They don't talk about it.

Well. Harry does, Louis doesn't.

Whenever Harry would bring it up, whether they were watching a movie together or cuddling on the couch in the evening, or even just the ride Harry always gave him to the café, he would always ask why. Then tell Louis people needed to eat to survive. Then tell Louis he meant the world to him. Then stop because he really didn't want to cry in front of Louis.

Louis, on the other hand, pretended he didn't hear him, sometimes even just reached over and cranked the volume of the radio or TV a little higher, just to hide the words, a shield of some sort for him that made the words bounce back to Harry without reaching him because he didn't need the long, heart wrenching speech. He didn't need the tears nor did he need the look—that one look that just showed how much pain Harry was in. The look that got his eyebrows creased and the two lines between them to form, that made his jaw clench and made him stare at Louis in silence for five whole seconds seconds.

And five seconds might not seem like a long time, but five seconds were just enough to make Louis sink down in the darkness he created himself and just soak in it because he was the one to cause that look.