louis and smelling that good sweet melon scent of his as he can.

“Harry, you’re a downright menace,” Louis tells him, and Harry thinks that’s a delightful thing to be called.

“Thank you,” he says. “How descriptive.”

Louis has progressively gotten quieter as the night has gone on, which makes sense because he is probably very tired, physically and socially.

Harry’s proud of him, though. Absolutely delightfully proud of him.

“I know,” says Louis. “You’ve told me many times tonight.”

It’s a teasing

I know

instead of a cutting one, but Harry still pouts at him.

“Is this what you’re always like on a night out?” Louis asks. His eyes are blinking a little slower, sleepier. “You’re a disaster and a half.”

“I’m a delight; many say so,” Harry says.

“I say so!” Liam agrees.

Greg and Niall have left, because Greg has an early broadcast to prepare for, and Niall is sweet on him.

Zayn is asleep at the table. He’s been drinking a new american drink called a bloody mary all night, because he says it’s good for the pup. It doesn’t look particularly appetising as far as Harry’s concerned, but he does hear that pregnancy cravings are odd like that sometimes.

Perhaps, Harry thinks, it’s getting close to the end of the night. He’s feeling a little heavy in the shoulders and laying down like Zayn is doing does seem like quite the appealing prospect. They’ve been here quite a while, and surely Louis counts this as a successful outing. Hell, even the Harry of a year ago would’ve counted this as a successful outing.

“Louis—” Harry goes to turn to look at him, away from Zayn’s sleeping form. He’s stopped in his tracks, though, by a piercing pain in his arm.

Louis, next to him, has grabbed onto Harry’s forearm, his grip shockingly deep. There’s a slice clean through the arm of his shirt where Louis’ hand has slipped, and the slice goes straight through his skin as well. In shock and surprise from the pain, Harry looks up to find Louis being pulled away by an alpha with an arm around his face and another around his torso, dragging him from the table.

“The pain in Harry’s arm is immense, and as if in slow motion, he sees Louis’ outstretched hand as he’s pulled off of Harry. The underside of his gold band, usually hidden inside his fist, suddenly visible; a red jewel inlaid, sharp enough to cut through Harry’s shirt, through his skin.

“Louis,”

Harry yells, stumbling over his chair in his haste to get up.

His view of Louis is suddenly blocked by Corden stepping in front, attempting to stop him.

The pain in Harry’s arm emanates up his shoulder and through his body.

And his anger boils over.

Harry

roars.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He sees

red.

He sees red and nothing else.

Enveloping everything, suppressing everything. Pure rage dripping from his very pores.

Red.

—

Louis scrambles backward until he hits cabinetry.

He’s barricaded the door to the loo, but that won’t mean much. Aiden’s deceptively strong considering Louis’ never seen him do a bit of manual labour. The fact that he was able to manhandle Louis into the boot of his car at all says more about how weak Louis’ become since the bond than any strength Aiden might possess.

“Louis,” Aiden’s voice comes through from the other side. “Open the door and we won’t have a problem.”

Louis doesn’t say anything, because being brave enough to run from someone is not the same as being brave enough to talk back.

“Louis,”

Aiden intones, sliding into his alpha baritone.

“Open the door.”

What Aiden fails to realise is that a failed bond does a lot to protect him from commands like this. That, and that Louis’ omega has pretty well picked a different alpha to latch onto. He balls his hands into fists until his fingernails dig into the skin of his palms, because the compulsion is there, but there’s no way in hell he’s giving in. The gold band on his finger digs into his skin, the jewel imprinting on his palm.

The knob jiggles but the stool he’s wedged in place holds fast.

“You fucking omega bitch,” Aiden yells. “I’ve come too far to give up now, not when I finally had that stupid little gem in my sight. This wasn’t supposed to be this hard!” He kicks the door and it rattles menacingly. “You were supposed to

stay

where I put you in that institution! You weren’t supposed to

leave!”

Harry. Louis needs Harry. He grips the ring on his finger in a death grip, until the blood gem imprints onto his thumb. Is he okay? Did he see where Aiden went?

His mum had told him, years ago, that when things like this happen, it’s better to pray in the moment than to rely on plans made in the past.

The door rattles as it’s struck one, two, three more times. Then, in a terrifying storm of splinters, it shatters under Aiden’s force.

He looks wild.

He stalks into the room and looms over Louis.

“You,”

he snarls, voice going low. “You were supposed to die in that institution, and I—” he grabs Louis’ wrist in a death grip, pulling up

hard

until Louis is standing with his arm stretched above him. “I was supposed to have this.”

