Give Me Truths || l.s

chapter 16

“I promise I’ll come back and eat the cake, mum. I just- I have to get out, okay?” Louis whispered a little desperately. “I feel like I’m suffocating. Regular attention is fine. Special attention makes it hard to breathe. If you want to stay, though, that’s fine-”

“No way, I’m coming with you,” Harry smiled. “You’re acting weird, so we’ll probably have an adventure or something.”

Louis did feel quite adventurous, when they’d snuck out into the snowy dusk with only a note to mark their exit. “It’s fucking freezing out here,” he mumbled in a half-laugh, trying to hide his face from the harsh, biting cold of the wind. “Why did we think this was a good idea?”

“Dunno, it was yours to start with. Unlock the car, please, I can’t feel my fingers.”

“I’ll do the petals, but you’re going to have to steer,” Louis joked once they were in and the heat was on full blast. “I’m not taking my hands out of my pockets.”

“Neither am I. This was a terrible idea.” Harry’s teeth were chattering just from the 60 seconds they spent outside.

Louis smiled into the scarf he’d wound around his face. “This reminds me of a song I wrote once. Had some awful cheesy line in it about being ready to leave with nowhere to go.”

“Yeah? Sing it for me!”

“Can’t. I’ll let all my warmth out and die of hypothermia. Besides, it won’t sound right without piano.”

“You told me ages ago you’d play for me, but you never have,” Harry gently reminded him. “I’ve been waiting very patiently.”

“Yes you have,” Louis conceded graciously. “You want me to play for you now? Well not now, but- shall we go somewhere that I can?”

“Are you serious? Yeah, sure!”

Harry was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was worth the possible frostbite on Louis’ fingers as he drove them back across town to campus. “Well at least we don’t have to worry about finding a spot in the car park,” chirped Louis, surveying the ghost town that was King’s College.

“Is the music department even open?” Harry asked hesitantly. “It looks like everything’s shut down for Christmas Eve…”

“It is.”

“‘It is’ open, or ‘it is’ closed?”

“Closed. Come on, I’m cold.”

“But why are we here if it’s closed?” Harry protested, even as he obediently got out and followed Louis across the snow.

“Well it isn’t closed to us, I know how to get in. Oh, don’t look so shocked,” he laughed at Harry’s dumbfounded expression. “You just have to know all the right -or wrong, I guess- people. Like the guy who knows the security cameras on this wing’s circuits don’t work, and the kid who tapes the back door open so he can come out here to smoke during lectures without getting locked out.”

“That’s horrible,” Harry said firmly. “And illegal.”

“The smirk on your face doesn’t look too horrified. You coming in out of the cold, or what?”

Harry laughed and obeyed without any further argument. Even with the heat turned down while the building was meant to be empty, the carpets and acoustic tiles of the music wing kept it feeling relatively warm. Louis navigated the space with ease, having spent a good portion of his time here over the last three years. Put a musician in a dorm room too small for even a keyboard and he’d find a way to make music anyways.