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Louis dropped his head down onto the table in front of him and quietly groaned, breaking the silence of the empty library. After resting his eyes for ten blissful seconds, he turned his head to the side and pushed his phone's home button.
2:52am.
He slowly raised his head, shoving his greasy fringe out of his face and blinking down at the papers scattered all over the table. Theatre history, terms, and techniques swam in his vision, the library's fluorescent lighting making his head pound. God, I hate finals week, he thought, scrubbing at his eyes and yawning. The exhaustion of the last few weeks was pulling at him; it weighed his limbs down and tried to convince him that a little power nap would help him get through this last section of vocabulary.
As appealing as that thought was, he knew he had to power through it now or the last terms would never get memorized in time for his final tomorrow. At least he was in the library and not his dorm – he'd never be able to resist his bed's siren call from just across the room, and Zayn, his roommate, would probably have persuaded him to go to sleep a long time ago anyway.
Louis had to get a good grade on this final; after a disastrous freshman year of goofing off, he had promised his mom he would bring his grades up this semester. This last final was the tipping point between his current C and the B he was trying for in his Development of Theatre class.
Deciding to do a quick lap around the bookshelves to wake himself up, Louis stood up and promptly fell over to the side, whacking himself on the empty chair next to his. He cursed and rubbed his hip. I guess I have been sitting here since midnight, he thought, wincing as he hobbled down the aisle out of the back corner where he'd stationed himself hours earlier.
As Louis slowly made his way through the bookshelves, he jumped up and down a bit, stretching his arms and kicking out with his legs. Get pumped, get pumped, three am, let's do this shit – he nodded violently along to his self-motivating pep talk, scrunching up his nose and punching the air in front of him. Just when he really started to get into it, a person zoomed across the end of the aisle he was dancing down. He froze mid-punch. Okay... Apparently he wasn't as alone in the library as he had thought. And why the speed at this time of night? Shrugging inwardly, he continued his erratic movements, shaking himself more awake and trying to get his body to release all the adrenaline it had left.
Louis had made it up and down three more aisles, rapping his fists along the spines of the books on either side of him and humming “I Can Go the Distance,” when he started to hear the faint sounds. At first it sounded like an animal. Is there a kitten in here? he thought. I'm officially losing it. Still, he followed the whimpers past the rows of dark computers and abandoned tables. Realizing the noises were coming from the printer room, Louis cautiously poked his head around the door frame. The printer was making an odd clicking sound, and another student was standing in front of it in tight black skinny jeans with a wrinkled t-shirt hanging off his broad upper body. Louis knocked on the open door.
The student whipped his head around, hands fisted in his long brown curls and green eyes wild. Louis recognized him from a core class they were in together the year before; it took him a second to remember his name. Harry, he thought it was. He didn't know much about him, other than the fact that he was quiet in class but made the most adorable face when he was concentrating. So Louis might've wished to get put in a group with him for a project last year, but it had never worked out, and he hadn't seen much of him around campus this semester.
“Um...” Louis started, but before he could say anything Harry let out another loud whimper and turned back to the printer, hands pulling on his hair a bit. Louis was taken aback. He licked his lips and tried again. “Um... Hi...” No response. “Everything okay?”
Harry turned to face him again and sucked in a deep breath, lips trembling slightly.
“Actually,” he started, his voice low and rough with a late-night strain Louis recognized all too well, “everything's shitty, it's three in the fucking morning and I finished my last paper like forty-five minutes ago but I need to print it out and I think I pushed a wrong button or something I can barely even remember what I did at this point but whatever it was this stupid printer isn't working now and I have to turn the paper in by eight and the professor's really particular about us turning it in with paper and not online so I have to print this out like right now but like I said I think I broke the printer and nowhere else will be open before eight and – and – ” and to Louis' complete dismay, Harry's eyes filled up with tears. His instinct kicked in.
