Surreptitious [H.S.][N.H.]

8- L2 A7

She reaches down to her feet and ruffles through the crinkled paper bags with hopes of finding left over fries. "Hey! Heyy those are my fries!" Louis protests, flipping his eyes back and forth between the road and the fry snatcher.

**

Finally back at the house, the time reads 1:52am in the morning, Louis and Ali enter the room with quiet feet and soft giggles.

Louis bumps his back against the door carefully to shut it silently, careful not to wake anyone upstairs. He goes to flip the switch to turn the lights on as well but Ali shakes her hooded head at him.

So he continues forward with the moonlit walls as the only reliable light source. Being cautious of the furniture in the way to not stumble over it and create a louder noise than needed. He gets to the bottom of the stairs, grabbing ahold of the railing and turning to the side to look for confirmation Ali is behind him.

She was, a couple feet away although. He raises his brows and motions his head for her to hurry up towards the stairs, but to which she only looks up from underneath the jumpers hood and shakes her head smiling at him. He wants to smile back, but an over whelming abundance of thoughts strike his nerves before one can even begin to form.

He doesn't like how normal and natural hanging out with her seems. He hasn't had that in a while, the ability to just freely smile and share laughs with someone without the need to prove his worth of not being too soft. Even with the guys, he'll fuck around with them and add smiles in the mix but this doesn't feel forced, he doesn't have to think or revise what he's going to say.

He's scared of that but in the end he's also glad for it.

Louis watches as Ali turns the corner into the hallway, making it to her room. He spares a glance behind him before turning down a different hallway leading him to another section of the house.

He loses sight of the task at hand for a second, getting lost in his own mind at the matter. But he gets back on track when he stands face to face with the door of another in the gloomy house. It radiates energy off it, telling him if he touches it then he'll burn himself, that even if he can touch it, it would be too heavy to open.

But he knew that wasn't the case. It would be silly to believe that. So he takes a shaky breath and prepares to put up a mask of toughness. He reminds himself of all the things he was upset about on the drive back. All the reasons he's standing at this door at this very moment.

And he pushes the door forward.

The room was darker than the hall, this being due to the fact that the boy had his curtains closed, restricting any moonlight from seeping in through the windows. The digital clock was alit with dim white light though and this light spread a thin layer of luminosity across the rest of the space.

He shut the door behind him quietly just as he had done before with the front door and stepped a faint foot forward towards the sleeping boy. Lukus.

He had thought he looked almost peaceful. Which made his heart tear.

Louis made the rest of the way to the bed until he was standing nearly an inch away from the side of the bed. The boy was still asleep but it wouldn't be as that for long. He thought of a way to do this, which action to take next.

To be honest he hadn't really had a plan for this moment, he just knew it had to be done. He took a moment to scan his eyes around the room. He hated that it was tidy and minimalistic.

He took the clock, unplugging it from the wall and suddenly the room went black. Taking a moment to let his eyes adjust to the pit of darkness around him, he assured where Lukus was on the bed, tossing the block of plastic on his face nonchalantly once he did.