Chapter Text
A simple night out, it had started as, "for old times' sake". Starting the night on such a high, the only way it could go was down hill.
(And it did, really.)
~•~
Harry grinned, wide and unfiltered, over at his friends. His eyes glittered with amusem*nt as he watched the two Cals grind against each other, clearly drunk out of their minds - though Freezy still held a half full glass ofsomething,brightly coloured and in terrible danger of sloshing all over himself and his friend.
Freezy's girlfriend stood at the table with some of the others, laughing at their drunken antics, though her face was flushed pink with something that Harry presumed was embarrassment.
"Do you want me to break them up for you?" Harry asked her, finally, after debating over the question for five (ten?) minutes.
"What?" She asked, "Oh, yeah, go on. Give it a try. Don't know how much luck you'll have, though, since they're inseparable when they get like this. I went home with sticky hair and a bloody nose, last time. It's what I get for trying, I suppose."
Harry nodded to himself, mumbling under his breath as he walked away from their gaggle of tables and towards the two drunken fools. "Or maybe you're just a loser. I'll get it done, though, I always do. Cause am amazing like that."
It turned out, in the end, that she was right, meaning Harry was also a loser. At least he didn't leave with sticky hair and a bloody nose. No, he just got sucked into the vortex that was the dance floor, soon finding himself enclosed in a dance, one Cal at his back and the other at his front, Freezy's drink nowhere to be seen. (Harry couldn't tell which Cal was at his front, and which one was at his back. All he knew was that the Cal in front of him seemed a little bit too exciteddown therebut Harry didn't know how to tell him that.)
~•~
"That was a good attempt." Harry heard later on, after Lux had declared that the three of them needed more drinks, Harry decidedly too sober and Freezy's last drink gone with the crowd. They'd exited the dance floor swiftly after the slurred declaration, Harry heading for the table with Freezy's arm around his shoulders as Lux headed for the bar, all three of their orders on the tip of his tongue.
"Don't talk to me." Harry told the smug woman, frowning as Freezy patted his head before stumbling over to his girlfriend and giving her a kiss - not a pleasant one, by the looks of the way his tongue missed her mouth and swiped across her cheeks.
"You're so gross, bro. Like, you're actually disgusting." Harry said, ignoring Freezy's bewildered whimper, his friend's face dropping as his girlfriend agreed whole-heartedly with Harry.
"I'm baaack!" Lux had just returned with their drinks, a large grin, andwaytoo much enthusiasm for a man barely keeping hold of the three very breakable glasses he held together in both hands.
"Oh, goody." Harry replied, at the same time as Freezy did, synchronised, though with varying tones and attitudes.
~•~
Harry bid Freezy and his girlfriend goodbye, not following them out of the club to watch them settle safely inside their Uber before driving away, back to their flat.
He would have gone over to Lux, but the older man was standing amidst a group of slightly older women, his elbows on the table and his chin resting on his hands, swaying to the beat of the music, positively beaming at all of the attention he was receiving from the group of five.
Since the rest of their clubbing group had either left a while ago or sneaked out only recently, Harry and Lux were the only two still left inside the building. Lux seemed anything but lonely, whilst Harry wandered back to their set of tables with stuttering footsteps, only to find it occupied by a group of girls who looked barely legal (the opposite of the company Lux was currently in).
Dejected, and unsure of where it was he was supposed to go, Harry squeezed between two of the girls, on his tip toes, his hand already reaching out for his jacket. Maybe now was the time to call the boys, like they'd told him to.
"Oh mygod!" Was screeched at Harry from across the table, successfully freaking him out and causing him to start blurting out excuses before his mind could even discern them.
It was likely these girls thought Harry was some weirdo here to take advantage of them. (Which hewasn't! He just wanted his jacket.) Knowing this, Harry flushed red, his hand clutched around the material of his jacket tightly, staying stock still in his position for a second before shooting up and facing the girl who had screamed. "'m not-"
"My brother is like yourbiggestfan! He'll never believe me when I tell him I met you! Can I get a picture?" Harry watched the girl bat her eyes at him, though he didn't know why. "Pretty please? I'd love to rub it in his face that I met you."
It took Harry a moment to process what they were saying, his addled brain obviously not in tip top shape at the moment. However, as soon as he realised that she didn't think him some drunk old man here to prey on a group of late teenagers, he bounced with joy - literally.
"A picture? Yes, yes, go on, then. A picture, yes. Let's do that! A picture's good, very good. Yes."
