Louis' house

8. fight

It's warm. Harry is warm.

The blanket around him feels safe and comforting, the room is bright with the grey light pouring through the window above the bed.

There is Louis, right next to Harry, the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes. It's been long since he hasn't woken up to only the traces of the person who slept next to him, long since he was actually able to look at a face when he opens his eyes.

Louis is still in dreamland, breathing evenly, his lashes touching his cheekbones. He looks so soft like this, even though the winter morning light feels a bit cold, right here with Louis under the blankets everything is soft and warm. Harry rolls onto his side carefully and tucks his hands under his head, as he just looks at Louis for a while. Watches how his chest rises and falls with even breaths.

He remembers all the countless times he's woken up to this sight before in his life, every day for years, to be fair. Just then, what he would do was lean over and slowly kiss Louis awake. Most of the time he was up before him, because unless Louis had a footie match or something, he liked to sleep in. Harry would then make pancakes for whatever family they were staying at at the moment, take one plate back upstairs and wake Louis up with soft kisses and whispers.

Louis would squint at him, first scowl and try to kick, because he was always in a bad mood when being woken up, but as soon as he'd realise who it was, he would just wordlessly open his arms and cuddle Harry, trying to convince him to go back to sleep. After a few minutes of snoozing together, they would eat their pancakes in bed, talk about their plans for the day and whatever domestic shit they were doing back then.

Thinking back, it seems ridiculous how domestic they were. Basically living together in the small attic room of Louis' family's house when they both had bedrooms to sleep in, having every meal of the day together, cuddle and kiss all the time.

They were seventeen for gods sake, and acted like they'd been married for fifteen years and had five kids at daycare.

Harry misses that feeling, the feeling of just living not only together but really with each other.

They were used to being in love, but it never stopped being exciting. It never faded. Harry kind of wants to have that again.

It's once again, easy to pretend when Louis is next to him like that, peacefully asleep. He can pretend that he could, if he wanted, make him pancakes and kiss him now.

But he can't kiss him.

He can make him pancakes, though.

So Harry eventually gets up, makes sure the blanket is still safely and warmly around Louis,  because he knows he gets cold easily, before he pads over to the door and opens it quietly. It's Louis' birthday, after all.

Harry always did something special for Louis' birthday. He remembers the first one, where they hadn't practically been living together yet, and he came over at an ungodly hour in the morning, ringing the bell to the rhythm of Happy Birthday and definitely not winning Louis' sisters over. He did eventually, because he'd baked a cake for all of them.

Then there was the one a few years later where he congratulated Louis with deep, dirty kisses, almost freezing to death but ignoring it. They decided, stubborn as they were, to sleep in their treehouse that night, so that they could escape Louis' sisters and... well, have sex at midnight, the moment Louis turned eighteen.

It was so cold, but they had a pile of blankets and did a really good job sharing body heat, so they managed to keep each other warm. Harry almost shivers again as he remembers how Louis looked at him the second the clock hit midnight, smiling like the fucking sun.