Chasing Sunsets // h.s. + l.t. || Larry Stylinson || louis and harry BoyxBoy

0.6

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"I wish I wasn't always wrong
I wish I wasn't always alone."
-Christina Perri, 'Sad Song'

0.6 ~ The Growing Up Goes Slow

"You know, mates, it's been a nice night, but I really think I should go now." Louis said quietly, shooting everybody around him a bright smile that didn't even contemplate touching his eyes.
Somebody might have said something to him, but he couldn't hear. The world was
muted.
He feelings were
muted.
He was
muted.
He got up. He felt stiff. Drained. Like he didn't have the energy or desire to ever move again. But he had to because there was no way he could stay after something like that.

So he left.

-

Outside was deserted. The Bell was in a quieter part of London, and Louis was able to wander aimlessly for a few blocks before he encountered anybody. A drunk couple, laughing and holding each other and kissing sloppily as they staggered down the street. Their cheeks were flushed and love was painted vividly in their starry eyes. Louis felt their utter happiness punch him in the gut.
They passed and he slumped to his knees, crawling on all fours to the closest set of concrete steps. He clutched his hair, tilting forward until he was so folded up in himself he felt like he was almost small enough to disappear.
He wished he could.
He wished he could be mad at Niall.
He wished he could hate Parker.
He wished he could take back the last seven years of his life.
He wished, a little bit, that he could just take his life. Period.
He wished a lot of things.
But he couldn't be mad at Niall, because how could he have known?
He couldn't hate Parker, couldn't even blame him, because Louis wasn't even good enough, and he couldn't expect Parker to go on not noticing.
He couldn't take back time, because he that was impossible.
And he couldn't take his life because he wasn't quite brave enough for that. He wasn't quite strong enough for that.
Fuck, he just wasn't enough.

He sat on the steps, shaking and rocking and holding himself together for several eternities. Then air moved next to him, and he glanced up, and somebody pressed the green un-mute button on life's great remote controller--or maybe those were just Harry's eyes.

"Hello." Louis said, but his voice came out all wrong, like ripping newspaper shaking hands with shattering glass.
Harry was standing over him, a little wide eyed. He didn't have his jacket on and Louis could see where his skin bumped and puckered from the cold in the harsh shadows cast by the streetlight outside of one of the nearby shut-up shops.
"Jesus Christ, Lou." He said. Louis looked down.
"I--." Harry started, and then stopped and then sighed and then crouched and Louis was so damn conscious of his every move,
"Why didn't you say something? I would have let you cancel if you didn't feel up to it."
That's was this was about?
"S'okay." Louis said. "Didn't wanna think about it."
"What a fucking asshole." Harry said, settling in next to him. Louis was feeling a little fuzzy, so all he could focus in was the fact that he had never really heard Harry curse before.
"Still don't wanna think about it." Louis told him.
Harry let the silence stand still for a tigh-rope-walking minute, but then the acrobat fell and he stood up and tugged on Louis' arm, and normally Louis would have burst an artery at that kind of contact but he was pretty sure his heart was malfunctioning because it didn't seem to be beating anymore. Maybe once you break it too many times, it just stops working.
"Well, you can't stay here all night. Let's get you back to your flat, yeah?"
Louis mumbled something so unintelligible he wasn't even sure what he said, but Harry just looked at him like he understood perfectly.
"Come on." Harry guided him by the arm and Louis shuffled along and it seemed like all of a sudden they were standing under the inkD sign. Louis didn't remember telling him where he lived or how they'd gotten there (though the smell of bus and wet pavement was still a metallic reminder in his nose), and Harry paused for a moment.
"Key?"
Cue fumbling in his pocket for longer than usual because he had about as much bodily control as one of those claw-grabber-things for stuffed animals at the arcade that you always blow your pocket change on when you're seven.
Door open. Up stairs. Open another door. Inside apartment. Harry guided him to a chair, set him down, and went to the kitchen.
As soon as he was out of sight, Louis' world shifted and focused and then snapped back on.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He was so fucking pathetic. But when Harry came back into the room a few minutes later with mugs of Yorkshire tea in either hand, Louis thought that maybe having somebody take care of him just once, just for a couple minutes, might not be the worst thing.
He held the hot cup between his palms and the burning pain seems to center him.
Whoops. That's not a good sign, is it? Oh well. Who fucking cares?
"Coffee shop tendencies die hard, then?" He said after several beats alternating between awkward and tense.
Harry expelled extra air through his nose in a laugh that would qualify as a "HAHAHAHAHA OMG DYING" in the online world.
Jesus, Louis was all over the place.
"I guess." He replied, putting his cup down. He was quiet for a bit. And then another bit. And then,
"Hi."
"Hello."
"I--," Harry paused again, searching the small apartment for words, and all of a sudden Louis was embarrassed. Embarrassed of his behavior and his feelings and his messy flat and his hair and God, just everything.
"I'm sorry," Louis interrupted, "I'm sorry for ruining your night. I--you can go now, if you want. The lads'll probably still be there and you seemed to get on well and I'll be fine here, I'll just--,"
"I'm not going back there." Harry said, shaking his head. "I want to be here. With you."
Louis, for maybe the first time in his entire fucking pathetic little life, had nothing to say.
This
this boy.
He's gonna fucking kill me, isn't he?
"Why?" His voice was still an ugly mix of breaking and broken, but the scalding tea was helping to burn away some of the unshed tears.
"Because you're my friend. And you're hurt. And I don't like when my friends are hurt."
Oh. Alright then. So Louis was just an ugly generalization.
Nothing new there.

"I'm alright now." He said and he knew that as a theatre major he should have been a way better actor. "Thank you, though. You can go home now."

"Lou--,"

"Really, Harold." He didn't look at him, knowing his eyes would give it all away. "I'm alright. You were lovely to bring me home, and I'm sorry you've had to see me like this, but I think you'd better be getting too your flat now. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"
He was trying to be nonchalant, but it wasn't working because his words were sharp and staccato and meant to make Harry go away.
Silence.
Silence.
"Yeah, okay."
Harry left, patting him lightly on the shoulder.
Louis dumped out his tea.
-
Zayn showed up at his flat ten minutes later. Louis let himself half hope it was Harry knocking a lightly on his door, but then he saw brown eyes instead of green ones and he almost let himself be disappointed.
They said a few words to each other and then they were in Louis' bedroom and Louis could finally just forget the world.

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