If you were to ask Harry how he was doing, he'd lie and say that he was living the perfect life with the most perfect person to have ever walked this Earth. Everything is peachy perfect and he couldn't ask for more.

However, that wasn't the case. He was living a very shitty life with a guy that made him feel insecure and shitty. They lived in a very shitty apartment, eating shitty food. Everything was shitty; not perfect, shitty.

Harry couldn't help but think that there was more. He could be more. He could be something other than some guy that sells car parts at a corner store. He could be out there in the world, learning about physics or biology and finding the cure to deadly diseases and cancers.

He could be with Louis.

God, he only wanted to be with Louis. He wanted to hold Louis and kiss him, laugh and cry with him. He wanted to do everything with him. He wanted love. That was all. He didn't want to feel like a charity case. He didn't want to feel unwanted. He didn't want to feel so damn insecure. He wanted fucking love, but that seemed to be too much to ask for.

"What are you thinking about, babe?" Kade asked, wrapping his arms around Harry's waist, his head resting on Harry's shoulder as Harry worked on making breakfast.

"Mm, nothing," Harry lied, "just thinking about going to that football game tonight. Might be good to get out for once, huh?"

Kade hummed against Harry's skin, "wonderful idea. Maybe we could go out for dinner before the game too. Wouldn't that be perfect?"

Goddamn was Harry getting tired of that word. It was pointless, useless, unneeded. He loathed the thought of perfection, the word made him cringe and he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

"Is that good, love? You wanna do that?" Kade asked in a low, soothing voice that sent shivers up his spine. 

"Yeah, okay, sure."

"Harry, is something wrong? Something doesn't seem right," Kade pushed.

Harry shook his head, trying to get his head from out of his ass and realize that Kade was here to help him. Kade actually liked him whereas Louis would never like him. He needed to stop chasing after something he was never going to reach. He needed to let go. But letting go was so much harder than avioding the issue all together.

"I'm fine."

"You sure?"

Harry threw the spatula he was holding to the ground, "I'm fucking fine, okay?" Harry's eyes went wide with his words and he covered his mouth, surprised by his small fit of anger, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I just..." he trailed off. 

"It's fine, we all lash out sometimes. I just want to make sure you're okay. If you don't want to go out to dinner, then we don't have too."

"It's not that. I just, I don't want to do this anymore."

Fuck, he was doing it. It was happening. He was going to break up with Kade and then...then, shit, what was he going to do then?

"You don't want to date me anymore? Is it because we're moving too fast? You don't have to move in if you don't want to. We can take things slow. I just want to be with you, Harry. You're the only good thing that's happened to me in a while."

Boy was that a guilt trip. Way to fucking go, Kade, brilliant move.

"Are you kidding with me? You always talk about how you'd be doing other things with other people if I wasn't such a lame ass person. But guess what, Kade, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit. If you don't want me, then just fucking say it for once. Stop putting on this fucking act, it's so annoying and frankly, it's a turn off. It's a huge turn off that you should definitely try to fix. You make me feel so fucking insecure and worthless and small and I hate it so much. Can't you just cherish me? Can't you just treat me better. I'm not a little puppy that has to follow you around all the time. I have my own wants and dreams and you tear them down every time I even think of mentioning them. So, no, I can't do this anymore, I'm not willing to try."

"We can work on this we can."

"We can't work through this and you know that. You always want to be a dominant. You always want to push me around. You never really care about how I feel about something. You never really want to do what I want to. You're always compromising and sometimes relationships need to be a little one sided. Sometimes there can't be a compromise, because the other doesn't seem to be heard."

"He'll never hear you. You know that, right?" He'll never love you. He'll never treat you right. He'll never want to be with you. Why do you think he hasn't come back? He doesn't love you, Harry. Get that through your fucking mind."

Harry grabbed his keys and left everything behind: his extra pair of jeans, his few shirts and more importantly, his pain.

He was done with this. He was done trying to make other people happy. He wanted to be happy, so he fueled up his car and was on the road to find Louis, wherever he might be.

.

Louis lived alone in a dingy apartment that hardly anybody knew of in the sweet city of New York, far far away from his small town home in Washington. Most of the time there were rats that scurried across the fading hardwood floors and threatened Louis' food supply of bread, peanut butter, and jelly. His booze was locked away in his fridge, where no rat could reach even if it tried it's hardest.

"Fucking trespassers is what you are. All of you, you rats, are trespassing on my turf. Get it, this is my space. Not your space. My space. I pay for this area to live in. You just mooch off of me. Fucking robbers is what you are," Louis spoke to the rats, trying to shoo them out of his apartment and down the hallway, "go on now, I don't want you guys no more. Y'all are damn annoying bitches."

"Louis?"

"Fuck what do you want?"

"Are you...are you drunk?"

