Young & Beautiful

XXVIII
Chapter Summary
Louis tries to forget.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
It’s very early morning. Louis can tell by the way the sunlight looks pale, gliding into the room
and sparkling the air with dust particles.
Can tell by the way it illuminates his curtains, setting the creamy, wispy fabric on white fire.
Can tell by the way that Harry’s pale skin glows beneath it, can tell by how his hair is haloed in
shimmering, frizzy light, and can tell by how his breathing blends perfectly with the clouds that
are beginning to roll into the pastel blue sky.
Louis has slept, maybe, a total of fifty minutes the entire night. And it was a tumultuous fifty
minutes.
Because even in sleep he thought about Harry (always Harry), and his arms only gripped the
boy’s sleeping frame all the tighter, afraid he would slip away again. Because, fuck, Harry literally
showed up on his doorstep out of nowhere. In one blink he could be gone, swallowed up by his
cold, cruel world once more, leaving Louis’ arms barren and head clouded. And, really, that sort
of creeps Louis the fuck out because there is just something terribly wrong with this picture and it
has a lot to do with the bags under Louis’ eyes and his vice-like grip on an unconscious,
emotionally-stinted boy.
This definitely isn’t how he imagined university to be.
Which. Oh well.
He remains that way, clutching onto a blissfully sleeping Harry as the sunlight strengthens, until at
last his bladder speaks—and there’s no arguing with that bitch. Carefully, he removes himself
from Harry, whose arms are tucked into his chest, whose brow immediately furrows at the loss of
contact. Louis can’t help but smile at that as his feet hit the cool wooden floor, his hands hot and
soft from where they’d been lost in the fabric of Harry’s shirt. He watches Harry curl into himself,
quiet and small and young, and fuck, Harry wasn’t meant to sleep alone, he just wasn’t—he needs
Louis back in there with him, enveloping his too-long limbs and petite bones. Louis needs to
climb back in that bed this instant.
But.
But he really has to pee, like now. He fucking hates his bladder.
So he slips out of the room silently, his heart on fire.
It’s as he’s creeping back to his bedroom, his skin icy and his arms already itching to embrace
Harry’s sweet, sleeping figure again, (he refuses to feel creepy about this—kittens snuggle