Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/1864089. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: One_Direction_(Band) Relationship: Harry_Styles/Louis_Tomlinson Character: Harry_Styles, Louis_Tomlinson, Niall_Horan, Liam_Payne, Zayn_Malik Additional Tags: On_the_Run, inspired_by_jay_and_bey, cause_i'm_seeing_the_on_the_run_tour in_literally_a_week, and_i_hadn't_seen_any_inspired_by_this_bad_ass bonnie_and_clyde_image_so, here_y'all_go, yay, fleeing_police, Drug_Use, etc_-_Freeform, Smut, hardcore_smut, yesssss_smuttttt Stats: Published: 2014-06-29 Words: 4739 ****** down to ride 'til the very end ****** by beggars_visored Summary Harry and Louis begin a tumultous relationship, the foundation of which is murder, armed robbery, and lots and lots of illegal substances. And some sex, for good measure. Inspired by Beyoncé & Jay-Z's "Run" video Notes so this is actually really dark and scary and i'm not 100% sure where this came from but maybe you'll like it if you don't think i'm majorly messed up (i swear i love kittens and eating ice cream and rainbows not like gunning people down) See the end of the work for more notes             Harry glances nervously in his rearview mirror. The road was empty two minutes ago, he could have sworn it was, and now there is just a sea of flashing red and blue lights.             “Lou, what do we do?” he asks, pressing down a little harder on the gas, bringing the engine up to 120 km/h.             Sneaking a look at the boy sitting next to him, Harry sees Louis casually smoking a cigarette and leaning over the back of the passenger seat as if the cars behind them were some sort of a free show.             “Just keep doing what you’re doing,” he says, turning around to face front again and pushing his Aviator glasses up his nose.             “Which is?” Harry asks with a bit of trepidation, the first he’s had in a while. Louis seems to notice, because he turns to stare at him and grabs his hand which is gripping the steering wheel, massaging it gently.             Over the noise of the sirens, he leans into Harry’s ear and whispers three words:             “Running away together.”   * * * * *               Six months ago, Harry Styles was just your average pretty boy uni student whose life was pretty much taking a nosedive. He’d been in school for what seemed like ages, but he had literally no fucking clue what he was doing with his life and no career path. He’d been floating from class to party to his room and then repeating the cycle, end on end with no real sense of what was going to come next.             As cliché as it sounded, he really was a genuine goody-goody. He called his mother every Sunday night and Skyped often with his sister when she needed help on her homework. He didn’t have any tattoos, piercings, or anything remotely incriminating. All he had was a mop of curls, a little bit of a shy disposition, and too many ripped flannel shirts with coordinated scarves.             He figured that his life was basically going to consist of working some sub-par blue collar job, like a mechanic or something. He always was good with cars. Something about spending quality time under all of that machinery was the most peaceful thing in the world. That didn’t require any A-levels either, which was always helpful.             For all he knew, he’d get married to some mousy little girl named Angela and they’d have twins and live in a small flat outside of London. It wasn’t upsetting, really. Just a fact, one that he’d come to accept.             And then he went to that party. That Saturday in May, when the temperature was beginning to spike and people were sweating hormones like it was nobody’s business. One of the guys on his hall, Niall or Kyle or whatever the fuck his name was, decided to have like a hundred people into his tiny room to smoke some weed and get blitzed together, with the hopeful result being a massive orgy or something where Harry would get to cum for the first time in what felt like forever in something other than his hand.             So he decided to go, threw on one of those flannel shirts and a pair of badly ripped jeans stained with motor oil from when he was working on his car the other week, and walked halfway down the hall.             Niall greeted him at the door, blunt in hand, already majorly gone. He slurred some sort of hello and pointed him inside, where the space was cramped and filled with smoke coiling smoothly around some Jay-Z filtering from Niall’s shit speakers.             Harry took the blunt passed to him and took a drag, feeling the high hit him as soon as he inhaled, and closing his eyes with the exhale. Passing it to the next person, he edged a little further in the room to see if he recognized anybody. Typically, it was all strangers, but he figured he’d try to make himself a part of something.             