Love is a Word (You Gave it a Name) l.s

Seven Days to Chrismas

"Louis wakes up to Ed Sheeran knocking on their door. He's standing on the doorstep, hair sticking up in all directions, smelling of booze, and holding a cat under his arm.

Louis hadn't even known he was in England.

"Ed?" he asks, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. He hopes it looks unimpressed, at least, but he's been awake for all of thirty seconds and can't quite feel his face yet.

"Louis," Ed grins, perfectly pleasant as always. His voice sounds shot. "Hello. Harry said you're available for cat-sitting, so I've brought you a cat."

"He bends down to set the cat – what was his name again? – down on the threshold. It looks back up at him, betrayed, licks one of its paws, and saunters right inside.

"Okay," Ed claps his hands cheerfully. "Great. Goodbye."

And he actually turns around, gets into the car he's got idling in the front, and leaves.

It's 6:37 in the morning, Louis has been awake for two minutes, and he now has an intruder in the house."

"Harry?" he calls out, as a first instinct, not equipped to deal with situations this complicated before ten. Harry snores back in response. "Alright," Louis mumbles, all to himself, watching as Ed's tomcat rubs himself against Harry's precious winged armchair. "Okay."

He darts back upstairs to get his phone.

We're not watching your cat, he writes.

Ed texts him back a cat emoji, the one with heart eyes.

I'm throwing him out, Louis types, stabbing at his touchscreen as he tries to convey his righteous anger.

haha, he gets in response. Louis's friends know him too fucking well.

"Still, Louis knows absolutely fuck-all about cats. With a heavy heart, he leans over to Harry's side of the bed and presses a kiss against his naked shoulder.

"Babe," he whispers.

"Mmrf," is Harry's response. He rolls further away from Louis, burrowing into his little cocoon of blankets. Considering how annoyingly morning person-y he is, it's incredibly difficult to get him out of bed.

"Babe, you've gotta help me take care of a cat."

"Cat?" Harry immediately opens his eyes, looking at Louis over his shoulder. He's got pillow creases down his cheek and an impressive bedhead, but he's perfectly alert, all because Louis mentioned a feline. He tries not to take it personally.

"Ed, uh...stopped by. He's brought his—"

"Graham is here?" Harry sits up, and—is that really what Ed named his cat? Graham?

Attuned to the sound of its name, the four-legged devil slinks into the bedroom. He doesn't look particularly evil, to be fair, but it's not even seven o'clock and the day's already rolling ahead at full speed. Louis has a reason to be suspicious of everything.
"Graham," Harry grins. "Hiiii, pal."

"Meow," Graham says and, in one fluid motion, gets up on the bed. Harry coos and looks down at him with actual stars in his eyes, the way he looks at Louis across the stage when they're playing under the open sky for sixty thousand people.