Undone, Undress (Larry Stylinson)

thirty-five

As always, finals week is essentially just five days of hell.

Louis gets up early and stays up late, always studying. The amount of sleep he gets is less than minimal—it's practically nonexistent—and he feels like shit. His eyes are burning from exhaustion and the left one keeps twitching. He's pretty sure he's going to keel over and die soon.

Right now, he's sprawled out on the living room floor surrounded by a sea of papers and textbooks. It looks as though a tornado swept through the room. Harry is sitting on the couch, having a panic attack about his art piece which is nowhere near finished. He continually promises Louis he's okay, even through the insane amounts of tears pouring down his cheeks like a rainstorm.

It's when Louis' entire leg goes numb from how long he's been lying on the floor that he finally decides he's had enough.

"You know what?" He exclaims, shooting up abruptly and then wavering on his feet when his vision almost turns completely black from all the blood rushing to his head.

"What?" Harry sniffles, looking like he's on the verge of setting flame to the large piece of thick paper he's currently drawing on. He looks murderous, or perhaps suicidal. Both options are horrifying, but either way it looks like he wants to kill someone.

"We need a break," Louis declares decidedly. He hobbles over to Harry, mindful of his numb leg which is now tingling uncomfortably, and pulls the paper out of his hands. Harry protests verbally, whining in exasperation and confusion, though Louis placates him by setting it carefully on the table.

"Lou stop I need to-"

"Harry. You've been crying about the positioning of the hand for three hours now. We need to get out of here and calm down for a second."

It's a moment before he acquiesces, but eventually he gives in, wiping at the streams of tears glistening on his face and dripping down his neck. His face is a map full of shiny, beautiful rivulets. "Okay, fine. Where are we going?"

"Dinner. Pizza?"

"What about delivery?"

"No. If I go any longer without leaving this fucking apartment, I think I might actually die."

Harry agrees, wiping at his eyes to get rid of the tears, which is something he's quite used to since he cries all the time. There's no reason to get dressed in anything special since they're only going to get pizza, but Louis does change out of his plaid pajama pants and into regular sweats, while Harry washes the paint and graphite off his face and makes a futile attempt to fix his greasy, tangled hair.

He looks beautiful still. Even through the awful haze of finals, exhausted and crestfallen, he looks beautiful. Louis thinks he could roll through the mud and still look gorgeous. He wonders if other people can see it too, or if this soft prettiness is just something Louis notices.

They head to a cheap pizza place close to their apartment. Since it's dinner time, the restaurant is overflowing with people, and the line to be seated spills out onto the sidewalk. While everyone around them chats conversationally, they wait in comfortable silence. Louis is so glad they've gotten to the stage of their quasi-friendship where they can exist next to each other without feeling awkward for not saying anything.

While they wait in line, he leans on Harry and rests his head on his shoulder. In general, Louis is relatively touchy-feely person, and doesn't mind physical contact with his friends. He doesn't think much of it when he does it, because it's such a common thing for him to do, almost like a reflex. When Harry puts his arm around him and lightly rests his hand on his shoulder, something warm spills from Louis heart. It feels like staring at the stars in the night sky, or lying in the summer sun.