Finding refuge on the floor next to the couch in the living room, on top of which two people were actually having really rough sex, Harry sat and collected his thoughts. One thing he’d miss about the real world was these kinds of parties, the ones where people just did stupid shit and didn’t get in trouble for it.   * * * * *               “I don’t think you’re high enough yet.”             Looking up, Harry searches through the cloud of smoke and sweat for whoever was addressing him.             He was fairly short, although above the five foot mark (much to Harry’s amusement), with a slightly spiked up mess of chocolate colored hair tinged with bleach blonde highlights and the kind of five o’clock shadow Harry always wanted but never got. His eyes were the clearest blue, the color of the oceans you see in ads for Bora Bora or some shit, and he had an impish sense about him, like he was just a magnet for trouble. His jeans were too dark to distinguish from the rest of the dark surroundings, but Harry could definitely make out his ass. And damn, that was a nice ass.             “Stop checking out my butt, sweetie. Eyes up here.” Embarrassed, Harry hauls himself up from the floor to address whoever this was talking to him.             Strange boy extends a hand. “My name’s Louis Tomlinson. Friends call me Tommo, or Lou. You can call me whatever you want, long as I like it.” He has a thick drawl, like he’s speaking through some sort of barrier, and every word is sultry and seductive and Harry can feel himself shifting out of his skins for a reason he can’t identify.             “Harry, Harry Styles,” he says, taking the hand. Louis doesn’t shake it, he just holds it. Harry can feel his cheeks flaming up.             “Very James Bond,” Louis teases. “I’m intrigued.” Harry feels his face flush even darker. Why is this guy, of all people, making him act this way?             “So,” Harry stammers awkwardly, “great party, huh?”             Louis looks at the scene around him, dropping Harry’s hand to cross his arms. Harry unconsciously reaches out to grab it back before realizing what he’s doing, and looks on abashedly as Louis surveys the hazy party.             “Eh. It’s alright. I’ve thrown better.” He scratches his chin and pulls a lighter out of his back pocket. “Plus, I got Niall the cheapest shit they sell, and everyone’s acting like they’re out of their motherfucking minds or something. Like, unless they’re uptight fucktards, they’re all faking like they’re high. Jesus.”             Harry feels slightly uncomfortable because Louis is definitely talking about him, conscious of it or not, and keeps his eyes on his feet as Louis lights a cigarette and takes a drag. Letting the smoke flow out of his nostrils as he exhales, he sticks the lighter back in his pocket and strokes Harry’s arm. He can feel the goosebumps rising up the length of it already. What the fuck is this kid doing to him?             “You having fun?” Louis asks him, letting his hand linger. Harry tries to get his mind working again to respond.             “Uh, yeah, I mean. You know. The people fucking on the couch next to my head were a highlight.” Louis laughs, flashing a set of teeth that would make any celebrity jealous.             “Oh be real, Styles, you wish it were you,” he says, eyeing him teasingly as he takes another drag from the cigarette.             Harry kind of laughs it off, scratching the back of his head.             “Didn’t deny it, did you?” Louis murmurs in a voice loud enough that Harry can hear but soft enough that it sounds incredibly sexy. Not knowing what to do, Harry does the awkward laugh thing again, but that clearly didn’t work the first time so he has no clue why it would work again.             “Ever kissed a boy before?” Louis asks him. Taken aback, Harry looks at him, slackjawed, before realizing that a verbal response might by the proper thing to do.             “N-no, have you?” he stammers. Louis tilts his head back and laughs, taking the cigarette from his mouth to look Harry dead in the eye.             “Yep,” he says. With deft fingers, he slowly strokes the length of the rolled up paper, causing a few smoldering embers to fall onto the floor. Harry unconsciously gulps. “And I loved it,” he whispers before putting the cigarette back for another drag.             Harry’s head is literally spinning, and he’s not sure if it’s the insane amount of marijuana floating through all of this smoke or the fact that he hasn’t had sex in a ridiculously long time, but he just blurts out, “Can I try?”             