Someone you won't talk about (l.s)

Tuesday

Louis wakes up yet again to the domestic sounds of pots and pans clinking rhythmically through the kitchen. He rolls over to check the time.

8:30am

Someone has got to inform Liam of the appropriate hour to start conducting his kitchen time orchestras. But it was no use trying to go back to sleep now, not with sun shining through the thin curtain of the window and illuminating the room, or the stove timer beeping too many times in the distance. So Louis rolls out of bed and grabs a change of clothes for the shower.

When he gets out, hair wet and smelling of lavender (a shampoo that Harry introduced him too that was still his absolute favorite, but no one needed to know that) he throws his pj's on the bed uncaringly and moseys downstairs.

"You're up!" Liam chants. Sliding a mug of fresh steaming coffee in his direction.

"Didn't give me much of a choice with all your clanking." Louis mumbles, accepting the coffee and enjoying the way the warmness seeps into his hands.

"Early bird catches the worm, cranky pants." Liam mocks, sending a plate of eggs and toast his way.

"If that's your way of telling me you put worms in my food, I'll have to pass." Louis huffs and laugh, biting into his buttery toast.

"Caught me." Liam chuckles. It was endearing to watch him cook, flipping soggy fried eggs in the pan and frowning when the yolk breaks. He could see what Sophia saw in him. "So i'm trying to plan something for today, got any ideas?" Liam asks, cracking another egg into the sizzling pan and cursing when the shell drops in behind it.

"Well, we are in Italy mate. I'd love to explore." Louis suggests. Liam ponders for a few seconds, half preoccupied with fingering the shells out of the runny egg whites.

"Oh!" Liam suddenly shouts, nearly causing Louis to choke on his toast.

"Jesus, what?"

"When my parents were here they went to this little winery in the vineyards. Said it was gorgeous!" Liam says. The floorboards above them creak, which presumably means that Niall and Harry are awake and getting ready. Louis can hear Harry's low humming near the stairs and he wishes it didn't sound so endearing. And he really wishes it didn't give him such familiar nostalgia to those slow sunday mornings, the ones where Harry would wake up before him and the sound of his soft humming would fill their quiet flat. It was always his favorite thing; to pad his way into the living room and find Harry, glasses on and laptop on his lap, typing away some song he had thought up in his sleep.

"Sign me up." Louis nods.

"Did I hear winery? As in wine tasting?" Harrys making his way down the stairs, clad in a floral button up blouse that billows open at the top and a pair of dark brown corduroy trousers, his green and pink adidas peeking out from the bottom. Louis wonders how he does it, how he manages to make anything look like it should be in a runway show. He came into himself so much in the year that followed their hiatus. He became the person he always wanted to be, dressed the way he always dreamed of dressing, wrote the songs that would have otherwise stayed scribbled in his moleskin or typed into his notepad in his phone. Despite all the animosity between them, Louis was proud of him, he really was; and he wished he could tell him that.

"Indeed you did, Harold." Liam chirps. He found a little vegan shop in the village where he purchased some plant-based meat and a few other vegan friendly options for Harry. Currently he was throwing a veggie patty into the pan and staring at it curiously as it sizzled. "Don't tell me wine isn't vegan?" Liam pouts.

"Yea Li, it's vegan." Harry chuckles, finishing his ascend down the stairs to take a seat at the breakfast bar.

"I think it's a little insensitive to assume grapes don't have feelings, H." Louis mumbles, trying to see if their small conversations last night has somehow opened the invisible door into civility for them. To see if maybe they can just coexist together instead of constantly loading their guns and preparing to shoot at the next possible moment. So he makes a joke, and glances at Harry from behind his lifted coffee mug to see if maybe they've made progress.