“Okay, okay, hey, it's alright,” he said, in the voice he usually reserved for when one of his little sisters had scraped her knee. He approached warily, hands out in front of him. Harry shifted nervously on his feet, looking down. “Alright now,” Louis soothed, reaching up and untangling the boy's hands from where they were still anxiously tugging on his hair. “We'll get it figured out, don't wor–”
Just then he spotted a book thrown perilously close to the edge of the table behind Harry. He read the title and raised an eyebrow, a smile creeping onto his face. “Wait, was that you? Did you seriously just run through the library to grab a random book about printers? Did you think that was gonna help this situation?” Harry seemed to calm down a bit as he gave a sheepish grin, a dimple popping in his cheek. He scratched his leg with one foot.
“Uhh..” Harry started slowly, shrugging. “You know...” He scrunched his face, then threw his hands up. “It could've helped!” Louis snorted and shook his head, patting him on the (very muscular) arm.
“I'm sorry, but that was a terrible idea. Now,” he turned to face the printer and plopped his hands on its flimsy plastic with a smack, “I'll obviously have a much better one, so let's see what we can do about this."
Harry crowded up next to him, leaning halfway over his shoulder to get a better look at the screen. Louis turned his head up, startled at the push, and Harry blinked down at him. With big, desperate green eyes. While biting a very plump, pink lip. And with tiny freckles scattered across his nose, fuck. Louis quickly looked down at the printer again, which had started to make frankly alarming noises while he was otherwise occupied.
“Jesus, what did you do to this thing?” Louis searched for the power button while Harry did more nervous shuffling beside him, shoulders a bit hunched up and hands wringing in front of him.
“I didn't mean to, I swear!” he said, now worrying that ridiculous bottom lip between his teeth. Louis finally found the button and switched the power off completely. He then leaned over and gently smashed his face into the top of the printer, just needing to close his eyes for a second as he gave the machine a minute to calm down. He heard Harry take a breath behind him, then start another meandering speech because apparently he couldn't hold back.
“Oh my god... I'm so so sorry, you look so tired, you don't have to help me with this, I mean you're here this late too so obviously you have shit to do, and I'm totally keeping you from it, I mean, this is all my fault and I can probably figure it out eventually, maybe before eight, I mean,” Harry stuttered as Louis straightened up, turned the printer back on, then looked him sternly in the eye.
“Did you know you have a tendency to ramble?”
Harry clapped his hand over his mouth, a muffled “Oh my god” coming out from behind his palm. And he couldn't help it; the panicked look in Harry's eyes, the fact that it was past three am and he was standing in the deserted library with an obnoxiously cute boy who broke a printer and couldn't shut up, all of the exhaustion and stress from the past weeks catching up with him – Louis burst out laughing, bending at the waist and cackling unattractively.
Harry's eyes got even wider for a moment and then he was laughing too, guffawing with big hands slapping on his knees as he tried to stay upright. After a couple of minutes, Louis gave up and sank to the floor, leaning against the printer and wiping away tears. Harry folded his long limbs up beside him, still giggling a bit.
“God,” Louis moaned, rubbing his hands over his face and trying to calm down, “what is happening right now?” Harry ran his hands through his curls and giggled again, his deep voice soaring high.
“I have no idea.”
“So,” Louis sighed, still coming down. “Harry, right?”
“Yeah. And you're Louis?” He nodded. “We had psych together last year, didn't we?”
“We did. Man, I did awful in that class. Mr. West was a dick!” Harry laughed as Louis shook his head mournfully. “He hated me!”
“Well...” Harry trailed off in a low drawl, cocking his head to the side, “maybe he didn't hate you... It could've had something to do with the lateness... the skipping classes... falling asleep in class... never turning in the assignm –” Louis turned and whacked him on the arm.
“Alright, enough!” Harry laughed again, looking down at the dingy carpet they were sitting on and twisting one of the many rings on his hands. Louis stared at his long fingers for a long moment.
“Anyway...” Harry snapped him out of his (heading towards the inappropriate) thoughts. “What are you doing here so late?” Louis groaned.