Louis looks at him side-eyed, head angled towards the bedroom where the music is seeping out from under the closed door, and smiles broadly. Not saying a word, he drops the cigarette on the floor and grinds it under his shoe. Grabbing Harry by the front of the shirt, he murmurs “Pucker up, pretty boy,” and goes in for the kiss.             To describe it in one word, the experience is simply electric. Every nerve ending in Harry’s body fires at once, and he can feel the fireworks exploding everywhere. He literally shivers from the chill and sweats from the heat, and then presses back into Louis like he’s taking his breath from him.             From that moment, he was hooked.   * * * * *               So Louis and Harry began a relationship. With quite a bang, in fact. Harry told Louis later that he had never cum so hard in his entire life as the first time he bottomed for Louis. Louis just laughed and said that the last guy said that too.             Their relationship was never exactly typical. For starters, Louis only took Harry on dates to parties where he delivered drugs to different friends of his. Their first date was a party for some of the local MP’s that Louis brought a kilo of raw crack cocaine to for a whopping eighteen hundred pounds. Afterwards, Louis took Harry to Harrod’s and they went on a shopping spree.             Harry’s parents started to notice that something was up when he started coming to see them wearing Burberry over Armani suits and dodging their questions whenever they asked where he got the money to buy them. They finally got out of them that he had a boyfriend, but he refused to introduce Louis. He knew they wouldn’t like him, and he couldn’t deal with the guilt of continuing to date someone his parents hated.             For their second date, Louis took Harry to a shady flat on the east end of London, where he delivered several shipments of heroin-laced marijuana to a group of uni kids. They all looked like they had gotten the best present of their whole lives, and Harry grinned back at them as he handed out bags of weed and took shots off of Louis’ stomach and ended up fucking him in the back alley of the building.             Waking up in Louis’ bed the next morning, Harry turned on the telly to see the same flat they’d been to last night surrounded by yellow police tape as stretchers pulled out bodies and the police took the shipments they’d taken in the night before.             On their third date, Louis bought Harry a gun.   * * * * *               “Lou, what the fuck is this?” Harry asks, turning the gun over in his hand. He’s never held a gun in his life, much less shot one, and certainly never owned one, and now Louis has given him a box with a bow on it containing some giant firearm with a box of bullets like batteries for a toy.             “It’s a semiautomatic glock M-9. Top of the line, got a scope I put on it and everything. Got it from my buddy Nick from his connections in Thailand,” Louis says, looking at Harry over the dim light of their little kitchen.             “Thailand?” Harry says. “You mean, like, the capital of human trafficking?”             “Look, Styles,” Louis says, leaning over the table and getting closer to him, “We’re in deep here, okay? This isn’t just some game that you can get out of now. You saw the news. They’re on to us. They know what we’re up to.”             “I know,” Harry starts, “but—”             “But what?” Louis interrupts. “You knew what you were getting into from the start. I never hid anything from you.”             Harry sighs, turning the gun around again. “No, no, I know, it’s just that…” He swallows hard and looks at Louis. “This is big, Lou, okay? It just got really serious. I don’t know, before it seemed like we were just fucking around, giving some kids drugs or whatever, and now you think it’s dangerous enough that you have to give me a gun?”             “I will never lie to you,” Louis says, taking Harry’s free hand. “I will always be honest with you, no matter what happens.”             “I know,” Harry says, swallowing hard. “I know, and I appreciate that, I really do.”             Louis looks him in the eye, the fierce blue burning into Harry’s insides and churning them up like nothing else. “So when I say that we’re in deep, I mean it. We’re in really fucking deep.” He strokes Harry’s cheek with his free hand.             “Are you in?”             Harry swallows hard, and looks down at the gun in his hands. It feels cold, solid, and heavy, like someone put a paperweight in his hands. Holding a weapon like this, it reminds him that he now has the power to control someone’s life. And someone’s death.             Straightening up, he looks Louis in the eye and smiles cheekily.             “Wanna teach me how to shoot this thing?”   * * * * *               Harry is outside in the back of the house shooting a target when Louis slams the screen door shut behind him.             “Harry, what the fucking hell do you think you’re doing?” he whispers, grabbing him by the shirt front and slamming him up against the wall. “What if the neighbors heard you, you’re shooting a fucking semi-automatic back here. Are you crazy?”             With one swift movement, Harry grabs Louis’ arm and twists it off his shirt, flinging him onto the grass in front of him. He aims the gun for Louis, who is sitting on his ass in the middle of the lawn, as vulnerable as Harry as ever known him to be, but still with the calmest expression a person could ever have.             “No, Louis, I’m not crazy,” Harry growls. “I am fucking prepared, okay? I am preparing myself to die for you right now. So if you wanna go talk to the fucking neighbors and explain to them why the fuck you’ve been breaking pots in the backyard or some shit that doesn’t line up with what I told them, be my guest. But otherwise, keep that big fucking mouth of yours shut and keep dealing like you’re supposed to.”             Louis looks up at him and grins widely. “I knew I loved you for a reason,” he says, getting up and planting a kiss on Harry. They kiss long and deep, melting into each other as Harry twists his arms around Louis’ neck, pointing the gun straight at the target and firing, straight into the center of the bullseye.   * * * * *               After one of Louis’ right hand men was gunned down in broad daylight outside of his flat and robbed for everything he had, the two decided to take drastic measures. They needed to sell the flat, get rid of the drugs, and get some money before getting the fuck out of there real quick.             It was Harry’s idea to rob a bank.             He said it would be pretty easy, just throw on a ski mask and grab his gun, tell everyone to get on the floor and put their hands over their heads, and then take the money and run. Louis thought about it for a while, and then agreed. They started preparing.             First, Harry went to a tattoo artist. He grimaced through the pain of the needle etching a single bullet into the skin of his shoulder blade, an H on the index finger of his left hand and an L on the pointer finger of his left, so that every time he blew some motherfucker’s brains out he would do it thinking of Louis.             The day of the planned robbery, they put on their matching black skinny jeans and tight t-shirts, grabbed their guns and ski masks, and jumped in the car to go. Behind them they left everything they owned except for a handful of chosen possessions, and the gas oven on with the door open.             Driving down the blocks before their destination, Louis grabbed Harry’s hand and held it until they got there. Parking in front of the bank, they put on their ski masks and grabbed each other for one last, long smoldering kiss before throwing the doors of the car open and entering the bank.   * * * * *               “Put your fucking hands up, this is a bank robbery!”             Louis and Harry enter the bank with guns drawn, aiming at everything and anything that moves. Everyone is screaming and falling to the floor, and Harry notes there is chaos everywhere around him.             “Down on the floor, hands where we can see them!” Harry screams. His blood courses through his veins like he’s never felt it move before, the adrenaline filling every inch of him until he almost feels like his heart is going to explode.             “If you even think about touching that alarm, I will blow your fucking head off!” Louis screams at one of the tellers who looks as though she is about to pass out. Leaving Louis to guard the rest of the customers, Harry approaches the counter and hops up on top, aiming his gun down at the women on the floor.             “Quarter of a million. Right now. Make it snappy,” he barks, watching as one of the women scuttles to the vault to get the money. “Actually, scratch that, make it half a million. We need some spending money, right hon?”             Louis laughs from over where he’s pacing the bank floor, waving his gun at the frightened patrons. “That’s right, boo bear. We’re gonna go on a shopping spree!”             The teller crawls back to Harry with one bag full of money and goes back for a second. He turns behind him for a split second, and his blood runs cold. A man, no older than his father, reaching for the alarm system—             “Louis!” he tries to call but he feels like he’s too late and all of a sudden there’s a loud bang and the man is crumpled on the floor, brains and blood staining the carpet crimson. Everyone lets out a collective scream, and a woman in the corner vomits.             “Do you want me to shoot your brains out too?” Louis yells at her.             “Hurry it up, will you?” Harry shouts at the teller, prepping the gun. “We don’t have all day.” She pushes three bags of money up on the counter, which Harry takes, stowing his gun in his back pocket as Louis guards his back.             “Got it?” Louis asks quietly. Harry does a quick count of everything.             “Got it,” he says.             “Then let’s get the fuck out of here,” Louis says, and they run.   * * * * *               They rob ten more banks after that. Each time it feels like it should be the same, but it’s way more exciting, the way the people scream differently and getting the money each time like a kid going to the candy score.             They checked into a seedy motel off the highway where Harry spent the evenings in his boxers with hundreds of pounds sticking out of the top grinding on Louis, cock on cock as they moaned together, sweaty bodies on top of a pile of cold, hard cash.             Harry loved the feeling of the cold, silent steel on his thigh and the gentle caress of the paper on his stomach as he danced for Louis, real sexy and real low, working his ass over Louis’ crotch and loving the way Louis’ cold fingers slipped in his waistband and rubbed his hot skin.             But, like everything, it all came crashing down faster than either of them anticipated.   * * * * *               Harry slips his hood down from over his eyes as he enters the secluded corner of the local park. It’s raining, fairly hard, and the park is deserted, except for two figures at a bench holding a black umbrella and shielding themselves from the rain.             “Harry, is that –” one of them asks, but Harry just shakes his head, sitting down on the opposite end of the bench.             “I can’t look at you,” he says tersely. “I don’t know if they’re watching, and if they are, I don’t want you two to get in trouble for it.”             The one, with closely cropped brunette hair and a beard, peeks out from under the umbrella. “But Harry—”             “Liam, I said, I can’t look at you,” Harry says, raising his voice slightly. Liam backs off, shrinking back under the umbrella again.             “Hey, Harry,” the other one says. Harry smiles through tears at the tree in front of him.             “Zayn,” he says through a lump in his throat. “It’s been forever, yeah?”             “Yeah,” Zayn says with the same sense of emotion. “It’s been a while.”             The three of them sit in silence for a while, listening to the rain fall and just being in each other’s company.             “What happened, Harry?” Liam asks finally. Harry sighs, uncrossing his legs and putting his head in his hands.             “Nothing happened, Liam. Louis happened, that’s all.”             “He clearly got you into a massive ton of shit,” Zayn bites back. Harry holds his tongue, doesn’t say anything.             “We saw your pictures on the news,” Liam says. “Your parents are absolutely petrified for you. They barely recognized you, they thought it was a joke or something.”             Harry tries to hold back tears, remembering that he has to be stoic. That time is long gone, the time where he could be up front and honest with his parents, and share his life with them.             “It’s not a joke. It’s my life,” he replies tersely.             “We just,” Zayn starts before stopping himself. “We just don’t want to lose you, Harry.”             For the first time, Harry turns to face his two friends under their umbrella, tears in his eyes. “I love him,” he says, and then gets up and walks back out of the park, letting his tears mix with the falling rain.   * * * * *               So they went on the run. They stole a car from the local mechanic’s place, one that Harry fixed up once they got of town, and took off. Neither of them had any plan, no idea where they wanted to go or what they wanted to do once they got there. They took turns driving, all day and all night, with the radio on to listen to any new police reports.             On a whim, they decided to drive to the beach, and spent the night getting drunk and listening to 80’s rock on the hood of the car, having breathless sex a few times and sharing a joint.             They knew they had to get rid of the gun Louis used in the first bank shooting, so together the two of them kissed it goodbye and threw it into the ocean to be swept out by the tides.             And then they kept driving.   * * * * *               Harry keeps pressing the pedal down, passing 130 km/h, then 140, then 145. Looking behind him again, he can see the flashing lights getting ever closer to them.             “Lou, I can’t make this go any faster,” he shouts over the scream of the engine and the shrieking sirens. Louis looks at the speedometer and then at Harry and then reaches down under his seat.             He pulls up a sawed off shotgun and turns so he’s using the seat as a sort of barricade, aiming for the police cars.             “Whatever you do, Styles, don’t stop driving. Keep going straight, don’t stop for anything, got it?” he asks. Harry tries answering, but he’s drowned out by the sound of bullets splaying out from the gun next to him, the hiss of popped tires and the cacophony of shattering glass.             From the rearview mirror, Harry can see one or two of the cars go spinning out of control. One flips over, slams into the windshield of another one, and then erupts into flames. With a nervous laugh, he slams the gas all the way to the ground, inching the speed up to 150, and drives away from the roaring fireball behind them.             “Damn,” he says, laughing over the roar of the explosion.             Louis blows the barrels of the shotgun like Harry saw in those mob movies he used to watch as a kid. “Surprised, Styles?” he asks.             But their revelry is short lived. Harry looks up, hearing something whirring loudly overhead.             “Shit,” Louis says, trading the shotgun for a larger semi- automatic.             “What is it?” Harry asks, trying not to take his eyes off of the road.             “Helicopter,” Louis shouts, aiming upwards above their heads and rattling off a steady stream of gunfire. The helicopter pulls up sharply, and Harry swears he can hear the sound of bullets dinging off the windscreen.             “They’re not gonna go down, Lou,” Harry shouts at him.             Grunting, Louis shoves another cartridge into the back of the gun. “You think I don’t know that? God, after all this time,” he grumbles.             They turn to look at each other and burst out laughing over how ridiculous the whole thing is.             Looking back in the rearview mirror again, Harry can see that the amount of flashing police lights have grown again, and doubled if not tripled. Another helicopter has joined the first up above, blasting some message about surrendering to the police over the sound system.             “You know,” Harry says as he swerves to try to avoid one of the officers firing out the side window, “before all of this I was just some wimpy little kid. And now look at me! I’m like Robert DeNiro or something.”             Louis laughs, aiming a revolver at the cop who just shot at them and firing back. “Yeah, you’re one hell of a bad ass Harry Styles.”             “Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, doing this with you,” Harry says, spinning the wheel to the right and almost tipping the car over. “I lost a lot of my life because of this, you know that as much as I do.”             “You know what they say, though, don’t you?” Louis says, reloading one of the pistols. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”             “Louis, I love you,” Harry says, looking over at him. Surprised, Louis looks back at him and takes off his glasses. Harry stares into the deep blue of his eyes, mesmerized by how he can still feel like he’s drowning in them.             “Love you too, Harry,” Louis murmurs, reaching over and pressing his lips against Harry’s. This kiss is so different from the first. It’s tinged with something Harry can’t identify, regret, maybe, or longing, for another chance at something they knew they’d never have. But it’s beautiful and sweet, and some part of Harry knows it’s going to be the last they ever share.             “So we’ve got a couple of options,” Louis says, firing up at the second helicopter. “We can surrender to the police, get taken into custody, go to trial, and rot in jail for the rest of our lives. We can keep driving, drive for as long as we can, and find some way to get the fuck out of here so they can’t find us.”             “Or,” Harry says simply.             “How do you know what I’m going to say?” Louis teases, aiming for one of the cop cars.             “I know you better than anyone, Louis Tomlinson,” Harry says, “and I know exactly what you’re thinking.” Turning to look at him, he lets go of the steering wheel and grabs onto his hand. “And that’s exactly what I’m thinking too.”             “Ever kissed a boy?” Louis murmurs, caressing Harry’s cheek. Harry smiles softly and runs a hand through Louis’ hair.             “More than just kiss,” he says, “I loved a boy with every ounce of my soul. And even though we did some fucked up shit together, some crazy shit together, we did it together, you know?”             “Yeah,” Louis mumbles, “I know.”             “Are you in?” Harry asks.             Louis looks him dead in the eye. “Absolutely,” he says, and they brace for impact. End Notes well hope y'all liked that majorly dark shitshow and yes i know i shift tenses a few times but i did that to try to give a sense of flashback and then dialogue taking place as it happened if that makes any sense lol Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!