black world, cold hearts (larry au)

Liam’s brows furrow. “You alright mate?”

Of course he’s not. His sister called him today.

He hadn’t been feeling up to going out tonight then, but his friends were persistent and he thought a bit of drinking would be his saving grace from all the stress lurking beside his head and waiting for the moment to impose down onto him like a dark, heavy cloud.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Harry lies, before his shaking his head. “Uh, actually, I’m feeling a bit feverish, so I’m just gonna head back to my flat.”

Turning to the bartender, he fishes a fiver out of his wallet for his most recent pint and thumps it down on the polished mahogany counter with an air of finality.

He slides off his stool (not waiting for his change), turns away from the bar, and would’ve landed facedown into someone’s feet if it wasn’t for Liam steadying him by grabbing his shoulders.

“You shouldn’t walk when you’re drunk, Stumbling Styles,” Liam chuckles, and Harry shoves him away. At least he thinks he does. He can still feel hands on his acromions.

God, his head is spinning.

“I think I should walk with you,” the older boy says at the sight of Harry’s hooded eyes, but Harry shakes his head, feels himself getting giddier with the movement, but stands firm on his notion of walking home alone. (It’s the only thing he’s standing firm on, to be honest. The ground beneath his feet his waving like a sea.)

“No, go dance with Dani. An’ tell Zayn to pick me up fo’ lessons tomorrow. My class is at ten. Or one… Um, just tell him it’s my psychology lecture. Um, yeah. Bye, Li.”

And then he walks away, slinking through the crowd as he feels Liam’s eyes on his back. He doesn’t pay it much attention.

**

As soon as cold air stings against Harry’s bare face, neck and hands, the twenty-one-year-old feels himself sobering up. Moderately.  At least he can walk straight, because well, he has made half the journey to his flat without falling over once, and it’s a clear feat in Harry’s case.

He’s walking with his hands cocooned in the warmth of his coat’s pockets, mist condensing in front of his mouth as he exhales softly, the pavement cold, wet and hard under his boots.

The street is vacant, but there are cars parked along the footpath, and the road is illuminated by moonlight, streetlights and the bustling Ethiopian restaurant located to Harry’s right on the other side of the road.

It’s amicable, with the muffled live music and mewls of a cat in some trashcan he can hear, and the smell of chili and meat entering his nostrils is almost (more) inebriating.

Harry is singing under his breath, making up a song about being drunk and loving cats, hell to the world, when he catches movement in his peripheral vision.

He pauses, a bemused frown on his face as he turns his head left, and all he can see is a mailbox in front of the house it belongs to, standing proud in abandon, but he can swear  he just saw a body standing there.

However, there’s nothing present beside the mailbox. Harry blinks sluggishly.

“You’re drunk,” he censures his head with a roll of his eyeballs, proceeding to take a step forward, and then falls over in astonishment when a reply is whispered right into his pinna, brushing against his skin.

“Not even close.”

There’s a gust wind which blows right through Harry, ruffling through his clothes and hair tenaciously and chilling him to his bones, and when the boy whips his head back, he finds an empty street gaping back him.