All Too Familiar (Larry Stylinson)

Crippled Roses

Word Count: 7,294

Song: Skinny Love

I apologize for any errors!

-

Louis POV

The light was rather bothersome when it was so early in the morning. In instinct, I attempted to roll over and look at the alarm clock that usually rested on my bedside table, but I something stopped me. There was a heavy weight on me, and my own body wasn’t helping much. I knew who it was immediately when I moved my hand, as much as the cast would allow me, and I felt the voluminous curls. They reminded me of chocolate delicacies. I shifted my fingers, and they scraped against his scalp. He shifted and I froze, ready to bolt out of the room if needed.

When he didn’t move, I inspected the situation more thoroughly. His arms were tight around my shoulders and waist, and there was a leg thrown over my thighs. I had got an arm that was lying underneath his head, curling around to scrunch his hair in my hand. The other was lying on his chest, and I’d deny holding a fist-full of shirt.  

I thought my brain was waiting until it thought I was ready, because at that second the flood gates dropped and everything flooded my mind. I wasn’t ready for it that was for sure, because a pounding headache formed and I got the feeling that my skull was going to explode. Not going to my house last night. Letting Harry know my fear of my father. Harry promising to keep me safe. Waking up to Harry hyperventilating. Him begging for comfort. He cried. I held him. I kissed his neck over and over.

Jesus Christ, I sure had dug myself deep.

But what was it? What brought Harry to lose himself so much last night? I’d have to ask him, he was always getting too personal with my issues; why not give him a taste of his own medicine?

However as I lifted my gaze from his shirt to his too-young face, I couldn’t bring myself to think of prying into such a sensitive subject. The first time I saw him cry was over me, someone that he barely even knew… how would he react to a subject that forced him to weep in the dead of night and silently beg me to help him through the pain?

At points in time I always thought of things that didn’t make sense to me, or had this edge that escaped all of knowledge. One of those things was the fear that the unknown brings; does it exceed all of that in reality? In a nightmare you had to ask yourself if it was real or not, and that by itself was terrifying. If you had a nightmare of watching your family die right before your eyes, wouldn’t you ask yourself if it was a dream or not? You can’t be certain if you’ll wake up to your mother’s comforting eyes, or if she was really gone. In reality, you can’t distinguish what was real or electronically generated. If you watched a murder being committed, you knew you had to run and get help.

In a dream, you couldn’t say you’ll just wait it out until you woke up. But in real life, you either fought to survive or you accepted your fate. Maybe that was the reason that I decided his tearful breakdown last night couldn’t have been subject to weakness.

I found myself lingering on his youthful face three seconds too long and it was at that moment that I resisted on pushing him away. Last night I gave in… and my walls were refusing to rise. I wanted to tell him to get off, rid him of my life before he got knee dip in trouble. But for some reason it actually hurt to think of doing that. It had never happened before. It was quite frightening. I should’ve been able to let him go in a snap, send him off without even a goodbye but… I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

So instead I detangled myself from him quietly and unsubtly. He shifted every now and then and I swore if he tightened his arms one more time I was going to break my strange exception for him and shove him away. Successfully but time wasting, I ended up sitting on the side of the bed with shallow breathing because my feelings didn’t make sense.