Louis

shrieks

as Aiden goes to pull the ring off of his finger. He flails, attempts to bite him, but Aiden’s strong and Louis’ adrenaline isn’t enough to overcome it. Any minute now he’s going to break Louis’ finger clean off, and there’s nothing Louis will be able to do to stop him.

“Stop,”

Louis shouts. He’s so

confused.

“How did you even

know?”

“I knew you from the moment I saw you at that gala,” Aiden says, manhandling Louis up against the wall. “I’ve heard all the same stories from childhood that every other aristocrat does, but I was smart enough to know a ring of truth when I heard it.” He twists Louis’ wrist back, exposing his palm. “And when those archaeologists started talking about discovering skeletons with gems in them, I connected the dots.”

Louis whimpers as his wrist is twisted.

“If it comes off,” Aiden snarls, “You get to keep your hand.”

Louis screams at him, because it’s all he

can

do,

“It doesn’t come off, you prick!”

But somehow, Aiden doesn’t get the message, crowding Louis up against the cabinets as he struggles to get a good enough grip on Louis’ hand to take the ring off. Louis struggles back, trying to at the very least get a good kick in, but he’s boxed in thoroughly.

He screams again a moment later with white hot pain when his finger feels like it’s been wrenched out of the socket.

Those screams continue when, very suddenly, he ends up sprawled on the tiled floor, head hitting porcelain on the way down.

What…?

There’s a whirlwind of sound that Louis can’t make out. He’s on his back on the floor, dazed and confused, as a cacophony of

crunching

and

shattering

happens around him.

But along with all that is growling, and the growling is in a voice that he can recognise instantly.

“Harry,”

Louis pants, clutching his finger to his chest. “Harry. Oh God, Harry.”

When his vision clears enough and Louis is able to concentrate, he sees Harry holding Aiden up against the wall, hand around his throat. Harry’s eyes look unnatural, dark and red. His teeth look longer, sharper.

Whatever strangled noise Aiden attempts to make is lost before it reaches his lips, and Louis scrunches his eyes shut when he realises what’s coming. The sickening crack and subsequent noise of something large landing on the floor doesn’t help.

“Louis,” says Harry. His voice is rough, thick and weird.

“Yes,” says Louis. “Yes, I’m here.” He doesn’t want to open his eyes. He doesn’t want to be here.

Harry’s arms are around him momentarily, and Louis whimpers as they brush the bruises blooming across his skin. He squints his eyes open to look at Harry, only Harry, not anyone around Harry who might not be there anymore.

Harry’s eyes are still dark and red, but they seem more human. “Are you hurt?” he asks Louis.

Louis wants to laugh. Or cry. “Yes,” he says. “But can you— I need to be out of this room.”

Harry scrambles to help him up, and Louis limps over a lot of shattered remains of the door, along with everything else that was knocked off the shelves in the bath.

The house Aiden had dragged him to was Louis’ own, which makes everything a little worse. It’s clear he’s gone through everything here, presumably looking for the ring. A ring he would never really find.

He never wants to come back here again.

Harry pulls Louis against himself and then lifts him over the knocked over barristers bookcase near the door. Oh. Louis pulled that over when Aiden had dragged him in, trying to get away. It had landed on his foot.

“I— don’t know what happened to me,” Harry says. “Louis, I’ve— I’ve been

angry

for

months.

In my sleep, all I’ve dreamed about—” He looks so lost. “I felt…

feral.”

Louis chokes. “It’s never supposed to happen again,” he says. “It’s supposed to die out into fairy tales, but it never does.”

Harry’s looking at him with more understanding than Louis thinks he deserves.

“Can we—” Louis pauses, because he’s taken so much of Harry’s time and space from him in the past year.

“Yes,” says Harry. “Whatever it is, yes.”

“Can we go back to yours?” Louis asks. “If anyone would know if my finger is broken, I feel like Mitch would.”

Harry’s eyes have white around the edges again, the irises beginning to recede. He looks like he might laugh. “Yes,” he says. “A thousand times yes.”

“While we’re on the subject,” Louis hazards. “Will you keep what happened here tonight a secret until your dying grave? Just. Since I’m already asking too much of you.”

Harry snorts. He wavers a little. They’re in the sitting room, near the front of the house, and it’s completely dark. If it were anyone but Harry, Louis would feel that they were a monster from his nightmares. But this is Harry, who has nightmares of his own.

Nightmares that Louis is fairly sure he’s the cause of.

“I will keep any secret you give me,” Harry says, sagging against the wall. “But I may have to ask some questions first. Like why I don’t remember much between the club and here.”

