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“Fuck off Ashton!” Louis screamed as he passed along the punk band. All the boys laughed as Ashton flipped him off with both hands. Louis rolled his eyes and was about to jog towards their room but then suddenly faltered. It hadn’t occurred to him but just now that Harry might be in the room already. Liam and Niall messaged him, both saying they were running late, but he doesn’t know where Harry is. He never really knows anything about Harry anymore, is the thing. Not in four years.
He wouldn’t be in the room already, that’s for sure, Louis thought. He’ll probably arrive at the last minute, coming from god knows where with his hipster friends. He tried to feel bitter about the thought but what he felt instead was hurt. Four years ago, Harry would still definitely be late for the show, but for a completely different reason. He would come running in, holding hands with Louis, their faces flushed with laughter and their hair pointing in different directions. The crew would then immediately fuss over them, fixing their hair while simultaneously reprimanding them for their cheeky behavior. Harry would apologize, the fucking angel that he is, but deep down he wouldn’t really care, because he would be looking at Louis from across the room with the widest smile on his face that showed his dimples, and would scrunch his nose in a way that’s reserved for Louis. But that was four years ago, Louis has to remind himself over and over again. Harry doesn’t look at him that way anymore. Hell, Harry barely even looks at him at all. Sometimes it’s hard to remember they were ever that close with each other.
Louis took a deep breath and tried to calm his pounding heart as he neared the door. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be alone with Harry. He’s just saving himself from lots of sleepless nights and his lungs from packs of cigarettes, that’s all. But as he opened the door and peeked inside, he realized that he would gladly die from insomnia or maybe even lung cancer, only to see this again after so many years.
Harry’s in the room. He’s curled up on the couch, to be exact. Louis’s heart constricted with memories of hundreds of nights he arrived home at their shared flat, only to see the exact image in front of him. Harry, fast asleep, with tufts of hair sprayed on his forehead, long limbs curled up to keep himself warm. He’s so, utterly beautiful. Louis wants to cry.
Louis is frozen. He doesn’t know what to do. He knows he should go out, maybe find a smoking area. But Harry’s there, so fucking gorgeous, and he hasn’t seen him like this in years. A noise from the corridor broke him out of his reverie though, so he quietly closed the door behind him, so as not to wake up his boy. His boy. Fuck, when will he stop addressing Harry as his? Harry’s not his. He thought he was, four years ago. But Harry wasn’t. Not ever.
Louis took a step closer. He may not be spending a lot of time with Harry anymore, and he may now sometimes be clueless as to what’s going on in that brain of his, but he's still got this Harry memorized. He’s spent so many nights with Harry that he didn’t have to take a second look now to know that Harry’s exhausted. This boy can sleep through a hurricane when he’s completely knackered. Louis wants to reach out. He wants to scratch Harry’s scalp the way he knows would make Harry’s shoulder slump and a sigh to escape his lips. Louis's chest feels tight. He’s not sure if he’s even breathing at all. He wants to wrap Harry in his arms to keep him warm. He wants to kiss away that crease in the middle of Harry’s eyebrows.
What he did, however, was pick up the blanket from the table at the corner and place it over Harry’s body. What he did next was go out of the building and take out a cigarette from his pocket with shaking fingers and watch the smoke with eyes blurry with tears. What he did last was break down, right there in the middle of the parking lot, his hands numb with the cold and his abandoned cigarette on the floor because, fuck, he misses Harry. He misses his boy.