“Don't remind me! I've got a big theater final tomorrow and I have to finish memorizing terms. I swear college will be the death of me, I feel like I haven't slept in weeks!” He threw an arm over his eyes and heaved a sigh. Harry chuckled.
“You'd never guess you were a drama major, really.” Louis scowled playfully out at him from beneath his arm, and Harry let out an “oh!”
“Hey, why don't you go get your books and things? I could help you study while we wait for this stupid thing to work?”
As much as Louis really did not want to do that, he really did need to study, and it was – he checked his phone – 3:24am. So after a bit of (not at all dramatic) grumbling, he made his way back to his godforsaken corner to gather his notes up.
As he was piling things into his backpack, Louis took stock. Sweatpants, check. Raggedy old sweatshirt, check. Greasy hair, check. Pale and washed out from lack of sleep, check. The perfect look for making friends and influencing people. He sighed in frustration and tried to fluff up his fringe, but eventually he gave up, deciding he'd just have to win Harry's heart – or at least a date – using the sheer force of his personality. Admittedly not the best plan at this time of night, but he couldn't let the opportunity slide, no matter how tired he was. Harry was even more attractive than he remembered noticing in class, and even worse, he was cute. Fumbling around with those massive hands and actually running through the library to get a useless book on the modern history of printers. Louis shook his head as he suppressed a smile, threw his bag over his shoulder, and headed back into the fray.
*
As it turned out, Louis was altogether too tired to have much force of personality at half past three in the morning on the last night of finals week. That didn't stop Harry, however, from honking out a laugh at his sarcastic comments even when he tried to look offended. Or from (not so) subtly shuffling closer to Louis where they were sitting next to each other on the floor as he attempted to help him study.
When Louis raised an eyebrow at the shuffling, Harry blushed a bit, then started on a ramble about how cold it was in the library, which led to him to start talking about heating systems in the buildings of the entire school, and then somehow eventually ended up at what it would have been like to be a servant in a medieval castle and which king of France he would have most enjoyed serving under.
Louis listened the whole time, nodding and “uh-huh”ing in the right places, taking in that adorable concentration face, and being mentally attacked by ridiculous metaphors for Harry's voice like honey or my favorite blanket, or that first gulp of tea in the morning that burns a little when it goes down but warms you all the way to your toes. After about fifteen minutes of talking, Harry trailed off, turning to Louis and grimacing apologetically.
“Sorry... I know I can be a bit boring to talk to. My friends always tell me that I should get a job writing for a senior citizen's digest when I graduate.” He huffed a laugh, tucking a stray curl behind his ear. Louis wanted to pull it right back out so he could tuck it behind there himself.
“You do talk some shit, Harry,” he started, and Harry grimaced again. Louis continued in a softer voice, the corner of his mouth tugging up. “I think it's interesting.” Harry gave him a dubious look and took that frustratingly smooth bottom lip between his teeth again.
“Yeah?” Louis looked at his uncertain face and had to move, had to do something so he wouldn't actually kiss-attack this boy. He clapped his hands once, making Harry jump.
“Yes, well,” he said a bit overly loudly, “we do all need to be prepared, right? Just in case time travel starts to be a real thing and we get pulled back into the Dark Ages?”
Louis felt tingly all over as Harry started to grin at him full force, saying seriously,
“Very true. Preparation is key for these types of events.”
Next to his leg, Louis' phone lit up. 20% battery. Nice. He also noticed the time: 4:14am. Dammit, he thought.
“Dammit,” he said. “I wish I could go back in time to give me enough of it to study for this stupid test.” He flopped over onto his side and moaned, “I give up! School wins! This is it for me. Leave me here to die, please, I can't do it anymore.”
“Nooooo,” Harry said, shoving at his shoulder. “Louie, you can't give up now! Come on, come on, I've been shit at helping you study, but I promise I'll be good now.”
Louis just shook his head. Harry pouted a bit. “Louis, please?” He pouted some more. And how was Louis supposed to resist the bottom lip all stuck out like that?
