Snitches get Stitches

Harry had hoped to sneak inside his house and avoid any of the suddenly too-many people who lived there. Harry even walked through the alley just in case Remus was smoking on the porch.

And the bloody Potter luck was at it again.

Harry opened the back door quietly and saw that it didn’t matter because Remus was in the kitchen, grading papers at the table. Harry kept his head turned, but Remus looked up at Harry and immediately stood.

“What the hell?” Remus asked. He walked around the table quickly, too quickly, and Harry automatically backed up a step.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Harry said, during eye contact and with his face turned away. “Goodnight.”

Remus called after Harry as Harry darted up the stairs two at a time, but Harry ignored him. All Harry wanted to do was throw himself in bed and hide out from the world for a while.

Maybe forever.

Or at least until the baby was born.

Harry felt sick after he locked his door and hid beneath a blanket on his bed…

What the hell was so wrong with Harry that just everything he did was wrong?

“We could have sex.”

Harry had been buzzed, possibly even drunk, and he lifted his head off Lip’s shoulder to squint at him while he tried to decode his meaning.

“Me and you?” Harry asked slowly. “The two of us could have sex?”

Harry had zero objections, he just wanted to be sure that was what Lip meant. It would be awkward if it was another phrase that had a different meaning in America than in England.

Lip looked a little nervous, but he shrugged. “Yeah, I mean… it’s just sex, right?”

Harry didn’t particularly fancy being in another ‘just sex’ situation; it hurt his feelings some when Harry was just sex for Mickey but Ian was good enough to date. But… Harry was horny, Lip was fit, and Harry figured even if the sex was bad that they’d still be friends.

A stupid assumption.

“Harry?” There was a soft knock on Harry’s door and he ignored Hermione’s call that was laced with concern. “Are you okay? Let me in.”

Harry knew that Hermione could either kick the door open or use underage magic to unlock it. He was banking on her doing neither because if Hermione came in with her big brown Hermione-‘I transferred schools for you’-eyes then Harry would probably cry and he’d done enough of that on his walk home.

“If you don’t answer me then I’m going to make Remus unlock the door,” Hermione called. “You know I will, Harry.”

“Go away, I’m fine,” Harry said, crossing his fingers beneath his blanket. “Please, Hermione.”

Harry counted to four before he heard Hermione huff in defeat.

“We will talk after school tomorrow,” Hermione said warningly. Her voice softened a little, “I love you.”

Harry loved her, but he wasn’t up for talking and so he pulled the blanket back over his head and just focused on breathing for a while.

It was hard to do with what Harry suspected was a broken nose, but a broken nose never killed Harry before.

Harry spent the next day avoiding everyone. If Harry’s own thoughts were making him spiral down to a bleak and dark place, he didn’t want to inflict those thoughts on anyone else.

Harry laid on his bed and stared up at the ceiling when Mandy tried to get him up for school.

“Babe? Harry? Open the fucking door, Harry. We’ve got school.”

“I’m sick,” Harry said, a complete truth. There was something incredibly wrong with him and if everyone would leave him alone, maybe he could figure out what it was.

“You were fine last night,” Mandy called through the door.

“I’m sick now,” Harry said flatly. “I’ll see you later.”

Mandy was easier to convince than Hermione had been. She was probably relieved Harry was in his room…. She didn’t want Harry, the baby, or any of it. Harry didn’t know why she didn’t just leave but he was sure then that she would eventually.

Hermione didn’t try and get Harry up for school, but Remus did.

Harry didn’t think Remus even used magic to unlock the door, he just turned the door handle hard and popped it open. Harry didn’t look at him, he was distracted by the ceiling fan that he thought might hold the answer to his question if he stared hard enough.

“Harry…” Remus sighed and sounded disappointed.

He could join the queue.

“We should talk?” Remus suggested, not moving further in the room from the doorway. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Harry said. His voice didn’t even sound right, it was as if Harry’s voice was just as fed up with everything as Harry was.

Even Harry’s voice didn’t want to be a part of Harry anymore.

Remus padded in the room and slowly sat on the edge of Harry’s bed. Harry didn’t move, didn’t look at him.

“What’s wrong?” Remus asked. He reached out for Harry and Harry just didn’t care enough to move away and so Remus laid his calloused fingers on Harry’s head to gently brush away the hair that laid on Harry’s forehead. “Did you get in a fight with one of your friends?”

Did he?

“I don’t want a dick in my ass.”

“I’ve… er…” Harry grinned and felt torn between shyness and embarrassment. “I’ve never er…” Harry couldn’t remember right off the top of his head what the phrase Mickey once used was, but it came to him eventually. “Oh! I’ve never ‘caught’ before but… I wouldn’t mind…”

“Yeah?” Lip looked at Harry and Harry liked the little spark of interest in Lip’s eyes. Harry kind of… just liked Lip.

