Larry Stylinson ~ Poor Little Rich Boy AU

18.

If he could make himself heard, the taxi would stop, the boy would tumble out and fall straight into his arms, and they’d have a movie-typical reunion with a musical montage while they hugged each other hard enough to break bones and sobbed onto each other’s shoulders. Sucking in a breath, Louis summoned the last bit of air he had at his disposal, snatching it into his lungs, and let it loose with a long, aching cry of “HARRY!”

He was so determined not to give up, feet pounding frantically on the pavement in the espadrilles that were totally unsuited for running, that as he watched the taxi pull out of the car park, out of the hotel gates and then turn the corner and vanish from sight, his legs couldn’t seem to stop. In fact, he kept running, as if he could still catch it even though it would have reached speeds of around thirty miles an hour now and he only managed to stop when he reached the gate and had to hold onto it and steal the support that his now wobbling legs couldn’t give him; he hadn’t run that fast since high school, and he was decidedly unfit after all this time. Groaning, he bent almost double, choked another breath and then closed his eyes in helpless defeat as he struggled to take a deep enough breath to fill his lungs again, when it felt like they’d been punctured and he would never breath again.

“Harry…”

“Louis!”

His head jerked, but it wasn’t the curly-haired boy who was calling him. The disgruntled taxi-driver with his cab full of roses had drawn up to the pavement that he was standing on, and surrounded by scarlet blossoms overflowing around him, Stan had poked his head out of the window and was waving frantically at him. Louis stared.

“Stan? What the hell are you doing?”

“Get in, loser! We’re going on a wild goose chase!” Stan dramatically threw the door open, throwing roses all over the pavement while bystanders tutted in disapproval, and Louis staggered over to the vehicle and was hauled in, thrown down on the rose-covered back seat, and then the door slammed and Stan was commanding the driver, “follow that taxi! I botched things up for you and Harry in the first place,” he explained breathlessly to Louis, “I’ll be damned if I’ll let you lose him now. I’ve never seen you get all mushy over a guy like that before now, and I doubt it’ll ever happen again, so step on it, driver! We need to catch that cab!”

“You’ll be lucky,” came the slightly less irritable reply, “guy who owns it drives like a maniac.” But the taxi accelerated, and they started picking up speed as they whooshed down the road in pursuit, Louis grabbing Stan’s arm and squeezing it hard.

“We’ll catch him,” Stan promised, “even if we have to hijack that plane.”

Louis laughed semi-hysterically. “Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”

~*~

They arrived at the airport in remarkably good time, and the taxi which had brought Harry was still hovering by the entrance, having dropped him off. Louis could barely wait to hop out of their own taxi, and he bounced impatiently up and down on the balls of his feet while Stan shoved a twenty pound note into the driver’s hand.

“Thanks, mate. You were magnificent. Keep the change.”

Bearing in mind that the fare ought to have cost them a tenner at the most, the man’s eyes crinkled as he grinned. “No problem. Happy to help.” His gaze flickered to Louis. “I hope you find him,” he said seriously. “I really do.”

“If we stop hanging around talking that might be a start,” Stan said, and then he grabbed Louis by the wrist and started dragging him off towards the crowd.