Red Brick Heart

10

Harry's never liked November. It gets dark way too early: it's dark when he leaves for his lectures and it's dark by the time he gets back, the sky a permanent shade of steel grey, sleeting rain only adding to the misery. He can't even look forward to Christmas that much either with all the work he has to do – it's first year, isn't it meant to be easy? – and, worst of all, things between him and Louis are weird.

Louis hasn't slept in his bed once since he came out to him, never ever entertained the idea, and has spent most of his time either with Zayn or his drama friends, getting back at two or three in the morning and waking Harry up even though he's tiptoeing around and navigating around the room by the light of his phone. Harry still cooks his dinner and they still have fun like they used to, but when they watch TV Louis carefully keeps himself to himself, and there's no more playing with Harry's fingers or leaning on his shoulder or anything. Harry wants to ask why but he knows it in his heart: that Louis had been leading him on the whole time, trying to mess with him because he knew he was straight. Now the thrill's gone, he doesn't care.

Things reach their lowest point on a Wednesday night when Louis had been out with the football team for the sports social night: he's actually asleep when he's rudely woken by the door crashing open and the light flicking on. He blinks awake to the sound of loud whispers and – oh, god, the unmistakeable wet sounds of some serious making out. He screws his eyes shut and buries his face in the pillow to drown it out.

"Shh – quiet – you'll wake him up-"

"Who's that?"

"It's my – roommate, kind of, 's hard to explain – fuck, kiss me-"

Harry's eyes are shut so tightly he can see stars bursting in the darkness, but this is not happening, no way, not while he's here, so he just coughs very loudly and the slurping noises stop.

"Harry?" Louis' voice is a tiny whisper, like he doesn't want a reply.

"I'm awake," he says dully. The other voice goes oh shit and I thought you said this would be ok and then Harry hears heavy feet thumping towards him, a warm palm on his shoulder.

"Didn't mean to wake you, mate, it's just – it's just we can't really go back to his-"

"You can't really go back here, mate," Harry grunts. There's a small silence, and then Louis disappears, shutting the door and leaving the light on – when it's been fifteen minutes and he still hasn't come back Harry gets up and flicks the light off, fuming, and grabs his phone and immediately books a train ticket home.

He hasn't been home all semester and even though he Skypes with his mum every other day and texts Gemma all the time, he still misses them like mad. When he wakes up at half seven the next morning Louis still isn't back, so he quickly packs a bag with a few spare changes of clothes and takes it to his lecture with him, going straight to the station afterwards and only dropping a text to Perrie – hey babe going home for the weekend can you get nick to do the show with you? Sorry .xxx.

He waits for Louis to text and ask where he is. He doesn't.

It's not a long train ride home, and he actually savours the walk from the train station to his home, everything feeling a little brighter even in the November drizzle. When he gets there the drive is empty – obviously his mum and Robin are at work – and so he lets himself in the back door and nearly gets the fright of his life when he sees his sister in the kitchen. In fairness, she does nearly drop the kettle as well when she spots him.

"Bloody hell, Harry, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he says, heart calming a little. "I thought you had that big presentation this week?"