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He wasn't asleep. When was he ever asleep these days? The bed was too empty and his head was too full. Most of it was band stuff; the interviews, the fans, the shows, the chaos. And then there was that other thing that was constantly nagging him. Louis.
Things were strained between them and they both knew it, but they never mentioned it. In fact, they had carefully perfected this ridiculous dance around the issue and Harry was so sick and tired of it. If only he could sleep.
They barely even talked these days. Sure, there were little conversations about things related to the band, but the personal talks, their talks, had gradually become less and less until he now couldn't even remember the last time they had one. And it wasn't that something had happened. There wasn't a pin-point moment where things had turned into this, but here he was anyway. In an empty bed. When did that happen? Well, he knew when. A few weeks ago. When all of a sudden they had started sleeping in separate hotel rooms. Interestingly enough that was also the time he stopped sleeping altogether.
Harry would never call it a girly shriek, because that's not nice and Harry happens to be very nice, but it was just a terriby girly shriek coming from the other side of the wall at 3 in the morning, followed by at least ten more similar shrieks, then the sound of heavy stuff falling over, two more shrieks, then the sound of a person falling over, quickly followed by the opening and not very quiet closing of a door. Ten seconds later his own hotel door opened and a very freaked out Louis Tomlinson, wrapped from head to toe in a polka dot blanket, appeared in the doorway. It reminded Harry of E.T.
"Hazza!"
Louis stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He turned the lights on, but didn't bother moving any further. He just stood there and held on to his blanket for dear life.
"This better be really urgent, Lou." Harry mumbled, a little drowsy from almost-but-not-quite-sleep and too much thinking to give into the usual awkwardness between them. He was still safely tucked away under the covers and didn't even lift his head from the pillow. He didn't feel the need to panic just because Louis was. He knew his bandmate by now and he was nothing if not a big drama queen and proud of it.
"Spider!"
"So?"
"A gigantic, monstrous, elephant-sized spider! It had 17 legs and fur and it was going to eat me, Hazza! Get up, come help!"
Harry moved his arm from under the warm covers to the cold of the room and patted the empty space next to him without even thinking about it, just going on instinct. As if nothing had changed and they were just like before. "Just sleep here and we'll get it in the morning."
"No! Now. It's on the move! How are we going to find it in the morning? We're staying here for two more nights and I swear it wanted to eat me. I don't think we're safe here either."
"Well, there aren't a lot of places for an elephant-sized spider to hide, are there? It will still be there, Lou. Just come sleep. If we can't find it we'll switch rooms tomorrow or something."
"It's my room, Harry." Louis sighed as if that was logic Harry should understand without further explanation. "You know what I do once I've decided a room is my room."
"You turn it into a war zone?"
Harry really meant to keep his eyes open, but that mission proved to be impossible. The situation at hand was mildly amusing and frankly, he had missed these amusing moments and naturally favored them over the tense ones, but he was mostly just extremely tired and couldn't remember the last time he'd had a decent night of sleep. This wasn't going to be that either, he could already tell and he was honestly just a little bit irritated that it was once again Louis keeping him up, although this time in the literal sense.
"Yes. And I'm not picking that stuff up until 5 minutes before we leave for the airport, like always, because I'm a creature of habit and would like to stay that way. No, it's settled: this spider has to die and you have to kill it and you have to do it now."
"Oh yes, that settles it." Harry pretended to agree, but he didn't move. "Why did you turn left when you walked out of your room? You could've turned right and bothered Zayn with your girly problem."
"Girly problem, Haz?"
The sass in Louis' voice would've been hilarious at any other time than 3 am.
"You're a big boy, Lou. Spiders don't bite." Wait.
Louis didn't seem to catch the flaw in that last statement or at the very least didn't want to dwell on it.
"Zayn can't even swim. How is he going to take on a humongous spider?"
"I fail to see how those two things are in any way related."
"And who is even capable of waking up Zayn in the middle of the night? Or at any given moment? That boy could sleep through a heavy metal concert and insist that was a perfect place for a nap."
"I'm pretty sure your high-pitched screams did the trick anyway. In fact, I'm pretty sure you woke everybody in the hotel."
"Well, then I'm appalled that nobody came to my aid. I could be dead. The fans would have been devastated."
"I think they all realized dead people don't shriek."
"We're wasting valuable time here, Harold! That thing could be anywhere by now. It could've crawled into the clean underwear I've neatly spread out on the floor for reasons I don't even understand, but made sense at the time."
Harry eventually gave up and opened his eyes. He let out a deep sigh before sitting up a little, leaning on his elbows and throwing his best friend (of course he was still his best friend) an amused look. He looked utterly ridiculous, wrapped in a polka dot blanket and an outraged look on his face as if major injustice was being done here. It was really adorable.
Oh right, that was the issue at hand here. Harry thought Louis was adorable nowadays. He wasn't sure when it happened, but it had and he was 90 percent sure it was the reason for most of the tension between them. You know, the unspoken issue. It wasn't that he had even mentioned his sudden shift in feelings to anyone, let alone to Louis, but it was just that Harry was terrible at hiding his emotions and Louis was way too perceptive and it had made everything awkward.
