Imprisoned In My Heart: A Larry Stylinson Fanfic

21.

The answer to Harry’s question, had Louis been able to hear it, would have been ‘impossible’. He was barely functioning any more, struggling to concentrate on anything. Stan, Hannah, his mum and various other friends and acquaintances tried in vain to drag him out of the fog that he seemed to be caught in, recommending various things that they thought would help. Louis snorted and ignored all of their suggestions – unless they were going to break Harry out of Whitehall, nothing they could offer would be of any use.

About three days after his visit to Harry’s new home, he woke awake with a panicked gasp and started flailing around in his bed, realizing with a horrible sick feeling in his stomach that he’d lost the beanie that was pretty much his nightlight these days; he hung onto it like a child’s cuddle blanket, carrying it around with him day after day and hiding it in his filing cabinet at work so it wouldn’t lose the comforting cinnamon smell of Harry’s hair. Luckily for him, it seemed like Harry had practically lived in it; his essence oozed from the fabric in every direction and the chance of the scent even fading seemed very unlikely.

Louis spent another few frantic seconds searching, until he spotted a grey shape on the floor and snatched it up, pressing it against his nose and breathing in until his nose was filled with Harry, and he could almost taste him from the musky smell of the hat. Flopping back against his bed with a sigh of disgust, he raked a hand through his hair and sighed heavily.

He wasn’t coping, he really wasn’t. Even with the hat that he carted around like a talisman, and the constant phone calls between the two of them, he wasn’t coping at all.

It had become bad enough that Jay had forced him to the doctors surgery and tried to coerce the mumbling, balding doctor they had met into giving Louis antidepressants. That idea had made Louis roll his eyes; yes, he was depressed, but why shouldn’t he be? Didn’t misery come as a side-effect of unrequited love? His attempts at persuading the man that he didn’t need drugs was not as effective as his mum’s borderline threats, and in the end, Jay had triumphed, getting him a huge jar of prescription drugs. Paranoid that he might attempt an overdose, every day she watched him swallow a single pill – or so she thought. He hid each one under his tongue and spat it into his hand when she turned her back, flushing it down the toilet or washing it down the sink, because he didn’t want to cloud his mind with drugs. Likewise, he refused to take compassionate leave; he needed to keep busy, or he would go insane. Her concerns irritated and amused him in equal measure, because he had no intention of killing himself, or even trying, and although he found the idea strangely funny, he was annoyed that she hung around him all the time. Why would he commit suicide, for God’s sake? Who would tell Harry? Nobody knew about them, and he wouldn’t leave Harry alone, thinking that he’d been forgotten.

So Louis struggled through life, although really it was simply an existence. He only came alive when he was with Harry, or occasionally when he was arguing with people, and his anger rose him from the numb state of mind he seemed constantly trapped in. How had all the medical experts decided that he needed drugs to keep him from thinking? The problem was that he couldn’t think, he couldn’t focus, and he wasn’t shoving any sugar-coated pills into his mouth that would either make the situation worse, or fill his head with fake, plastic thoughts that other people thought he was supposed to be having. Louis had never approved of drugs that interfered with your brain; his mind was his own, and nobody else had the right to mess with it, from his point of view.

With the hat over his face, he drifted back to sleep, and awoke at some time in the afternoon feeling like he hadn’t had a wink of sleep all night.

The phone was ringing, and he answered it snappishly, in a foul mood already. He yanked the phone to his ear with a scowl.

“What?”

“Good afternoon, sir, we were wondering if we could interest you in increasing your BT Broadband package to unlimited. There are many excellent benefits with this latest upgrade that you might be interested to –”

Louis cut the telemarketer off with a stream of abuse, yelling every profanity he could think of down the phone, and a good few more than just came to him with an inspiration that made him proud. He heard the crackle of feedback that came with his shouts and had to hold the phone away from his ear slightly to stop the piercing whine from ringing in his ears.

“Whoa, Louis, calm down!” Harry said in alarm. “It’s me! I was only joking!”

Stopping dead, Louis took several very deep breaths and rubbed his forehead in exhaustion. “Sorry, sorry,” he sighed, “it’s been a long night.”

“Yeah, I can tell. Are you usually that rude to telemarketers?”

“Occasionally. It depends on what they’re trying to sell me.”

“What, aren’t you interested in trying to upgrade your internet package?” Harry asked innocently.

“I might have been a little more tolerant if you’d pretended to be the right service provider. I’m not with BT. And I have unlimited already.”

“Those people are only doing their job; you could be a little less abusive.”

“They prefer it when I yell at them, I think. Sometimes I try to see how long I can talk to them before theyhang up on me. It’s hilarious.”

“You get telemarketers to hang up on you?”

“Indeed I do. It’s an acquired skill, but well worth it. The trick is to confuse them so much that their annoying repertoire of things to say doesn’t cover your response. Sometimes I pretend to work for their company, or say that I’ll report them to Trading Standards for something or other. Other times I just pretend to be a lonely loser and try to have a conversation with them. It completely blows their boring little minds,” Louis said happily.

“Oh, you are in a nice mood today.”

“Yeah, well. I’m tired, even though I just slept solidly for twelve hours. And I’m hungry, but there’s no food, because I forgot to go shopping yesterday. And I miss you.”

“Great, I’m at the bottom of the list; that makes me feel so loved. Nice to see you’ve got your priorities sorted,” Harry teased, but he sounded slightly hurt.

“If I had been listing my priorities in chronological order, you would have been first,” Louis promised, and he ran his hands through his hair again. He yawned. “How can I still be tired when I slept for so long?”

“Who knows,” Harry said lightly. “How can you still be missing me when it’s been nearly a fortnight, and I was expecting you to be getting fed up of me now?”

“Your faith in me is inspiring, do you know that?”

“Yeah, all right. I guess I should give you more credit. I just don’t understand why you still care about me so much – after everything.”

“Because, um, let me see…you have great hair? Nope, that’s not it…do you know, I think it might be because I love you.”

He almost heard Harry’s smile on the other end. “Thanks, I do have great hair. And it’s nice to know that you still love me. Even though I’m about to ask you for a favour…”

Louis already knew. “You need someone else to visit this weekend, right?”

“My mum hasn’t seen me for more than a month…I don’t want to upset her…”

“Of course. Your mum is more important than me.”

“Oh, Louis. Thank –”

The prison phone, automatically set on a timer, cut them off. Burying his face in his hands, Louis groaned softly to himself. Another fortnight to wait. He could do it – but he wouldn’t do it happily.