Give Me Truths || l.s

chapter 4

All four spend the evening engaged in re-enactments of various scenarios of princesses being saved from a dragon. At Lux’s insistence, she was the dragon. Louis was the princess, trapped in the tower (on top of the dinner table). Liam was the noble knight, Niall his trusty steed.

The knight pauses to make chicken nuggets, but by the time bedtime rolls around they’re all pretty tuckered out. The dragon has to be carried to bed and tucked in by the princess because she’s already falling asleep on his shoulder. In the aftermath, all three boys stretch out on living room furniture with matching, exhausted sighs.

Eventually Louis musters the strength to go make himself a cup of coffee, yawning all the while. Liam raises and eyebrow upon his return. “Isn’t that your fifth cup of the day?”

“Sixth.”

“How do you sleep at night, dude?” asked Niall, eyeing Louis with concern.

Liam snorted. “He doesn’t. Keeps wandering the dorm at odd hours, muttering and carrying on and keeping innocent roommates from their sleep.”

“Oh, so that’s why he’s been looking so shit.”

“Excuse the fuck out of you!”

“He’s right, Louis,” said Liam seriously, crossing his arms in a distinctly fatherly way. “You’ve looked off for a week now, and I’m not just saying that to be a dick.”

“Well you’ve done it anyways,” Louis replied quite grumpily. “What is this, an intervention?”

“Nah, man, just a question. You alright? You’ve been out of whack since the concert, and I’d be a shit roomie if I didn’t at least ask.”

Louis could have made the conversation dissipate pretty quickly, if he wanted to. Liam knew him pretty wholly, and Niall was clever and intuitive as well, but Louis was the master. He knew exactly what he could say and do that would satisfy their protective curiosity in under two minutes.

But the thing is, Louis really, really hates lying.

And if he’s honest- which he always tries to be- Liam is right about him being out of sorts. He can’t sleep very well, so he drinks coffee, which suppresses his appetite and makes him jittery, which makes it hard to sleep, which makes him tired and cranky and the whole vicious cycle continues. He hasn’t felt truly good in a week. Since the concert, actually.

In the end, Louis opts for the truth. “I’m worried about Harry.”

Apparently that wasn’t the answer they were expecting. “Wait, what?” says Niall, blinking in confusion. “Harry? Why?”

“I don’t know how to say it, exactly. There’s just…” Words are struggling to form for Louis, an experience as disconcerting as it is rare. “There’s just something not right there.”

“Oh. Like a touched-in-the-head thing?”

“A tou- no, nothing like that, Niall. Not that kind of ‘not right.’ Like a ‘something’s off’ sort of situation.” Louis pauses to try to work out how to put a week’s worth of insomniac rambles into concrete sentences. “There’s something not right about his boyfriend.”

“You met him? When?” Liam asked.

“No, no, I’ve never met him. But Harry talks about him, and of course I see things. So it’s all just little stuff, but it’s giving me bad vibes.”