So even though he had no idea how they had gotten to the point where Harry was begging to help him study, he sat up with a sigh, and they actually got down to business. Harry was surprisingly good at helping him remember terms; he could come up with random associations that at first made no sense, but the more Louis thought about them, the more he couldn't get them out of his head. Kind of like Harry, he thought, then shook his head at his own ridiculousness.
After they had gone through all the terms twice, Louis stood up to check the printer again. In lieu of any other good ideas, he gave it a solid kick and turned it off again, then a minute or so later he turned it back on and proceeded to throw himself back down onto the floor. Harry laid down next to him on his back, hands behind his head and his elbow just brushing Louis' hair.
They both were getting sleepy, but continued talking in hushed tones as the printer did absolutely nothing. Eventually they ended up curled on their sides facing each other, and Louis thought he could watch Harry yawn and blink those green eyes slowly for the next three hours and be completely content.
After one blink, Harry's eyes didn't open back up again, his sentences trailing off somewhere between “I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to find a decent job with my literature degree,” and “then I just had to get a picture of that swan, Lou.” Louis smiled, giving in to his desire from earlier and softly tucking an errant curl back from Harry's face as he slept, pink lips parted slightly, breaths coming deep and slow.
Louis turned onto his back, sucked in air and held it for a moment, trying to tamp down on his smile. This is too much for me, he thought, forcefully releasing the breath. He let Harry sleep for about fifteen minutes as he tried to calm the fluttering of his stomach, then regretfully began poking at him to wake him up. Harry snuffled and Louis about had a heart attack. Absolutely too much at five in the morning.
“Haaarryyy,” he sing-songed quietly. “Harry Harry Haaarrryyy.” After a few moments, Harry's eyes slowly opened and he furrowed his brow a bit in confusion. A moment later, a small smile lifted his lips when he remembered where he was and saw Louis still laying next to him.
“How long was I out?” His voice was gravelly and Louis wanted to roll on top of him.
“Not that long. Fifteen minutes maybe? I just wanted to wake you because I don't think this printer's ever going to work, at least not before eight... Maybe we should just go home?” As much as Louis didn't want to leave, he did need a bit of rest before his test, and it wasn't going to do either of them any good to sleep on this hard floor. Harry grunted his agreement, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes.
At that exact moment, the printer kicked back to life and began spitting out paper. They looked at each other, astonished. Sleepiness forgotten, Harry whooped in victory and shot up, pulling the pages off the tray as soon as they came out.
“My paper!” he called excitedly, waving the pages around and flopping his limbs. “Louis, you did it!” Louis looked up at Harry beaming down at him, long curls greasy and askew, bags under his eyes, looking for all the world like an angel. Fuck, Louis thought, grinning back up at him.
“Alright!” he cheered, taking Harry's proffered hand and letting him pull him up.
The printer ended up pumping out sixteen copies of the paper and Harry meticulously sorted and stapled them all. Louis watched with increasing incredulity as he lined up the copies to be stapled. “And why was all this necessary for sixteen copies?”
Harry shrugged, pressing down on the stapler. “You know... Just in case?” Louis raised his eyebrow. “Well I mean, they all printed out, so... I didn't want to leave any of them just... loose and... by themselves, you know?”
Both of Louis' eyebrows were raised now.
“You didn't want pieces of paper to get lonely? Is this what I'm hearing you say?”
“Well– ” Harry started to defend himself and then stopped, hanging his head down. “Yes?” He looked sheepishly up at Louis through his eyelashes, which was just... not fair. Louis grinned and said, “That's very sweet of you, Harold,” just to see his face light up.
*
The clock read 5:49am when they left the library, making their way past the lone, sleeping attendant at the front desk. The boys could hear a few birds chirping from trees around the parking lot, and the gray sky was lightening more by the minute.
“So,” Louis started, with no idea how to finish. He didn't want to leave Harry yet, but his tired brain couldn't come up with any way to keep hanging out besides asking him, hey, wanna keep hanging out? Like maybe forever?