“Yeah,” Harry repeated, a bit breathless with want. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”

“No,” Harry told Remus. He rolled on his side to pull his knees up to his chest and look in the opposite direction of where Remus sat. “Go away, please.”

“Harry, you can’t keep missing school,” Remus implored as he rested his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “You want to have a future open to you.”

Harry blinked at the far wall of his room and wondered if he wanted to have a future open to him at all. There was the baby - and Harry tried to keep thinking about it - but Harry just kept thinking that with as irreparably damaged as Harry apparently was, maybe the baby would be better off with a different dad.

Sirius was happier with no godson.

Mickey was happier with Ian.

Harry was just the extra that nobody needed or wanted.

“I’ll be home at three,” Remus said. “You’ll be okay until then?”

Harry hummed.

When the house went quiet, Harry tucked himself in his blanket tightly and just stared at the wall until he fell in a fitful sleep.

“Fuck. I don’t have lube.”

Harry took another drink of the liquor they shared and then looked at Lip through his lashes, being unintentionally coy.

“I could blow you,” Harry offered a little shyly. “It’s natural lube.”

Lip laughed and he was the one to stand up and pull Harry up by the collar. Lip backed up to stand against a light post that was busted out. Harry tripped some as he followed and Lip grinned.

Lip had been grinning.

Harry had been grinning.

It was stupid and funny and Harry thought it didn’t matter if they didn’t snog or anything before he reached for Lip’s buckle from his knees in front of him.

Harry hadn’t even moved from his bed when Hermione returned from school and threw open the door for his room, bouncing it loudly off the wall.

“Oh.” Whatever anger Hermione used to throw the door open drained out when she said that single word. “Harry?”

Harry said nothing, he just prepared himself for a lecture on being irresponsible and erratic and how he needed to grow up.

What he got was a warm weight right against his back as Hermione climbed in his bed and wrapped herself around his back. Her arms went under his head and around his stomach so she could just hold him. Harry was going to cry and he didn’t want to.

“What happened, love?” Hermione asked while Harry held his breath to keep from bawling like a baby.

Harry went through a week of torture - psychological and physical - without crying. It was stupid to cry then over a broken nose and hurt feelings.

“Harry…” Hermione tightened her arms and snuggled hard in Harry’s back. “Tell me what happened?”

“We got in a fight,” Harry whispered with silent tears tracking down his cheek as he stared at the wall across from him. “Lip and I…”

Harry had his mouth wrapped around Lip’s cock and even if Harry was a bit awkward and a bit unsure of what to do with his hands, Lip didn’t seem to mind. Lip had his hands curled in Harry’s hair and was making loud gasps and pants that made Harry think he was doing alright.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.” Lip’s hands tightened in Harry’s hair and his hips were thrusting in and out. Harry was so hard in was painful and he was torn between really wanting to see Lip’s face as he came and wanting to get laid himself.

Then Harry glanced upward and saw Lip was biting down on his lower lip and Harry thought maybe he would be obsessed with the way Lip looked then. It was as sexy as anything Harry had ever seen, the way Lip’s eyes were clenched shut and little whines spilled out.

Harry paused just for a moment, stunned and dumbfounded by how much he liked seeing Lip on the cusp of coming. It was hot and it made Harry’s stomach curl and Harry nearly thought that he was going to come without even touching his cock.

Lip’s eyes opened at Harry’s pause and he looked down at him. Their eyes locked and Harry was ready to keep it up until Lip came.

And then Lip blinked and the hazy bliss in his eyes disappeared.

Calling it a fight was a bit dramatic, really.

Harry didn’t even get a chance to hit back.

“Get the fuck out!”

Ian yelped when his brother burst in their bedroom and immediately grabbed Mickey by the shirt collar. They weren’t even fucking! Mickey had just been laying in Ian’s bed, spooning… kind of. They’d been kicking the shit out of each other, but that was par for the course for them.

“Lip, what the fuck?” Ian demanded. Lip actually shoved Mickey out in the hallway and put up the lock on their door after closing it in Mickey’s face.

Then Ian actually got a good look at his brother and was instantly on edge. Lip had a fucking crazy look in his eyes that wouldn’t settle in any one spot and he didn’t even seem to notice that the cigarette he kept raising to his mouth and then fucking wasn’t lit. Ian didn’t see Lip since the day before, but that was par for the course recently.

Ian actually assumed when neither Lip or Harry showed up for school that maybe they were together. Mandy said that Harry wouldn’t get out of bed though and Ian and Mickey laughed as they took bets on if Lip had been hiding beneath the bed.

