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

1.1

"I know you're looking for salvation in the secular age, but [boy] I'm not your savior."
"Well, shouldn't you be fucking with somebody your age instead of making changes?"
-The 1975, 'Girls'

1.1 ~ Frozen Hands To Hold

"I'm packed." Zayn mumbled to Louis the next morning. Louis tucked his phone between his head and his shoulder and grimaced as he hefted his duffel over his left shoulder. He must have slept wrong, because his neck hurt like hell.
"Good." Louis replied as cheerily as he could into his cell. "Meet me by the bus stop in ten?"
"See you then." Zayn's end clicked and went dead while Louis surveyed his apartment once more.
He was only staying at his mum's for two nights, so he had brought a couple pairs of trousers, two shirts and a pair of Toms. A beanie was stuffed over his unruly morning hair, and he was wearing a black pea coat and some black boots because damn, was it cold.

He looked at his reflection in the icy window, confirming his hellish appearance. The four hours of sleep he had gotten hadn't done much for his face, and the copious amounts of sadness and stress he was under were showing in the set of his shoulders and the tightness of his mouth.
He practiced a feeble smile a couple times before giving up and crashing out the door, locking it and not looking back.

He walked two blocks and got to the bus stop with four minutes to spare. Zayn wasn't there yet, and Louis was secretly glad because he needed some time to mentally prepare. He didn't want to say that inviting Zayn to his house was a mistake, because it wasn't. He was glad he was coming, and his mum would be happy too. But Louis...he just wasn't sure...he didn't know. It was hard. He wanted to want Zayn to be there, but he just couldn't. He didn't know why.
Fuck, but everything was so confusing.

"Lou?" A soft voice said from behind him. Distracted, he turned around and was metaphorically punched in the stomach when he was faced with a pair of grass green eyes and curly brown hair and God, of all days...

"Hi!" Harry grinned and Louis dropped his duffel bag.

"Oops." He mumbled, scrambling to pick it up. He felt more awkward than he had before in his entire life when Harry knelt down to help him pick up some of the clothes that had spilled out onto the cold but thankfully dry ground.

"What are you, um..." Louis trailed off, momentarily losing focus when Harry's hand brushed his. "...Um, doing here?"

"At a bus stop? Getting on a bus. It's how I get to work every morning, you know. And how I plan to get to the train station." Harry grinned at him cheekily and Louis though he might faint.

"Oh." He replied breathily, still unsure if what he was experiencing was reality or not. "But aren't you late?"

"It's Christmas Day, Lou. We're not open. I'm going to go to my mum's, like I told you yesterday. And you are too, right?"

"Yes. Sorry. Bit tired." Louis laughed awkwardly and shifted the bag to his other shoulder, wincing and shuffling and trying to refocus his eyes on something that wasn't Harry.

"Is there something wrong with your shoulder?" Harry asked after a moment, and Louis realized the the slow, languid way the words tripped out of him was the most enthralling thing he had ever experienced.

"My neck, actually. I think I slept wrong or something."

"Maybe it was all our dancing last night." Harry grinned and Louis drowned. "Here, let me see."

Before Louis could object, Harry had tugged the bag from his hands and was standing behind him, fingertips gently kneading the knot in his neck and oh God his
legs
were
brushing
Louis
in
so
many
different
places
and
he
was
on
fire.

"That feel good?"Harry breathed and Louis was so on, so alert, so aware of every bit of his body and those words were so sweetly suggestive with absolutely no intent behind them and he knew it, he did, but other parts of him clearly didn't because now he was regretting his choice of trousers.

"Y-yeah." Louis practically moaned before he pinched himself on the inside of the wrist hard and finally collected his absolutely shattered sense of resolve. "Um, thank you, but I need--,"

"Louis?" Throaty, breathy, pretty voice. "Hey, Lou. I'm so fucking glad I found you. Did we miss the bus yet?"

Zayn strode up, and Louis remembered thinking he was perfect at some point but next to talltantousled Harry there was not a shred of competition.

"Not here yet." Louis mumbled, looking awkwardly at the ground as Harry's bemused and almost bruised look threatened to sideswipe him.

"Hey, Harry." Zayn said after a long moment. "That's you're name, right? You came out drinking that one night?"

"Yeah." Harry's tone tiptoed between surprise and suspicion. "Fancy meeting you here as well as Louis. Where're you going?"

Louis kicked his feet together picked at his pocket.

"We're going to the train station. Then to Doncaster. Christmas with Lou's family. He invited me." Zayn smiled cheerfully at Harry who in turn looked at Louis with a cocked eyebrow and a loaded half smile.

"Yup." Louis said weakly because it wasn't supposed to be like this, Harry wasn't supposed to know, Zayn wasn't supposed to be so god damn happy, Louis wasn't supposed to care.

But he did.

God, Harry could rip apart his ribcage like it was made of cobwebs with a glance.

He knew this had been a bad idea.

"So..." Harry trailed off, silence hanging in the air like the haphazardly strung colored lights tangled in the crevices of holiday-season London. "Are you two, like..."

"Nope!" Louis said too loudly, not looking at anything but his hands and his icy white breath whooshing out of his mouth and drifting away into the air.

Silence.

Silence.

The bus pulled up. Zayn shuffled and got on, and Louis moved to follow, but Harry caught his shoulder and Louis paused, turned around, looked up at him. Confusion and questions knitted themselves together behind jade irises, coalescing into a concoction that almost looked like hurt. But...hurt? Why would that be?

"I, um..." Harry said, and he just looked so lost for a moment that Louis' heart imploded a bit. "I think I'll take the next bus."

Then his heart exploded and it hurt, hurt, hurt and it was choking him out.

"Okay." Louis said, turning and walking and then glancing back one more time. "Bye."

Harry bit his lip and nodded. Louis' breath turned into crystals, raining down and shattering all around him.

x

Kind of short but very important. More soon. Love you all.

VOTE AND COMMENT PLEASE. I do try to respond to every single one of you.

xx,

-a.f.