Young & Beautiful

“Tell me to leave. Obviously.”
“You don’t listen to me.”
“But I would have then. I was on my way out anyways.”
Harry falls silent. He averts his gaze, stroking long, slender milky fingers over the petals of the
hideous flower. “I suppose I didn’t think about it. It doesn’t matter, regardless.”
The crickets begin singing. Or playing. Louis doesn’t really know what to call it.
Harry’s hand drops from the flower before he glances up at Louis. “It’s dark,” is all he says, the
moonlight beginning to softly glow, painting his porcelain skin in eerie blues and dusting his curls
in silver.
“She’s probably gone,” Louis says. “I doubt she’s waited this long. She’ll have gotten bored. So
we can go.”
“I wasn’t waiting for her to be gone,” Harry says coldly, slowly, but it’s bullshit, Louis can smell
it from here, and so he doesn’t protest, just begins walking towards the car and ignoring his biting
retorts and eye rolls.
As they climb into the car, Louis shutting the door, he feels lighter. And this evening was weird,
yeah, but it could have been a lot weirder. And if he’d been at his flat with his mum, it could have
been a lot more terrible. So, all in all, despite Harry’s murky conversation skills (when he’s not
“on” so to speak) and his penchant for looking at Louis like he’s a stain on the bottom of his shoe,
Louis owes him.
Maybe a lot.
“I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for,” he says on a whim, looking over to Harry
who freezes in the midst of shutting the car door.
Eyes staring ahead unblinkingly, Harry breathes, unmoving, Louis’ words seeming to marinate
within him, before he breaks himself from his reverie and slams the door shut, that grimace back in
place. Without a word, he buckles his seat belt and starts the car, and they drive off, Louis
sneaking glances as they fly down the road, and Harry’s hands grip the wheel even tighter.
**
When Harry stops the car on the street outside of Louis’ building, he’s genuinely confused.
Because isn’t Harry going to just park by his own rooms and make Louis walk back to his? Like
he always instructs Zayn to do whenever they take a drive?
“This is my building,” he says stupidly, and looks to Harry who looks very unimpressed, both
eyebrows raised.
“I’m aware of that, thank you,” his voice oozes, and the deep velvety timbre of it is almost lost in
the gloom of the night. Because Harry’s voice can be so loud and raucous and yet, sometimes, so
soft and low that Louis thinks it could vanish; he thinks that if he weren’t able to see Harry, he
wouldn’t be able to hear his words at all, their presence only established by the slow, twisted
movements of his sinful lips.
“I guess I’m just surprised you’re not making me walk across town,” Louis replies dryly, throwing
him a look.