"Pissed drunk, mate. Wanna join. Maybe we could fuck or something. Man, I haven't had a good fuck in ages."

"No, I don't want that. What happened to you?"

Louis shrugged, "some say I fell off my tracks others say it was my destiny, coming from a family of drunkies anyways."

"You...you're more than this. You're better than this. Hell, I thought that you'd get a lot farther than me in life."

"Sonny, any body can do better than me, it's not a fucking accomplishment."

Harry was wondering if it were true. If this were Louis' destiny. If this were the only thing he was to become. But it can't be. He was destined to be something great. He had will. He had fight. He had grit. He had everything Harry didn't so he should have gone great distances. He should have made something more of himself. Where did he fall apart? Where did he break down and decide enough was enough?

"You're looking at me like I'm some kind of sad, pathetic house wife with nothing but my ninty pet cats. Don't look down on me. Don't pity me. And boy, you sure aren't any better than me. Don't you even think that I'm any less than you--" 

"Louis, I've had a crush on you for seven years." Well that got the boy to shut up for a second, "I've loved you for six and have been in love with you for five. Don't even think that I won't stop trying to get to you. I see it every time you look at me, you like me. You may not love me, you many never love me, but by golly you sure as hell like me. So let me help you. Let me into your life again. Let me be your friend from freshmen year. Let me help you like when we were sophomores. Just let me love you, please."

"I don't except begs and pleas. Come back another day when you have a bargain."

"You're broken. You're hurt. You're dying for someone to rescue you and I know. I know this because I've been like this for the past year. I've been in a relationship I never wanted, doing things I never liked. I was ripping at the seams and slowly breaking like the heart of a teenage girl. I was hurting, wounded like a soldier in action. I was dying for my prince to come. He never came. He never stopped by. So I figured I'd be the prince in shining armor. I'd be the one to save you. I'd come to love you and cherish you and give you everything you need, provide for you. Because you are the one thing that I have ever wanted. You are the only person I will ever need. So please, please, let me in. Fucking hell, Lou, let me in!"

Louis stood at the door, shaking his head, tears streaming down his cheeks, "I can't, I can't, I can't! I'll hurt you. I'll break you. I'll make you cry. Please don't let me the one to make you cry. I'm living in a fucking rats dream home, don't you see? I'm nothing. I'm not even worth the time of this visit. How did you even find me?"

"Facebook. It has all the answers," Harry replied. Louis smiled at that and looked straight into Harry's eyes.

"You realize I'm still drunk, right? And that if you kiss me, if you have sex with me, if you just stay the night I won't remember? You get that right?" 

Harry nodded, "but if I get to kiss you, hug you, hold you, cry and laugh with you then my dreams have been completed." 

"What if it's not the same in the morning?" 

"I'll still love you."

"What if you change your mind?"

"I won't," Harry assured, "I've been in love with you for seven years. I'm pretty sure I won't be changing my mind."

"I have one last question."

"What is it?"

Louis sighed, fidgetting with his hands, "what if I told you, right here right now that I have loved you for just as long?"

"Then I'd kiss you."

Louis smiled, "Harry Styles, I have been in love with you for seven years. All the way back to when I first asked you if you were going to the game until now. And I blame myself for walking away from you every time you admitted your love to me. I was a coward, a fearful piece of shit that didn't know what he wanted. Then suddenly he was dumped on his ass in the middle of a city he didn't know, left behind by a person he thought he once new. And he realized that there was more. But more was far, far away and he had no money to buy a plane ticket so he settled for a minimum paying job to buy booze. More was you. Then you showed up on his door step, still as cute as before, in front of this drunk man who can hardly even call himself a man, and you made him see. You made him see he was loved and wanted. You made him see that if he just went back, if he turned around and went back, then he would probably be a happier man. And yes I was just talking about myself in second person, but every word was true. And to this day, I love you."

Harry didn't stop himself this time, he went right in for the kiss and laughed when Louis tripped forward, "it's okay, I got you."

"Are you sure you love me?"

"Positive."

"Even if I'm broken."

"Even if you're broken like a thrown away toy, I will always love and care for you."

Louis whispered against Harry's lips, "good," before kissing him once more and making their way into the apartment.

.

Harry didn't mind living in this shitty apartment in New York where rats would race around. He didn't mind living in a shitty neighborhood where there were neighbors where loud and annoying. His life was less shitty now and more like he had imagined it to be. He was working a less shitty job, where they pay wasn't shit and the customers would actually buy their crap. He was happy with it.

And his favorite part of the day was coming home to Louis in the kitchen, singing his newest favorite song in nothing but his boxers as he cooked dinner.

"What do you want for dessert?" Louis would ask.

"You," Harry would reply. Then they'd kiss and dance and enjoy their time together, because they had been in love with each other for seven years, with many more to come.