Harry heard coos come from all around him, as well as variations of, "He's so sweet," but he didn't understand why. Either way, he was glad these girls hadn't gotten the wrong impression of him.
After a round of pictures with each girl, Harry's earlier relief had worn off, soon replaced with his usual feeling of discomfort, as well as the beginnings of exhaustion. He'd already been here for hours, had been drinking since just after he got here, so obviously, he wanted to go home now.
"Okay- 'mma go now. Have f-fun, ladies!"
Harry shrugged off the hands resting on him, putting his jacket on because he assumed it would be cold outside.
"Wait, Harry, stay! We only just got here, at least have a drink with us."
Harry, suddenly faced with the hopeful looks of at least seven (later, a quick count revealed ten) girls, caved within a number of seconds. Pretty quickly, he found himself with a pint of beer in one hand and some fruity co*cktail that everyone was drinking in the other.
~•~
"H-Har-ry!"
Harry jumped, startled, when one of the girls - Beth? - slouched against him, her drunk-flushed face decidedly too close to his own.
The hand slowly dragging down his chest made his skin itch, however small it was.
Unsure of what to do, Harry looked around the group for help, finding the rest of the girls either on the dance floor dancing moves Harry couldn't name, or at the bar shouting their orders a little too loudly, if the bartender's face was anything to go by.
"B-beth, come on now... I think you've had a bit too much to d-drink."
Beth clearly didn't think so.
"Oh, calm down, Harry. Loosen up!"
As Beth descended into a fit of drunken giggles, Harry laughed nervously. He pushed at the girl gently, not wanting to hurt her but also not wanting her hands on him. Why were the other girls taking so long? Surely they shouldn't leave their friend alone in a club like this.
After another look around, Harry found that the majority of the girls who'd gone over to the bar (three out of the four) were now flapping around on the dance floor.
"Where's your phone, Beth?" Harry asked, deciding that the girlreallyneeded to go home, unlike some of her friends who could afford to stay, appearing a lot more composed than she did. (Than Harry himself felt.)
"W-why do yooouuu need to know, Har-ry? We g-gonna take more pictuuuurress?" The girl couldn't get through a sentence without hiccupping; Harry had every right to believe that this was her first time drinking altogether.
"No, Beth, you need to-" Thinking about it, Harry wasn't sure how she'd react to being told to go home. Instead, Harry came up with an excuse on the spot, though he wasn't sure how good it was, or if the girl would even buy into it. "I w-want to call your br-brother - tell him what a l-loser he is." Harry's laboured breathing took on a deeper intensity at his lie.
Fortunately, Beth seemed to love that idea.
"Yes! Let's do that. Oh-" As Beth reached for her phone, she broke off into a nonsensical ramble, but Harry just left her too it.
Until she decided it was appropriate to sit herself on his lap, in which case he freaked out, shooting up from his seat which resulted in her falling to the floor with a squeak.
"sh*t, Beth - sorry!"
Harry blinked, confuzzled, as the girl stood up, completely unharmed and as energetic as ever.
"Noooo biggy! I'm alright! A-okay, if you will!"
This girl confused Harry, majorly so.
~•~
Nearing half an hour later, after having found a way to contact someone on Beth's phone, Harry waved the girl off awkwardly as her mom drove her home, two of her friends also in the backseat with her, per her mom's request.
Still feeling slow and slightly incapable, Harry pulled out his own phone and called up Tobi, as he was instructed to do before he left for the club yesterday evening. Which, yesterday, okay. It was nearing two in the morning, now.
With confirmation from Tobi that he'd be leaving in five, and several rounds of apologies from Harry mumbled over the phone, the man wandered over to the wall of the building, sliding down with his back against the wall until his bum hit the floor.
Bored, and with no one around to kiss, Harry pulled up, first, Instagram, followed quickly by Twitter after seeing an unpleasant notification on the first app.
f*ck.
Plastered all over social media were pictures and videos of him with Beth, all featuring the two in positions that could easily be interpreted wrong.
At the sight of them, Harry shivered. He remembered tiny hands dragging over all different parts of his body, not a single touch pleasant to him in any way. They had unnerved him, at the time, but so had the knowledge that if he'd just left, as he'd wanted to, someone else could have come along and -
A hand on his shoulder made him jolt. He looked up, straight into Tobi's soft brown eyes, and a tear suddenly slipped down his cheek before he could stop it.
"T-tobi- I, look!" Harry, hysterical, shoved his phone at Tobi, watching his boyfriend closely with wide eyes as he waited for him to catch on.
"I don't know what I'm looking at, Harry. Care to tell me?"
