23 Days Hiding - Larry Stylinson

Chapter 11

“I’m sick of him being all upset.”

The words left Zayn’s mouth late that night. They had just wrestled Louis into his bed at the hotel room. He had been freaking out so bad at the studio earlier—dropped down onto the cold concrete floor in the back halls of the set, sweating and trembling and mumbling something about Harry. They had almost taken him to the hospital again to be sedated, like he had to be the day of Harry’s accident, but he had passed out asleep in the van on the way back to the hotel, so they weren’t too worried. But, getting him to bed had proved to be a different story. He had acted like a five year old that didn’t want to take a nap, but desperately needed it.

Now, Niall, Liam, and Zayn sat in the lounge area of Louis and Niall’s shared hotel room—Harry had specifically said that he did not want to room with Louis—clutching cups of tea and staring blankly around the room. With Louis barely asleep in the bedroom behind them and Harry lurking about in the room he was sharing with Liam, the air was thick and tense. Nobody really knew what the problem between the two was, and neither boy was willing to admit it any time soon.

So the rest of the band was left in the dark.

“I’m sick of it too, you know,” Niall muttered, tipping a little bit more of the thick transparent liquid from his flask into his cup of tea. “Not that he doesn’t have a good reason, it’s just… I don’t like seeing him like that.”

Liam watched with tightly pressed lips as Niall took in a long sip from the cup. Liam never liked it much when Niall drank, and he hated it now that it was because he was stressed. That was the third addition of whiskey to the cup of tea, and Liam reckoned it was more alcohol now than it was water.

“None of us do,” Zayn was saying now, staring almost lustfully at the chrome flask Niall held. “Can I have some of that?”

Niall wordlessly held out the flask to Zayn, who in turn took it and poured the remaining liquid into the cup he held. He pressed it to his lips hungrily, sucking it down, reveling in how the alcohol and heat burned his throat but numbed his head.

“I kind of want to do something to fix it, make him feel better, you know?” The blonde’s eyes were swimming now, as Liam watched him closely. His words were tangling together, slurring. “Like, take him to like, yeah.”

“Like an intervention,” Zayn drawled as he picked at the cuff of his sleeve.

“Yeah, that. But, can we? I mean, or, yeah.”

Zayn giggled, shifting in the armchair he was curled up in, his long legs tucked against his torso and coming up beneath his chin. “Niall, you aren’t making any sense.”

Liam turned and left the two to their buzzed banter as he thought about what Niall had said. An intervention… That actually made a lot of sense. Something that would cheer Louis up would do them all good.

An intervention sounded like a good idea.

Liam placed his now-empty cup onto the coffee table and got up to leave, going back to the room he shared with Harry. He mumbled goodbyes to Niall and Zayn, who were on the edge of what would become a full-blown tickle fight on the sofa, and slipped quietly out into the hall, where he padded to his room in socked feet. It was well after midnight now, and Harry had gone back to the room and said he was going to sleep at around ten, so Liam was careful to stay muted.

He slid the key into the door and pushed it open to total darkness. Liam padded over to the sofa that lay in the middle of the lounge/kitchenette area and flopped down onto it, sighing. His laptop was resting beneath him and he tugged it onto his lap and pulled it open to look up something, anything, that he could do to distract Louis from what was going on in his head lately.