"Don't put yourself down, Lou. While I agree that your bum is rather large, I wouldn't call it elephant-sized. The spider won't even get one of his 17 legs in your underwear."
"Harry!"
"Is there any way I can get out of this? Because this bed is comfortable and warm and I really don't want to get up."
"Excuse me. Have we met? Do you know me at all? Of course you're not getting out of this. I'm nothing if not persistent."
"Well, can't you call the front desk? I'm sure the friendly lady we met there earlier is up for a good fight with a humongous spider."
He wasn't going to lie; he liked this banter. He could keep this banter up forever if it meant that the before mentioned tension between them would never return. He would kill all of the spiders in this world if he had to.
"I can't call the front desk! They'll think I'm a snobby, spoiled popstar brat."
"You are a snobby, spoiled popstar brat."
"I swear Harry, if you're not out of that bed in ten seconds, I'm filing for divorce and demanding full custody of our sassy, curly-haired children."
"Who would keep them safe from the spiders in the house?"
"Harry Edward Styles, don't make me come over there! Get your little butt out of that bed right now and help me!"
"Alright, alright." Harry sighed, now fully giving in and a little more amused by what was going on. He had accepted that this was going to be another sleepless night caused by Louis Tomlinson. "Hand me my boxers."
"Oh really? Nineteen years of parading your naked bum around, not caring who sees, and you pick now to all of a sudden become self concious?"
"Tone down the sass a little, Lou. I think it's stuck at level 9. "
"Please. On a regular day not involving gigantic mutant spiders it's already stuck at 9. Don't insult me." Louis objected, but he shuffled over to where Harry's boxers were neatly hanging over a chair and he threw them on the bed.
"It's a mutant spider now?"
"You know how stories have a way of getting bigger in your head." Louis shrugged.
"Because 'elephant-sized' and '17 legs' weren't a big story to begin with."
"You'll see."
Harry quickly put on his boxers under the covers, before throwing them off, shivering as the cold air of the hotel room found his halfnaked body. He kind of hated Louis right now. Except that he didn't, of course. Story of his life. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and forced himself to sit up.
"We need like a baseball bat. Or a really big cage."
Harry frowned. "I thought you wanted it dead?"
"But if it really is a mutant spider we should have it examined and maybe get a lot of money for it."
"Yes, because we need more money. I think I'll take my chances and just use one of those dirty magazines you keep in that compartment of your suitcase you think nobody knows about."
"I'm appalled at what you're insinuating and have no idea what you're talking about."
"Well, I do. And those will work just fine for killing mutant spiders." Harry decided, before finally getting to his feet. "Now lead the way."
"Yeah, I don't think so." Louis spoke, shaking his head. "Here's my keycard. You're taking the lead here."
"You are coming though. It's your room and your spider."
"Great. My own pet spider. I'll call it Henry. Now let's go kill it."
They reached Louis' room door moments later and Harry was about to use the keycard to open it when Louis practically threw himself at him, wrapping him up into the ridiculous blanket with him, momentarily blinding Harry from the lights in the hallway.
"Do you hear that!?" Louis breathed down his neck, but it became obvious that this time he was merely joking. It had been a while since the two of them had been this close though and Harry involuntarily leaned back into the warm body behind him for maybe a little too long. He missed this.
"Hear what?"
"The scratching. It's trying to break free."
Harry laughed as he turned around to face Louis, freeing himself from the polka dots around him. "You stay here. If I don't make it out alive tell the fans I loved them."
"I will. Don't be offended if we continue the band without you. It won't be the same, but we'll manage."
"You can't sing any of my solo's. Have Liam do it."
"How very dare you."
Harry turned back to the door and used the keycard to open it, ignoring how Louis audibly gasped, before starting to hum the James Bond theme a little louder than what was probably appreciated at this time of night. Harry stepped inside and looked around.
"I swear it's huge, Haz."
"Yeah, I got that. Where did you last see it?"
"It was like right over my head on the ceiling above the bed. Just watching me with those beady eyes."
He turned towards the bed and looked up. There it was. In all fairness, it was a rather large and even hairy spider.
"Just for identification purposes: how many legs again?" Harry called out.
"17. Or maybe 8. Either."
"And hairy? Beady eyes?"
"You found Henry!" Louis exclaimed excitedly.
"You're going to get us kicked out of this hotel."
"Good. We'll move to a spider-free place. I'm going to demand that from now on, you know. Have management hire somebody to examine the room before I sleep in it."
"You really are a spoiled little popstar brat. You could come in, you know. I'll protect you."
"Nah, I'll wait here. I like it here." Louis softly said, causing Harry to chuckle as he walked over to the desk in the right corner of the room to grab one of the flyers the hotel had left them there.
"You know I'm not going to kill it, right?"
