fic:you can't be stronger in the dark

gen/2,430/warnings for rape, attempted suicide, and lack of grammar.




this is for a prompt by anonymous over at the angst meme. 'A crazed female fan drugs Louis with a drug like Viagra and rapes him. Louis keeps it a secret and tries to go on with his life, but starts to suffer majorly from depression and PTSD. Everyone notices it, but no one really knows what to do. Finally Louis breaks down and tells someone on management what happened. The person laughs and tells him on no uncertain terms that women can't rape men. The next day Louis attempts suicide.'





title and cut from the light behind your eyes by my chemical romance

louis remembers that night in bits and pieces, random snippets of laughs and jokes turning into blurry stumbling and slurred pleas. he thinks back to liam telling him it was a bad idea, but he doesn't really remember why. until he does. until he remembers that his drink tasted funny, too tangy, his feet felt too heavy for a while. but then he was lifted. she supported him and helped him out of the club. she smiled at him. her hands were cold.

louis runs to the bathroom so he doesn’t get sick all over the living room.

~

its too dark, no streetlights, and louis is being half dragged somewhere, he doesn't know where. so he asks where they are. he doesn't get an answer. louis decides that he's dreaming because all of the sudden they're in a an apartment and he doesn't even know how they got there. it smells dirty and musky, with a fog of incense hanging over the entire place. he can see cigarette burns on the carpet and feel paint peeling off the walls from where his shaking hands are pressed against it. (a part of louis reminds him that dreams are never this clear.)

skip forward and he’s being pushed onto a dirty mattress in the middle of an empty room. he looks around but sees nothing. he’s enveloped in darkness and it smells so rotten he feels like throwing up. (maybe that’s the drugs in his stomach.)

"what’s going on?" he asks the room.

he doesn’t get an answer.

louis must have fallen asleep because all of the sudden, he’s jerked awake. he tries to rub the sleep away from his eyes, but his hands are tied behind his back. his head feels heavy, and his eyes still droop.

~

harry’s the first one to ask. a mumbled ‘you okay lou?’ and fingers pressed against his hipbone in between photo shoots. louis told him he hadn’t been sleeping well. he wasn’t lying. (he was just choosing among truths.) harry nods and drops a kiss to his shoulder.

the day goes on.

louis calls it quits after the third interview. he sits down on a couch in between breaks and doesn’t get up; sleeps until someone comes to get him and tells them to piss off when they shake his shoulder. he buries his face in between the cushions of the sofa and has nightmares about the pretty girl with the cold hands.

then harry comes back, sits on his back and refuses to move. "lou you know i’m only doing this because i love you."

louis imagines someone on top of him, pushing him down so he can’t move. he hears grunts in his head and feels a palm on the back of his neck. louis whimpers and shifts under them, trying to get away, but they’re too heavy. he’s trapped. (again.)

louis shoves harry off as hard as he can, sending him to the floor. he pretends he doesn’t hear harry’s soft whimper and the others' whispers, pretends he doesn’t feel harry’s eyes on his back.

louis throws up when he gets back to his flat.

~

when niall asks, pulls him aside during twitter questions and whispers into his ear, louis has to smile and laugh like niall just told him the funniest joke ever. (but isn't it funny? how everyone can tell that he's not okay, but they can't really do anything about it?) he pats niall on the back and nods, "im fine, mate, thanks," then goes to do something to harry that he'll get in trouble for later.

but instead of violating harry's personal space mindlessly, pinching his nipple or rubbing his face against harry's shoulder, louis finds himself stopping halfway between harry and niall and wondering why. he feels eyes on him, thousands of eyes, but he can’t move. he stands there and he wonders why and he feels an overwhelming plague of sadness wash over him.

“louis?” and then there’s a hand on his shoulder and he remembers to smile and put on a good show.