They came up on Harry's car first, a beat-up old Honda, and stopped beside it. Harry ran his hand through his hair, looking down at his feet then back up at Louis.
“So... I need to turn in my paper before I go home, um... So I guess...” Harry hesitated, and Louis jumped on the idea, delighted.
“Well, I can't leave you to do that alone!” he exclaimed. “I kicked that printer for you; I'm in too deep now. I have to see this through to the end! Onward -” and he ran around the side of the car and slid into the passenger seat as Harry laughed.
When Harry had folded himself up into the driver's seat, he grinned over at Louis. They chatted as he drove - “Really, why would they put the English department all the way across campus from the library?” - and Louis tried to find his chill so he could ask for Harry's number without totally embarrassing himself.
After Harry had triumphantly placed his paper in the professor's office box, they slowly made their way back to the car, walking just a bit too close together. Louis took about sixteen deep breaths every time he felt their arms brush. As they drove back to where Louis' car was, a silence fell. Well, he thought, here goes nothing.
“So I was wondering –” he started, at the same time as Harry began,
“Louis I was thinking –” They both laughed sheepishly. “Uh, you go first,” Harry said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Right, uh.” Louis licked his lips. “Well I was just gonna say that this was way more fun than I was expecting to have in the library on the last night of finals week.” Harry chuckled.
“Yeah definitely, me too.” Louis gripped his thighs and tried to be casual about the next bit, the important bit.
“And uh, I was thinking that it might be even more fun if we hung out some other time, you know, without having to do schoolwork, and,” he gave a small laugh, “also earlier than three am maybe... We could have dinner or something?” Louis risked a glance at Harry's face, trying to keep his expression nonchalant. Harry was biting back a smile.
“Um, yeah,” he said, then apparently gave up on keeping his smile in and turned the full force of his dimples on Louis. “Yeah, that would be really great."
They pulled up beside Louis' car and exchanged numbers, maybe brushing their hands together a little more often than necessary as they passed phones back and forth. Louis tried not to stare too hard into the green eyes next to him, not sure if he could handle himself after their sleepless night. Harry was intoxicating.
In the midst of his thoughts, he heard Harry take a deep breath beside him.
“Hey, Lou?”
Louis looked up and all of a sudden felt smooth lips covering his. After an initial second of confusion, the world seemed to slow down. All he could hear was his heartbeat in his ears, then Harry's little sigh as their lips parted and came back together. He brought his hand up to brush through Harry's curls. They kept their kisses slow and chaste, pressing their lips together sweetly in a promise of more later, when it's not 6am, don't worry, this is just the beginning.
As they drew back a little, Louis bit his lip. Harry blinked at him with his big eyes and smiled shyly.
“Sorry, I – I've been wanting to do that all night and – well all morning, I guess, and I –” Louis smoothed his thumb over Harry's cheekbone one more time and shook his head, smiling as he cut off the nervous ramble he knew was coming.
“Don't be sorry, Harry. Me too.”
They just looked at each other for another minute, until Harry's blinks got so slow Louis began to fear for his drive home.
“So,” Louis said as he brought his backpack up onto his lap and reluctantly got ready to leave. “Dinner sometime, then?”
“Yeah, definitely,” Harry said, smiling through a yawn.
“You'll be okay to drive home?” Louis asked, a little concerned when he saw how tired Harry actually looked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Harry waved him off. “I'll be fine.” He pulled at that bottom lip with his fingers. “I've got some good memories to keep me awake on the way.” Louis rolled his eyes, but couldn't help his grin.
“Okay, well...” You've dragged this out long enough, Louis, you have to get out now or you never will. “I guess I'll see you soon, then?” Harry nodded again, looking just as reluctant as Louis was.
“Soon.”
Louis finally shut the door and got into his own car, waiting till Harry had driven away before leaning his head on the steering wheel and trying not to actually squeal. What a turn that night took, he thought. Just as he was about the pull out of the parking space, his phone lit up. When he opened the text, he grinned so wide that his eyes crinkled with it.
So... Pick you up at 7?