Louis nods, feeling as drained as Harry looks. “That whole feral alpha bit,” he says. “May be a bit more real than anyone lets on?”

“Yes,” Harry says. “Something about a red gem in a ring? I read an article about that once.”

“Except they got it all wrong, actually,” Louis corrects, and oh it feels

good

to tell someone, just this once. “Because the ring was just made to disguise it. The gem is embedded in my skin. I was born with it.”

Harry blinks at him. He blinks the last of the redness out of his eyes. He looks

so

tired. “You’re… magic,” he says.

“I have an inherited condition,” Louis clarifies. “My sisters don’t, thankfully. They’re far away from all of this in the States, because if anything happened, I didn’t want them to hear about it”

“Thought your sisters— were in France?”

“Better when people don’t know exactly,” Louis says.

“So the feral crusades…”

“A great great great grandfather, more or less,” Louis supplies helplessly.

“Right,” says Harry. “Obviously.”

“I’d never— this was an extreme circumstance,” Louis rushes. “I don’t want this… power. I didn’t ask for it.”

“I’d never use my alpha baritone on you,” Harry offers.

Louis remembers. Remembers the voice telling him to eat when he couldn’t think.

“No,” he says. “You wouldn’t. I believe you.”

“Can I ask…” Harry starts.

“Anything,” Louis says.

“How did Aiden

not

know about it?”

And Louis isn’t honestly sure, because Aiden sure seemed to know that Louis had the gem

somewhere.

That he wouldn’t be able to recognise the ring on his finger is beyond him.

“I’m not sure,” he supplies. “The best I can come up with is that he was too smart for his own good and he spent a lot more time looking at everything I owned than at

me.”

Or, perhaps, the gem has a little more magic in it than they knew.

“Damn him,” Harry says.

“That you did,” Louis says without thinking.

God. They have to get out of here.

“Come on,” Louis urges, walking over to Harry. “Put your arm around me. The walk home shouldn’t be

too

far.”

Harry does, leaning on Louis to walk. Being feral takes a lot of strength, runs out all the adrenaline. It’s really not ideal.

When they get to the front door, it swings open as they reach it, making both Louis and Harry go tense and freeze.

Mitch is there.

“Master Styles,” Mitch greets. “I’ve taken the liberty of bringing the car.”

“Holy shit,” says Louis.

“Thank you, Mitch,” says Harry. “This will mean… a bonus in your next cheque.”

“Much obliged, sir,” Mitch says, walking down the steps of the house and opening the passenger door.

When Louis and Harry have carefully folded themselves in around their injuries, and Mitch has shut the door behind them, Louis looks up at Harry. “Have you ever considered that there’s something a little too… perfect about Mitch?”

“I—” Harry closes his mouth when Mitch opens the door to the driver’s seat and climbs in. “I know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth,” is all he says.

“I believe the best course of action would be to arrive home and then call upon the police first thing in the morning,” Mitch tells them from the front seat. “SInce according to all records, Master Tomlinson returned home with his husband about five months ago and has not been seen since. I will put the word out through my connections that Aiden was not of sound mind, and that you were lucky to escape when you did… If that plan is all to your liking.”

Louis nods, dumbstruck.

“Yes Mitch, I’d appreciate that very much,” Harry says. “The truth always was easier to spread, after all.”

“Yes, of course, sir.”

The sun is beginning to lighten the horizon by the time Mitch parks the car in front of their building, and Louis makes sure that no one is around to see before he gets out of the car, looking dirty and haggard and having Harry limp along behind him.

“I will have the bath drawn up,” Mitch says as he opens the door for them. “I ask only that you dispose of your clothes rather than have me attempt to get the blood out.”

“Whatever you’re paying him,” Louis whispers to Harry as Mitch goes on ahead, “Double it.”

Harry nods. The stairs are slow and they’re both in a lot of pain, Louis is sure, but he reaches out with his unbroken hand and grasps Harry’s.

Vaguely, he thinks that this was probably not Liam’s favourite birthday. He’ll have to apologise later.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There’s a cloudy sort of mistiness that permeates dreams. 
That’s how Harry knows this is a dream. He stands at the top of a tall white cliff and looks out over the water as it breaks against the rocks below. The misty, cloudy, hazy world around him ripples.
He doesn’t feel angry.

He feels instead, an all surpassing peace. A tranquil acceptance of life.

