Heroes of the Orange Skies

Part 12

Louis wakes up the next morning with the sun directly in his eyes, a weight on his legs, and the soft clinking sound of a spoon against a bowl.

“Hi.” Zayn’s morning voice is rough, foggy with sleep and cigarettes.

Louis blinks, eyes gummy and head pounding. “Hi.”

Zayn is sitting on Louis’s legs in boxers that Louis is pretty sure are Niall’s, because they have small green shamrocks on them, and a sweatshirt with the collar ripped open to expose the tattoos on his collarbones. There’s milk dribbling down his chin and he’s spooning what looks like cheerios into his mouth. There are purple circles under his eyes. Louis wonders when he got in from his date last night.

Mumbling blearily, Louis gropes around for Zayn’s bowl and Zayn rolls his eyes before handing the cereal to Louis, who eats a few bites slowly. Frosted Cheerios. It’s the only kind of cereal Zayn ever eats.

“Don’t eat all of it, you twat.”

Louis shovels a few more bites in before handing the bowl back to Zayn and sitting up so that he can rest his head on Zayn’s shoulder, feeling the muscle shift under his ear as Zayn resumes eating.

“How was your date?” Louis traces circles on Zayn’s knee, finger smoothing down the soft black hairs that scatter the sides of the bony jut of his knee.

Zayn shrugs minutely, but Louis knows better. He knows that Zayn wouldn’t be sitting here waiting for Louis to wake up, if he didn’t have something great to tell him.

“It was good. He’s sweet. ”

Louis hums and pulls his legs out from under Zayn so he can drape them across Zayn’s own legs. Zayn will tell him about Liam on his own time, he’s guessing. He hears Zayn put down the bowl, and then there’s the tell-tale flick of the lighter and a cloud of smoke fills Louis’s nostrils, acrid and bitingly bitter for how early in the morning it is. He checks his phone. It’s noon. Whatever.

“How come you got home so late?”

Zayn coughs.

“Actually, I didn’t get home till,” Zayn coughs again and his fingers touch his lips gently while he breathes in the smoke, “like, this morning.”

Oh. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good.”

Zayn shifts so his cheek is lying against Louis’s hair, which he’s pretty sure is stiff with sweat and gel and christ, there’s probably come in his hair.

“Is it?”

“Is it what?”

“Good. Is this okay?”

With a sigh, Louis pulls away from Zayn and lies back down on the couch, head nestled on last night’s jeans, which he apparently tried to use as a pillow. Louis isn’t surprised he has a major crick in his neck. “Of course it’s okay. I want you to be happy.”

Zayn nods and offers the cigarette to Louis, who shakes his head but grabs it anyways, clumsy between his two fingers. He’s inexperienced. He takes a long drag, choking a little bit on the cloying smoke in his throat. Louis knew there was a reason he didn’t smoke.

Zayn peers down at him, big bulky glasses slipping down his nose a little bit, so that Louis can see the small red indents on the side of the bridge of his nose where his frames sit. The dents make Louis inexplicably sad. “I want you to be happy too, you know.”

Louis nods. He’d like to be happy too. He stands up from the couch, walks down the hallway leaving Zayn on the couch with the sun illuminating the coils of smoke in the air, and collapses face down in his bed.