Work Text:
Harry lost count of the amount of nights in a row he’d been woken by the sounds coming from the flat above him, hard-on pressing insistently at his pants.
He groaned and grabbed a pillow to hold over his head, pressing the sides down to cover his ears. The guy was a fucking machine. He didn’t stop bloody fucking. All night, every night, those springs in his mattress squeaked and groaned and growled in anguish. Or maybe they were happy about it, Harry didn’t know. The fact that he was deliberating the thoughts of a bloody mattress probably said something about what lack of sleep did to his mental state.
He hoped at least the mattress was enjoying it though, because there certainly weren’t any pleasure noises coming from the room above. There were some occasional masculine grunts, but those were the only sex noises Harry had ever heard from actual people. Maybe the guy only fucked people when they were gagged. Maybe he even gagged himself. Maybe he got off on silence.
Harry moaned again, and rolled onto his stomach, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to conjure up an unsexy image so his cock went down. It was incredibly uncomfortable, wedged beneath his stomach. He could get rid of it with his hand, but he’d done that the first time he woke up to the fuck-noises from the room above and he’d felt guilty about it ever since. Wanking to the sound of his neighbour having sex felt good at the time, but shameful afterwards; the feeling haunted him.
That bloody bed let out another groan, as did his neighbour, and finally it went silent.
Harry sighed and took the pillow off his head, and made use of the quiet to drift to sleep.
But he was abruptly awoken two hours later, when the man above groaned out a “Fuck!” and his bed springs creaked.
“For fuck’s sake.” Harry swore under his breath, cock standing at attention. He’d woken in the middle of a sex dream, one where he was whimpering through a gag, and he pretended not to know exactly why that particular image had been plaguing his thoughts.
He sat up in bed and stared into the dark, blinking rapidly until his eyes adjusted.
Something had to be done.
It was getting ridiculous, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept all the way through the night and it was slowly killing him. And if he was going to be killed by anyone’s sex life it was going to be his own.
He climbed out of bed and stormed out of his room, stopping just before he got to his front door when he spotted the time on the clock in the kitchen.
It was just gone three am. He couldn’t go knocking on the door of someone this early to tell them to fuck a bit quieter. He’d seem mental.
So Harry padded his way back to his bedroom, thankful for his moment of clarity because he was only dressed in pants and socks, and went to climb into bed until he thought better of it.
With a pillow under one arm and duvet bunched up in his hands, he went back into the lounge room and settled onto the sofa to spend the last few hours of the night asleep.
—
It was where he slept for a couple more nights, but no more.
It was easy at first to fall asleep on the sofa, body and mind so exhausted they dragged him into unconsciousness, but once he’d caught up on sleep he couldn’t ignore the pain in his back.
It was excruciating. Harry had always had a terrible back, for as long as he could remember really, and his bed was the most expensive thing he owned.
He’d spent loads on it just a few weeks ago, it was top notch, and his back was screaming at him to return to it and its beautiful memory-foamed mattress.
But first he had that little problem of his sex-crazed neighbour to sort out.
So when Harry got back from work on the third evening since he’d left his amazing bed, he bypassed his flat and continued up the stairs to the next level.
He knocked on the door that was exactly above his own and heard a loud “Comin’!”
He tapped his foot impatiently, going over in his head what exactly he needed to say, when the door was finally wrenched open and all of Harrys thoughts flew out through his ears.
“Sorry, just got out of the shower. Had to throw something on.” The piece of heaven in front of him said.
Harry’s eyes just widened, desperate to take in as much as the man in front of him as possible. He was incredible. His hair was damp and messy, obviously from a quick towel-dry. His eyes were bright blue and proper twinkling. Staring into them was like looking at the ocean on the brightest summer day, when the light danced on the surface; Harry would bet everything he owned, even his beloved bed, that countless had drowned in them.
“Uhh, is there a reason you’re here or…” the man trailed off, and Harry slapped a hand to his forehead. Why was he such a tit?
“Yes!” he croaked out, clearing his throat before repeating himself. The throat-clearing hadn’t helped, though. The second yes still sounded piss-weak.
There was a long pause before the man said “And are you going to tell me that reason?”
“Oh. Umm.” Fuck. He’d forgotten his little speech. Those bloody eyes had swallowed his words up.
“I probably shouldn’t do this, you seem proper weird, but do you want to come in? I just put the kettle on if you want a cuppa?”
“You’ve been keeping me awake!” Harry spluttered, words falling from his lips as soon as he remembered them.
“Well I’m rescinding my invitation.” He laughed, and that had Harry cross. Had he not heard what Harry said?
“Why? Because I’m annoyed?”
“What?” he asked, eyebrows shooting up. “You’re acting like a nutter, talking about me keeping you awake. How am I keeping you awake?”
“All that sex you’re having!”
“Okay. I think it’s time you fuck off before I call the police.” He snapped, stepping back into his flat and gripping the door with his hand, obviously preparing to slam it shut any second.
