Young & Beautiful

“What are you doing?”
“Following you,” Louis says simply, tongue loose. “Where are we going?”
“Shouldn’t you be going to bed?” And his tone is almost irritated, but Louis would like to think of
it as curious.
“Nah. ‘M not tired. The night is young, Curly, and it’s Halloween, and I’m glitter—did I tell you
I’m glitter?—and it’s so beautiful outside, so, so beautiful, that I felt it important to stay.” Talking
is fun when Louis is drunk. Even more fun than usual. “You tutor me proper now, so we’re
mates. And we got on the other day. Remember that? When we got on?” He hiccups, small and
tiny.
Harry’s face is neutral as he continues walking in lazy strides, cane clicking on the cobblestoned
path. “That was yesterday.”
“Yeah! We got on yesterday, Curly, so we’re as good as mates now, I reckon.”
“Oh? You reckon?”
“Yeah,” Louis says simply, and they walk onward.
Harry’s breath mists, swirling into the air and evaporating. Louis tries to make his own do the
same, but it won’t. And that doesn’t make sense, does it? He was never good at science.
But before he can ponder it any more, he remembers the bucket of glitter in his hand. And his
drunken mind finds that very important and very exciting.
“I forgot I had this!” he exclaims loudly, thrusting it into the air.
Harry glances at it but says nothing.
Then Louis gets the brilliant idea of sprinkling a trail of glitter behind them as they walk, because
everything is fun and everything is an adventure and why the hell wouldn’t he leave a trail of
glitter?
“Look, it’s like Hansel and Gretel!” he exclaims, pointing toward his doings, and he finds himself
to be very clever, his cheeks warm and his hair beginning to fall into his eyes.
And out of all the things Louis’ said that night, that’s the last thing he expects to cause Harry to
smile.
“It is,” he says, actually stopping and examining Louis’ work. He moves forward. “Here, let me
have some,” he says, smile still present, little laughs escaping him. “We’ll make another trail. But a
very complex one.” He begins to sprinkle the glitter in twirls, making figure eights and circling
around rose bushes, and Louis can’t help but stare with his mouth agape because, well, maybe
Harry is drunker than he thought?
Or maybe Harry is a giant child. Either way, Louis can’t look away and he can’t stop the smile
splitting his face.
He watches Harry making intricate patterns, using the last of the glitter. “Are you making it so we
can never be found?” Louis laughs, and the bucket dangles from his slack fingers.
Harry’s smile falters immediately as he sprinkles the last of his handful.