"I kind of figured. You'd feel all guilty for a week. You're too nice, Harry. Has anybody ever told you you're too nice? This is an evil spider that wanted to eat me. You'd be justified to kill it."
"But I won't."
"I know."
Harry stepped on the bed and gently folded the flyer around the big spider, making sure not to harm it. He was about to step down again when Louis ran into the room, yelling: "wait, wait, wait!" before locking himself in the bathroom.
"What was that!?" Harry asked, confused.
"Just in case you are up to some funny business waving that spider in my face." Louis called from behind the locked door.
Harry shook his head, smiling as she stepped down from the bed and walked over the big window across from it. He used his free hand to slide it open before he set the spider free against the wall next to the window. Henry didn't seem bothered by any of it, completely unaware of the chaos he'd caused and slowly started to crawl away. Harry closed the window again.
"It's safe now. Just keep your window closed and you're good."
"Really though, Haz? Is it really gone? Are you messing with me? Because if you're messing with me-"
"I wouldn't do that. Just come out, Lou."
"You know I don't appreciate the gay jokes, Harold." Louis replied, mocking offence, before eventually opening the door only a little to peek around it. "Is it gone? Is it really gone?"
"Come out." Harry insisted. "It's gone."
Louis emerged from the bathroom, still safely wrapped in his blanket, only his face visible now.
"I can finally breathe again."
"Yes, I can imagine this was a very traumatic life experience."
"You're my hero. But let's never tell anybody about any of this, okay? It would ruin my macho reputation."
"People are going to ask tomorrow. There have been some very strange sounds."
"We'll just tell them we had very loud, passionate sex. What do they know?" Louis shrugged as if that was a completely normal thing to say to your best friend and perhaps it was. It used to be. They would joke around about those things all the time. Harry swallowed. Things had been so good between them thanks to Henry the spider. He didn't want it to end, so he decided to step up to the banter. It was still banter, right?
"Have fun explaining that your sex sounds are high-pitched girly screams."
"Yes, because that's what people are going to be focused on when I tell them you and I had sex."
It was Harry's turn to shrug, knowing he was heading into dangerous territory. "It's what people believe anyway. They won't be as surprised as you expect them to be."
Silence.
Shit.
"We should go back to sleep." Harry suggested. He was afraid to look up, so he resorted to staring at his bare feet instead. He needed to clip his toenails. Badly. "Your room is safe now, I promise."
"Thanks, Haz."
Louis' voice was softer than it had been since this whole spider ordeal started half an hour ago. Harry knew he should just leave. Just start moving. One foot in front of the other. He surely remembered walking, didn't he?
"But maybe I could-" Louis started and Harry closed his eyes for a second both fearing and anticipating how that sentence would end. "Maybe I could come back to your room? I think maybe it was a bit of a mistake that we no longer share a room. I mean, if tonight is anything to go by..."
"There won't be any more spiders, Lou."
"I know that. That's not really what I meant. Before my buddy Henry showed up I was sort of having trouble falling asleep. It's just that the bed is really empty without you and... I like sleeping next to you."
"I don't know if that's a good idea." Harry managed to say, not even sure why he was saying it. At this point he wasn't even sure if he would ever manage to fall asleep again without Louis next to him.
"No, you don't understand."
Harry then looked up at the determined tone in the boy's voice and noticed how Louis was slowly walking towards him. How was it possible for someone to look both so ridiculous and so adorable at the same time? He felt how his hands began to shake and when did his hands ever shake? Louis had reached him now and opened his arms, inviting Harry to step into his space. He didn't even hesitate. He just did it. Louis wrapped the blanket around the both of them and they were very close. So very close, just looking at each other.
"I like sleeping next to you, Hazza. Always. I don't ever want to not sleep next to you again. Do you get what I'm trying to say here?"
And how was it that their roles were reversed so quickly now that Henry was out of the picture? How did Louis suddenly become the brave one here tonight?
"I don't know." He whispered.
The older boy closed the distance between them by practically smashing their lips together. It was too rough and it was too messy, but it was what they both needed and Harry almost stumbled backwards, steadying himself by grabbing Louis' hips as tightly as he could, knowing he was leaving marks, but not caring very much. When both of them were stable on their feet again the kissing gradually slowed down as the polka dot blanket slipped down their shoulders to the floor and they didn't bother to stop it. Harry pulled Louis closer and wrapped his arms entirely around him, just reveling in the touch and the warmth. They were both only half dressed and their bare chests collided and...
"Bed." Louis murmured, breaking the kiss for less than a second.
Harry pulled him backwards towards the big bed behind them, but Louis wasn't having it and broke their kiss once again.
"No, no, no. Your bed." He smiled, panting heavily.
"Does it matter?"
"Well, it's just...what if Henry has like a brother or sister lurking around?"
Harry laughed. "You're ridiculous."
"That's good, right?"
"Yeah, that's good."
"Come on." Louis insisted. "Let's give these people some real sex sounds to talk about over breakfast."