Got The Sunshine On My Shoulders || larry stylinson

PART 13

Louis rubs a hand over his harrowed-looking face. He's got bags under his eyes, and his hair is sticking up wildly at the back of his head.

“Fine,” he says with a sigh. “Fine, I've just got to-go. Yeah. I've got to go.”

He doesn't appear to make any attempt to move.

“Where are you going?”

Louis is too busy rubbing one of his eyes to register the question. It's only the silence that makes him realise that something was said.

“Huh?”

Harry holds back a hopeless, fond sigh. Louis looks so small in these shadowy retreats of the hall, in slouchy jeans and a shirt that Harry is certain is on backwards; his feet are bare, and he's got one arm wrapped around himself, squeezing at pale skin. His cheeks are still pink with sleep; he's got a pillow crease running like a tiny red river from the corner of his eye all the way to his neck.

“Where are you going?” he tries again. It comes out gentler than he intends.

Louis shrugs. “London,” he says. “Have you seen my shoes?”

Harry looks over his shoulder, to where Louis's trainers lie haphazardly on the mat where he kicked them off yesterday.

“I made breakfast,” he says, instead of answering the question. Louis's brow furrows, and he purses his lips, blinking at Harry slow and thorough like he's trying to translate whatever language he's speaking. “Kitchen. Come on.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “No, I. I'm going.”

Harry looks at his watch. 6:15. “Do you have to leave right this minute?”

Louis peers at Harry's watch too. “Oh.”

Harry grins. “Come have pancakes. Please.”

Despite the tiredness that's all but dripping off him, Louis immediately straightens up when he hears the word. “You did not make pancakes.”

“Oh, I did,” Harry smiles. Then, because they're still standing in the hall without moving, he reaches out, loops his arm through the crook of Louis's elbow, and pulls him forward. “It's my evil plan to make you late for wherever you need to be.”

“Of course,” Louis says, and slumps into Harry's side as they shuffle into the kitchen. His voice is hoarse in a way that takes Harry right back to countless mornings of waking up next to him - he has to look up at the nondescript white ceiling and blink rapidly to make those memories go away. “I forgot that you're here to ruin my life.”

There's not a hint of meaning behind it, no pointed heaviness. It's a joke.

Harry allows himself to laugh, a little wooden, as he pushes Louis into a seat and goes about putting a plate together. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Louis lean back in his chair and spread his arms, relaxing. The sunlight spills over the velvety skin of his eyelids and tints it a rosy gold.

Harry wishes he could take a picture of this - of how much the light loves Louis Tomlinson.

He doesn't need to ask the specifics of how Louis likes his pancakes. Between one blink and the next, between cutting a strawberry in half and reaching for the syrup, eighteen-year-old him trots up to the kitchen counter with a ridiculous grin and curly, curly hair falling into his face. He's up and awake at six because it's their very first morning as a married couple, and he's going to bring his husband breakfast in bed.

All of that Harry's excitement, his beautiful naiveté, fill the kitchen all the way up until Harry can't help but breathe some of it in. His heart jumps, and he can't hold back the smile that the memory coaxes out of him. Eighteen-year-old Harry guides his hands, giddy with the prospect of watching Louis wake up, the scrunch in the bridge of his nose and the barely-there flutter of his eyelashes; that smile he reserves for Harry and Harry alone.