17 Black

15•

"Oh, um, thanks," Louis mutters, his face blooming pink.

Harry stands by his door while he limps into the passenger seat and then shuts it behind him after he's in. Something about Harry's old-fashioned, gentlemanly ways makes Louis feel a certain way. Like he wants to smile sweetly and thank him like a polite boy, but also get on his nerves a little to find out at what point Harry looses his manners and gets a little rough with him. Yeah, he definitely wants to do that.

He watches as Harry has to bend his long body to awkwardly fit inside the door of his car, but once he's in, he's fine. He fumbles and inevitably drops the keys, mumbles something, and finally starts the engine. Louis finds out that he likes watching people drive. As Harry braces his arm against the side of Louis' seat to glance behind him, ducks his head down to get a better angle, uses one large hand to maneuver the steering wheel, he deems it rather amusing and definitely not hard on the eyes, especially with the way Harry's muscles are flexing under his shirt. He only stops watching after Harry looks at him briefly, expression blank, and then he has to look away.

The ride there is quiet -- silent, actually. Neither of them makes a move to speak, so Louis just looks out the window at the wet, gray sky. It's quite humid, and he finds it very uncomfortable to be all squished up against the sticky leather of the car's interior. Especially since Harry doesn't seem to be aware of the existence of air conditioning. He's glad that the ride is short, because it was getting awkward. He doesn't think Harry paid attention to that really though. They're parked in probably the closest spot to the building as possible when they get to Louis' complex. The keys jingle in Harry's hand as he steps out of the car. As nimbly as he can, Louis turns and shoves the door open, planning on getting out of the car all on his own, until he hears an "oof", and the door hits something and bounces back shut.

"Oh, sorry," Louis says, looking innocently out the window at Harry, who's glaring down at him and rubbing his arm.

Harry just pulls his door open again and holds his hand out, eyes squinting down at him. Louis feels slightly embarrassed, but grips Harry's palm anyway, which, might he add, is so large that his hand almost doesn't wrap all the way around, and lets himself be carefully hoisted out of the car. Harry's fingertips lay lightly on his hip as he gets out, as if to stabilize him when really it's nothing more than a touch. Louis' chest gets tingly at that. He tries not to think too much about it.

Harry shuts the door and releases Louis, his hand falling from his hip and coming to grab his bag from the back seat. After that, he follows behind Harry as he walks -- a little slowly, on purpose, so Louis isn't left behind, limping pathetically -- towards the complex. He feels like he's able to stand up a little straighter than before, and like there aren't invisible hands pressing viciously down on every single spot where it hurts the most. The pain is still present, but not as prominent as it was before. The only thing that really bothers him is that his knee is still sore, just as bad as it was right after it was injured the first time, and something about that pisses him off. Maybe he's angry at his body for not being able to take it, or maybe at people for hurting him all the time. He isn't sure.

Louis looks up right before he's about to bump face first into Harry's shoulder as he's thrusting the door open for them. He stops just in time, and as Harry waits by the door for him to go in, he glances down at Louis suspiciously.

"Why're you always scowling and running into stuff?" He mutters, nose just barely scrunched up and the signature, confused crease present between his eyebrows. Louis' heart does a jump.

He answers by frowning some more as he -- God bless -- makes it through the door, finally. Harry stays behind him as he leads the way to his apartment, even though he probably remembers where it is from last time he was there.