“I think it’s time you get another bed! If you’re gonna shag eight times a night the least you could do is get a bed that doesn’t sound like its – crying or something! Us normal people like to get some actual sleep!”
Harry could feel how red he’d gone during his outburst, angry heat pricking beneath his skin. He figured that was why the guy looked so shocked until he said “Wait. You can hear that? My bed?”
“Yes!”
His eyes narrowed. “From where?”
Which made Harry stand up straighter and cross his arms. “From my bedroom which is just beneath yours, by the sounds of it.”
“And you can hear me – my bed?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
“And it’s loud enough to wake you up?”
“Are you thick?” Harry snapped, tired of this guy running circles around him. “All I want is to get a good night’s sleep!”
“You and me both.” The guy muttered under his breath.
“Well stop fucking so much and our problems will be solved!”
“Mate, I can’t even remember the last shag I had! My bed is a piece of shit, okay? It’s lumpy as fuck, takes me forever to get to sleep. Me tossing and turning has gotta be what’s waking you up!”
And Harry’s angry red was replaced by an embarrassed maroon. Fuck, but this was awkward. “Oh.”
“Yes, Oh. I would say I’m sorry but I can’t say I pity you, you’re not the one who has to sleep on the bloody thing.”
“Shit. I’m – fuck, I’m sorry. I’ve just sort of – yelled at you for nothing, Christ, this is so awkward I’m terribly sorry.”
The guy sighed. “It’s fine. I’ll try not to move around so much I guess.”
“Why don’t you just get another bed?”
“Bloody expensive, aren’t they? Can barely afford my rent as it is.”
“I –” and Harry bit his lip to silence himself. He hadn’t actually got rid of his old bed. He’d packed it all up, unscrewed the bed frame and base and the like, had his old mattress propped up against the wall of his study, but hadn’t actually got around to making an ad for it on ebay. It’d probably be incredibly weird to offer this stranger his old bed, but nevertheless he found himself saying “I have a spare one you could have if you want it?”
The man grinned. “You just have a spare bed lying around, do you?”
“Yeah!” Harry said, nodding quick, trying to look as sincere as possible. The man looked like he was going to burst into laughter any second. “I got a new one a few weeks ago, one for my back. It’s still good, I just haven’t got rid of it yet. You can come have a look at it now if you like? We can bring it up together?”
The man was still smirking, eyebrows raised. “This is seriously fucking weird, you know that? That some pretty guy appears at my door offering me the one thing I need the most? But not until after he accuses me of keeping him up at night with noisy sex?”
Harry blushed at the wording, but said “I’m Harry, not Some Pretty Boy. And please accept the offer, it’d mean I could sleep too.”
After a moment’s deliberation, the man replied. “If you’re being serious I’d happily take it. And I’m Louis.”
A grin fell so suddenly over Harry’s face that Louis took a small step back. “Great! Follow me and you can check it out. If you want it I can help you bring it up the stairs.”
Louis disappeared into his flat for a moment, and reappeared at his door wearing shoes and a different shirt and holding a set of keys in his hands. “Let’s go then. Just know I won’t hesitate to shove one of these in your eye if you try anything.” He jangled his keys and Harry snorted out a laugh.
“The only thing I’ll try to do is get you to take my old bed.”
It didn’t even take proper convincing for Louis to accept it, nor to accept Harry’s help in bringing the bits of bed frame and the mattress up the stairs. When Harry offered to help put the bed frame together again, Louis accepted that too.
It wasn’t exactly how Harry could have imagined spending his evening, putting together his old bed late into the night while Louis chatted away, disappearing every so often to make them another tea or to check on the frozen pizza he’d stuck in the oven for them.
But it was nice. Perfect even. Topped off by a little kiss of gratitude Louis planted on his cheek when Harry had finally plopped the mattress onto the finished bed frame.
Harry just blinked at the grinning boy, then felt a smile creep onto his face.
Louis was slightly pink, but trying to play it cool, hands on his hips as he surveyed Harry’s work. Then he flopped onto the bed, rolled onto his back and sighed. “Amazing. Can’t even feel any poky springs.”
“Yeah. ‘s good.” Harry replied.
Louis pet the space beside him, and Harry took it for the invitation it was.
They just laid there silently, until the timer on the oven started shrieking at them and Louis ran out to free the pizza. He brought it into the bedroom on a large plate, and Harry sat up to take a piece.
“Thanks a lot for this, you didn’t have to.” Louis muttered.
Harry shrugged. “It was no bother. You helped me out, really. Now I don’t have to figure out how to get rid of it. And I can finally sleep through the night.”
“Well, I owe you anyway.” Louis nodded assuredly, and when Harry looked to him a smile split his face wide open. There was a little bit of tomato sauce on Louis’ chin.
Harry didn’t think of it, just took Louis’ jaw in his hand and made to wipe it off with the pad of his thumb, but then Louis was kissing him.
And it was so good, so perfect, Harry swore he would have chosen a thousand more restless nights over that moment if he had to.