“sorry, lads, where were we again?” louis says, wrapping his arm around liam’s waist.

he’s fine. he’s shaking and pale, but he’s fine. (he has to be)

~

louis can feel eyes on him. he’s sitting on his bed in the fetal position, rocking himself gently and jumping every time he hears her voice in his head. he’s alone. (but he can still feel her, dragging him up the stairs. he can feel him, forcing his hands still, shoving his pants around his ankles.)

harry’s not home. he went grocery shopping with liam. louis remembers the exact moment that his life ended. he could describe the exact way the walls in his head crumbled to pieces if anyone were to ask. but no one did. all anyone wanted to know was if he was okay and of course he wasn’t but how do you tell someone that you don’t know how you got home a couple of weeks ago? how do you tell someone that there’s a big chunk of the night that you can’t remember? (how do you tell them that you have nightmares every night that are starting to feel a lot more like memories?)

louis gets up and walks to the bathroom—as if staring at himself in the broken mirror would make him remember. maybe if he stared long enough he would stop seeing things that weren’t real in the middle of the night. he doesn’t know how long he stays there, just knows that when harry finds him later his feet hurt and his eyes are tired. “lou?” harry asks, wrapping strong arms around him. “are you okay?”

and there it is again. are you okay? did no one really know the answer to that question? as if louis would tell him no. of course he’s okay, he’s not getting paid to not be okay. he has to be okay. why wouldn’t he be okay? nothing happened for him to not be. (right?)

louis curls up around himself when harry sets him on the bed. he closes his eyes and tries not to sleep. because sleep means remembering. and remembering hurts more than he’d like to admit.

~

louis watches the clock move slowly. the second hand seems to be stuck so louis counts the seconds by himself. thirty more minutes of this dinner means 1800 more seconds. he can do this. he’s fine. he doesn’t pay attention to the boys or to simon or to anyone else. he watches the clock and he counts. (45…46…47…)

“aren’t you going to eat, louis?” niall asks from across the table. (80...81…82…)

“not hungry,” louis replies. (103…104…105)

everyone at the table exchanges looks. louis knows what that means.
(137…138…139…)

they hold a band meeting when they get back to louis and harry’s flat. liam’s the one to start it off, always the brave one.

“honestly lou, we know you don’t want to talk but we’re not sure what to do anymore. you’ve stopped eating,” he says, his hands folded in his lap. he’s trying not to let his emotions bleed through, louis can tell. “you can’t focus..”

he goes on but louis doesn’t pay attention. he doesn’t care. he’s fine. louis looks at harry, who’s looking at his feet. he looks sad.

“louis? are you even listening?” liam asks. louis looks up at him and shrugs.

“I wasn’t hungry,” he mumbles and gets up, going to his room. he ignores their yells of protest and locks the door behind him. he’s not interested in what they have to say anymore. he just wants to be left alone.

~
it’s a tuesday when louis finally admits to himself what happened. he tried to find so many other explanations for it; bruises on your wrists could mean assault. (but bruises on your thighs?) he really thinks about that night, the giant time gap that he only remembers a third of. he remembers cold hands in places they shouldn’t have been, a darkness that he’d begun to associate with being blindfolded, filthy words whispered into his ear. he remembers crying.

~

things spin out of control pretty quickly from that point. weeks pass and louis gets worse. he rarely comes out of his room, they had to cancel a few interviews. no one ever asks him whats wrong. they all know he’s not okay but they keep asking if he is. they don’t know what to do. louis doesn’t really know what to do either. he has permanent bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. he stays awake to avoid the nightmares. he leaves the light on to avoid darkness.

he’s devolved into a child. afraid of the dark and the cold eyes lurking in the shadows, afraid of people, afraid of being touched. he’s devolved into a mess of nerves and depression. he can't eat he can't sleep he can't function. (he can't admit that he was ruined.)

the voices in his head are starting to sound less like voices and more like moans of ecstasy and sighs of pleasure. he covers his ears as if he could block them out. but you can’t block out memories. it’s like louis’ at the theater and the feature film is the epitome of his downfall.

louis screams into his pillow for the better part of his night, harry’s warm hands on his back not enough to stop the nightmares playing on his eyelids.