At the feel of another hand on his body, Harry's eyes shot to his left, away from Tobi, only to be met with Simon's beautiful face, his smile careful.
"Come on, Haz, you can explain in the car, yeah?" Simon nodded to himself, "Yeah."
So Harry did, to the older men's gentle guidance and listening ears. He sat with Simon in the back of the car, making sure the older boy knew he was comforted by the touch of his hand on his thigh, and that he wasn't repulsed by it in the way he was by Beth's unwanted touches.
In the front of the car, Tobi sat in the driver's seat, eyes concentrated on the road, but in no way did Harry get the impression that he wasn't paying attention to him.
Vik, who Harry hadn't known was here before - since he'd stayed in the car when the other two went out to get him - sat in the passenger seat next to Tobi, his body swivelled around to face Harry, though his seatbelt was still on properly.
Of the three, Vik was the only one letting out a constant verbal stream of validation, understanding, acceptance and dismissal. Tobi was too busy focusing on the road, but he did try to pipe in every now and then. Simon was just content with absent-mindedly playing with the hem of Harry shorts and squeezing his thigh randomly, though he too would lean in throughout the journey home to whisper a sentence or two in Harry's ear.
~•~
Back at home, the four men were met with the sight of their other three boyfriends sat together on the sofa, JJ and Ethan sat on either side of Josh, looking like the polar opposites of each other.
Looking at their facial expressions, Harry wasn't the only one who couldn't read the room, considering the fact that they each had a different expression on their faces, Josh a faint pink and Ethan a burning red as he panted, his arms crossed over his chest.
Josh looked calm, if perhaps a bit fed up. Ethan appeared to be sulking, his face alight with a sort of hesitant anger whilst his eyes revealed his secret sadness. JJ, on the other hand, only looked upset. The sleeves of his baggy long-sleeved top were pulled up and over his knuckles, his hands resting in his lap, a hand on each separate thigh.
"What's up with you guys?" Simon asked, after a moment too long of watchful silence, on everyone's part. He didn't ask any of them in particular, and no one was sure who would answer.
Ethan did, in the end. Though he grabbed his phone from beside himself and pulled up a video to show them, instead of simply talking. The video was of Harry and Beth, the young girl looking indecent, clearly drunk out of her mind as she climbed into Harry's lap. Or well, tried to.
The Harry in the video looked the epitome of uncomfortable, the Harry in real life quickly becoming a shadow of his video self.
"sh*t, Eth-"
"Don't. f*cking - just, don't, Harry."
Josh sighed, rolling his eyes and pulling a face after making eye contact with Simon, Vik and Tobi each in turn. He leant his head against the back of the sofa, his head tilted up slightly, towards the ceiling.
JJ spoke, then, his voice quiet, fragile, almost. "Did you make sure nothing happened to her, at least? She looks to be in quite a state. A bad one." He clarified at the end.
JJ's voice sounded as wet as his eyes looked, glazed over with unshed tears.
"Make sure- forget that!" Ethan shouted, making more than just Harry jump in place. "Did you knock her f*cking teeth in? Drunk or not, she should have understood you clearly didn't want her touching you."
Harry didn't respond, at first. Everyone stared at him, waiting for an answer, but Harry was too busy with whatever was happening inside his mind.
"So you don't think- oh, okay, good. Good, good, good. I thought you wouldn't understand properly."
Tobi's eyebrows furrowed, as did most of the other boys'. "What ever gave you the impression that we wouldn't understand?"
"I don't... I don't know, okay? I'm dr-drunk, 'member?"
"Maybe you should get to bed, then. You've had a long night." Josh said, standing and approaching Harry slowly. He grabbed the younger boy's wrist in a soft grasp after a nearly inaudible confirmation from Harry that that, of course, would be okay.
"Personally, I think we shouldallgo to bed." Simon proposed as he watched Josh lead Harry down the hallway, towards one of their shared bedrooms. "I'm f*cking knackered."
Simon followed quickly after the two, leaving Tobi and Vik to gather up the emotional wrecks still situated on the sofa.
"Come on, JJ, let's go lie down." Tobi smiled down at the taller man, helped him up, then guided him towards a separate room, their hands intertwined.
"Don't touch me, Vik, please. Just, not right now, okay? I think I'm gonna spend the night on my own, if Harry's gonna be with Simon and Josh." Ethan muttered quietly to his boyfriend before dipping into the closest unoccupied bedroom.
Vik shrugged, but still looked after him with a concerned glance before following after JJ and Tobi.