But if Lip spent the last thirty-six hours having sex, he wouldn’t look as fucked up as he didn’t

“Dude, what happened?” Ian asked.

Lip started pacing and Ian had to piece together his dumbass brother’s dumbass decisions from the scattered information he started giving.

“Harry was going to fuck Mandy again.”

Ian should have guessed it involved Harry. Nothing got under Lip’s skin like their hot neighbor did.

“Which is totally fucked, right?” Lip went on, not even looking at Ian. “Mandy’s a bitch, dude. We all know it.”

Ian actually liked Mickey’s sister. He thought she was funny and fun to be around. Plus, Ian liked it when Mickey got all protective about her… it was a total turn on.

“So when Harry’s complaining last night that he’s so horny, I fucking said we could fuck.”

Ian sat up straight in his bed and gave Lip his complete attention. That was one hell of a way for Lip to burst out of his ghetto-ass closet.

“Did you?” Ian asked when Lip finally noticed his cigarette wasn’t lit. Lip paused his pacing to light it and then resumed going back and forth across their room.

“I wasn’t sticking a dick up my ass,” Lip scoffed with an irritated wave of his hand. “I’m not fucking gay.”

Ian blinked.

“You just said you offered to fuck our neighbor,” Ian reminded him, speaking very slowly. “Our neighbor who has a dick. I don’t think that makes you super straight there champ.”

“I was drunk!” Lip cried. “And Harry’s got that fucking mouth…”

Yeah, that was a thing straight dudes thought about their homies. And Ian had seen his brother drunk multiple times, Lip never offered to fuck dudes when he was drunk. Though maybe he’d been thinking about it, who knew.

Ian only didn’t laugh at Lip’s defense of his heterosexuality because he wanted to know how the story ended.

“So what did you do then?” Ian asked. He hoped Lip didn’t offer to fuck Harry and then pussy out. Blue balls were a bitch and Ian didn’t know Harry well enough to know if he’d be hurt by the whiplash of Philip Gallagher’s gay panic.

“Harry said… Jesus Christ, dude… he said that he’d always played pitcher before but he’d be the catcher if I wanted,” Lip said in a rush, carefully avoiding eye contact. “And I mean, a hole’s a hole, right?”

Not even a little bit.

“Sure,” Ian agreed, lying through his teeth. “So you fucked him?”

“No.” Lip actually sucked down the rest of god cigarette in a way that had to be extra unhealthy before he immediately pulled a new one from his pack and lit it. “I didn’t have lube and I’m not a fucking ass-expert, but I doubt dry fucking would be good for either of us.”

Ian winced just imagining it.

“Then fucking Harry said he’d give me a hummer to make it work.”

Dear God, it was like Ian’s birthday listening to Lip talk. Lip acted like it was all Harry pushing for sex from him when Lip had clearly offered it up easier than most whores.

“And then?” Ian pushed. He needed to know what happened next, it was better than any lame ass drama on Netflix. Ian was so fucking invested it was almost sickening. The only thing that would make it better was when he could pop a bag of popcorn and share it with Mickey while he told him all about it later.

Lip sighed and tilted his head upward so he could talk to the fucking ceiling because he was a little bitch about getting laid apparently.

“And then I hit him.”

And that was where Lip thought he would end his fucking story. Lip went dead ass silent and Ian could feel his temper starting to rise.

“Let me get this right…” Ian swung his legs over the edge of his bed and propped his elbows on them. “Harry said he was horny and you - just being a good friend, of course - said the two of you should have sex.

“And then, because this was totally spur of the moment and I’m sure you’ve never even considered fucking Harry before, you realized that you needed lube.”

Lip jerked his head in a nod and then leaned against the window, staring out of it. Lip was moodier than any chick Ian knew, he just stood there with his shoulders slumped, acting like he was the one who got fag-bashed the night before.

“So Harry said ‘I’ll suck your dick’ and you just fucking hit him?” Ian asked. “You’re joking, right?”

Because - not only did Ian like Harry as a friend, but Harry was a fellow queer in a bigoted ass neighborhood and that meant something - then Ian was going to have to kick his brother’s ass.

“Not exactly,” Lip muttered, his face turned away from Ian still. “I might have forgotten the part where his mouth was wrapped around my dick when I hit him.”

“Yeah, you might have forgotten that,” Ian agreed. He sighed as he stood up and walked over to Lip. Ian put a hand on his older brother’s shoulder and shook his head. “You’re my brother and I love you, but that was the biggest dick move you’ve ever pulled.”

It was such a dick move that Ian didn’t even feel bad when he slugged his dumbass brother full force right in his dumbass stomach and then left him to think about his dumbass decisions alone.