~

it’s a friday when louis sneaks out of the flat to meet management. they’d tried to contact him plenty of times before, but louis was finally ready to talk. he was sick of everything and if anyone could help it was them. they could get things done.

“so what brings you here today louis?” a woman in a dark suit with cold eyes asks him, but she doesn’t really look like she cares.

“i..” louis looks up at her but quickly looks back down at his lap. making eye contact is a thing that physically hurts him nowadays. “you guys keep asking if i’m okay, and when i’m going to be okay. i’m not. okay, that is. something happened a couple of months ago and i’m just.. i’m really not okay.”

she almost looks concerned, but any emotion is quickly wiped clear from her face. its a man who replies to him, the woman already pulling out her phone. “what happened, louis?” he asks softly. he is supposed to be the good cop part of their duo.

“i mean i don’t really r-remember, but.. see i have these nightmares… i mean,” louis sighs and takes a deep breath. “i was raped.”

both of their eyes widen and for a second louis actually believes they're going to help. until she smiles. she smiles and laughs. she actually laughs. louis felt what little fragments he had left of his spirit disintegrate. “raped?” she asked. “are you sure?”

“what do you mean? of course i’m sure.” louis is broken. he's broken and battered and completely destroyed, but he still had the audacity to come here and admit to them what he had barely admitted to himself. and now he's being laughed at, and questioned, and it hurts.

“erm, louis..” the man looks uncomfortable. “i don’t think-“

“men don’t get raped.” the woman says, plain and simple.

louis’ cheeks burn with anger. he got up and left without another word. he could feel eyes on him as he stumbled home, tears on his face. he heard the clicks and flashes of the paparazzi, he could see the headlines in his mind. ‘louis tomlinson spotted after months of hiding’. he didn’t care. he shoved into his flat and collapsed onto his bed, the familiar smell creeping into his nose. he almost threw up. he's not okay.

men don’t get raped.

as if he chose to stumble and crawl all the way to that woman’s apartment just to have the shit beaten out of him when he tried to leave. as if the bruises all over his body were lovemarks sucked onto his skin by someone he just met at the bar. as if the words that were hissed to him that night are now engraved into his mind by his own volition. who would choose this? who would choose to drown in darkness every time the sun went down? who would choose to flinch every time their best friends tried to comfort them? who would choose any of it?

men don’t get raped.

louis stayed up for hours, staring at the wall and trying not to breathe. what used to smell like home now just reeked of broken heartstrings and despair. the voices in his head started to sound less like voices and more like laughter. (cold, evil laughter that twisted his insides in knots.) he watched the shadows on his wall move and change as the sun rose higher into the sky. louis closed his eyes, tired. he hadn’t slept in what felt like years. he just wanted to sleep. (going to sleep wasn’t scary anymore because waking up is the real nightmare.)

louis got up and walked over to the bathroom, searching in the medicine cabinet for something (anything) that would make him sleep. he found three various pill bottles. the first were white and small, the bottle was half filled. the second were big and red, the bottle only filled a third of the way. the last bottle had little purple pills filled up to the brim and louis took all three of them back to his room. he opened the bottles with shaking hands and poured them all out onto his bed. he was fine though, because men didn’t get raped. he wasn’t raped.

he found a paper and pen and wrote down the words that had haunted him for the past twentyfour hours. men don’t get raped. satisfied with his little note to himself, he changed into pajamas. he was just going to sleep.

ten purple pills later and louis was okay. three red pills later louis was fine. ten more purple pills and louis was smiling, he couldn’t remember why he had been so sad in the first place. he had just needed some sleep. five white pills later and a red pill he couldn’t quite swallow had him scribbling down the echoes of words that pushed him over the edge.

harry came home to a broken boy and a page filled front in back with four words that he didn’t understand.