The grass is soft under his feet, and he takes a few steps closer to the edge of the cliff. The wind whips around him, tangling his hair unnecessarily.
“Harry.”
Harry scrunches up his face, feeling confusion because he was fairly certain that he was alone on this cliff,
“Harry, come on now.”
Sighing, Harry turns back toward the path he’d walked to get here. Clearly, someone is looking for him.
“Harry if you do not stop snoring, I will smother you with this pillow and we shall both regret it.”— Blinking blearily, the faintest glimmer of early morning sun peeking in the window, Harry rolls over, pulling the blankets with him, and nearly flattening Louis.“I say, Harry you are going to have to sleep on the sofa at this rate.”“Nooooo,” whines Harry, rearranging himself so that he’s pressed up against, but not on top of, Louis. “The sofa’s cold because you’re not there.”“The sofa gets better sleep than I do.”“Shhhh,” Harry says, eyes still closed, reaching out to grab some part of Louis. He ends up with his hand. Feels instinctively for the gem in his finger. It’s reassuring; it’s a part of him and only him. “Go t’sleep. I won’t snore.”“You’re a bloody dirty liar,” Louis tells him. But he doesn’t push it again.When they do wake up, at a more appropriate hour, it’s because Mitch is bustling into their room with two silver trays. “Masters Styles,” he greets. “You requested to be woken up by 9 a.m. sharp today, so that you would not miss your train.”Harry sits up, taking his tray gratefully, the smell of a full english enough to get him fully awake. Louis does not follow suit as fast, but he never does.“Thank you, Mitch.” Harry smiles as Louis’ grumpy face appears. “I hope you’re planning on doing something productive with your day off.”“I thought I may take up sailing,” Mitch says with the ghost of a smile as he exits the room.Harry has no idea whether to believe him.“He’s too chipper for so early in the morning,” Louis grumbles.“The sun rose a good three hours ago,” Harry points out. “I dare say that the early hour has passed.”Louis gives him a look that could curdle milk.“But whatever time you decide is too early must be too early,” Harry amends. “Thank you,” says Louis curtly, grabbing a piece of toast.They eat in companionable silence, listening to the birds outside their window. Mitch had delivered a newspaper with Harry’s tray, and he unfolds it gratefully.“They’ve just banned alcohol in America,” he remarks. Now that cannot go over well.“My sisters will be terribly disappointed,” Louis muses. The first three pages are articles about how this is going to affect alcohol sales and the like. On page four Harry finds a smaller piece. “Says here that the red gem they’ve found that they theorised causes alphas to act feral turned out to be a big hoax.”“Incredible,” Louis says. “Maybe there’s no such thing as feral alphas after all, just a handful of fairy tales used to scare little alphas into behaving.”“That must be it,” Harry agrees. He reaches out and grabs Louis’ hand again. Because it’s habit. Because it’s reassuring. Because he can still feel the way the anger coursed through his veins. “Incredible that this article was written by a Mitchell Rowland,” Louis says, looking over Harry’s shoulder. “What’s your butler’s last name?”Harry shrugs. “Honestly,” he says, “I’ve never asked.— It’s day four of a week-long honeymoon, but on this specific day, they’ve reserved tickets for the train to take them up the coast for a quick day trip from Dover to Ramsgate. When they leave the little seaside home, Harry takes a walk up the cliffside, looking down over the water that crashes against the rocks, white and foamy.“We could live here,” he says when Louis approaches him. “Just never go back to London at all. Stay where it’s peaceful and quiet and nothing happens.”“Things will always happen,” Louis tells him. “Wherever we are, I think. I didn’t expect someone to find out that I had the blood gem in my skin, but that didn’t stop it from happening.”“Yes, and he didn’t even do that right,” Harry muses. “According to what Mitch dug up, all he had to go on was that your grandfather had the power, and he guessed wrong and assumed it was a necklace of some kind. What is this, some sort of adventure novel?”Louis stops him with a hand around his wrist, and places a kiss on his cheek. That’s a very nice thing for him to do, and Harry appreciates it quite a bit.“Excitement will follow us everywhere, I fear,” Louis says. “But back in London we have friends. Imagine how heartbroken Liam would be if we moved.”He would be heartbroken. “We’d bring him with us.” “And Zayn, of course. And I wouldn’t want to leave Niall and Greg behind then, which means Greg will have to take the train back to London every day for work. It would be a mess.”“It would be,” Harry agrees. “I suppose we’re better off back there.” He looks back out at the ocean one more time. The morning light is soft and pleasant on the water, sparkling and dancing across it. There is no guarantee in life that things will always be this nice, but right now in this moment, they have this. Harry squeezes Louis’ hand in his and turns them back toward the house.They have a train to catch.