“I thought we were goin’ to fuck on the trampoline, not go to Black’s house,” Mickey complained when Ian dragged him outside with him to go talk to Harry.

“Lip hit Harry and I’m trying to make sure Harry doesn’t think it’s because he’s gay,” Ian explained. He jumped up the three steps to Harry’s back door and it was flung open before he could even knock.

Harry’s newest friend to move in his damn trap house of a home, Hermione, stood in the doorway and looked pissed. Ian wasn’t a bitch, he couldn’t back down from a furious chick, but he could pull Mickey up by the wrist so Ian wasn’t facing her alone.

“Tell your brother that he is dead,” Hermione hissed. Ian swore that her brown curls actually cackled with electricity. Fuck, she was scary.

It was like being faced with reason number two that Ian was happy being gay most of the time: chicks were scary.

The number one reason was Mickey Milkovich’s tight ass.

“I… yep, I will,” Ian said. Bros before hoes, but pissed off chicks didn’t count as hoes and Ian wasn’t going to fight anyone that was rightfully furious.

Ian justified it by reminding himself that if someone hit him mid-hummer, Lip would kick their ass.

“Wait, why’s she killing Lip?” Mickey whispered. “People hit Harry all the time.”

“And you don’t think that’s a problem?” Ian hissed back quietly. “Lip hit him when Harry had his mouth on Lip’s dick.”

“Your brother’s a fag?” Mickey would only hear the one part. He grinned like an idiot and Ian thought about smacking him. “It’s like the Gallagher fuckin’ legacy to be a queer.”

“Some studies have linked sexuality to genetics, but I think it’s nurture verse nature, to an extent,” Hermione said, her voice still cold and angry. “I think that people are more likely to openly be who they were born when they’re supported by their family. My parents, for instance, are heterosexual and come from a long line of heterosexuals.”

“I see,” Ian said, pretending like he had a single fucking clue what she was on about.

“Yo, can we see Black or my sister?” Mickey asked. “Ian’s going to whine if he doesn’t get to check on his bestie and I gotta blunt I want to smoke in front of Mandy.”

“You can’t smoke in front of Mandy, she’s pregnant,” Hermione said scathingly. She stepped out on the back porch with them and hopped her ass up on the rail. “I could use a blunt.”

Mickey looked at Ian when Ian’s eyebrows lifted up on his forehead. Ian stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. If Hermione wanted to share a blunt, it wasn’t like Ian had any issue with it.

“So where is Harry?” Ian asked after Mickey lit the blunt and they all passed it around once. Hermione had the blunt in her hand and for such a prissy-bitch, she held it like a natural.

“He’s having an episode,” Hermione said, her voice a little high-pitched from the weed. She looked sad when she looked down at the blunt. “Your brother broke him. So many people tried to break him and couldn’t, and now he won’t get out of bed.”

“Damn.” Ian whistled sympathetically when Hermione passed him the blunt. “Does he have depression or something?” he asked nosily.

Monica had depression, Ian remembered that from the last time she had been around. It had been a bitch, according to Fi. Monica wouldn’t get out of bed for days and Fiona spent half her time raising Monica’s kids and the other half trying to take care of Monica.

But Monica was a psycho and Harry was Harry.

“Who knows,” Hermione sighed. She scrubbed her face and Ian wondered if Mandy had painted her nails; Hermione didn’t seem like a ‘Jewel of India Purple’ kind of girl.

“My aunt had depression,” Mickey said as Ian passed him the blunt next. Mickey took a long hit while Ian and Hermione watched him. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“What did she do?” Hermione asked, accepting the blunt once again. Ian could see her planning her mission around whatever Mickey knew to cure depression based on whatever fucked up aunt he had.

“She shot herself,” Mickey said. He shrugged, “Looked happy in her fuckin’ coffin, anyway.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes and jumped off the rail, looking all pissed off again.

“Harry is not going to shoot himself,” she hissed. “God. Boys are truly idiots.”

“Way to go, idiot,” Ian told Mickey when they stood on the porch after Hermione stomped inside and slammed the door shut. “Now we’re on her fucking hit list too.”

Mickey looked like a kicked puppy when he turned his dark blue pouty eyes on Ian.

“She took my weed,” he whined. “Now what are we going to do?”

Ian held Mickey’s eyes as he smirked slowly and then very obviously turned his head to look at the trampoline in his backyard.

“We could fuck on the trampoline,” Ian offered.

Mickey perked up right away and then shoved Ian, declaring it a race to the trampoline.

Ian won again when he leapt over the dividing fence and showed off by doing a second leap to bounce his ass right on the trampoline.

Ian was just fucking grateful that he had Mickey. As fucked up as they both were, at least they both knew they were gay and didn’t spend days locked in their rooms with depression.