Save Myself // Larry Stylinson

Chapter 3

This belongs to make_me_feel_like_home on ao3.
Chapter 3: III

Summary:

Sorry this took so long! I think I'm finally getting used to my characters now and I think chapters are going to come faster to me.
Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

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"Do you have a favourite poem?"

Louis was sitting on one of those stupid bean bag chairs in Terri's office for the fifth day in a row. When their session was over, Louis was leaving the hospital because classes started this week. He and Terri had decided that it was the best choice for him to go to classes so that they could determine what he wanted to do and what he should major in. 

They'd spoken a lot about a lot of things, but they hadn't really cut in deep to most of the things Louis kept inside of him, but it seemed like a natural progression. Maybe one day they would talk about bigger things, but for right now he was kind of okay just talking about literature with her. No one else had ever really listened to him or offered an opinion on the pieces he liked, so he found himself looking forward to the discussions with her. It was strange to have something to look forward to, but it was a good sort of strange. 

Kind of like the sort of strange that had his little sister spending most of the last few days curled up on the couch in common room, with her head resting on Louis' shoulder while they watched old episodes of coronation street and critiqued the levels of cheese. 

So, strange was good, Louis was learning. 

"Each man's hell is in a different place. Mine is just up and behind my ruined face," Louis said the lines from memory, because no matter how many poems he'd read before or after that one, it had always been the one that stuck. 

"Why that one?" said Terri, who, Louis had learned, liked to ask questions that were obvious simply because she wanted to push Louis. 

Louis didn't really like to be pushed and he responded to her shoves by standing stronger and pushing back. He never let her tip him over and spill out his secrets, but she remained undeterred. 

"I like Bukowski," 

"But I'm sure he's got more than one poem. Why is that one your favourite?"

Louis shrugged. 

"What is your hell like, Louis?"

"I think to answer that I'd need some kind of concept of what hell isn't,"

Whoops. Louis had set that spill out without thinking about protecting himself. 

"What about your time with Lottie, is that hell, too?"

He sighed, "getting to know my sister while being locked in a mental hospital isn't really what qualifies as happy and normal,"

"Okay," she was resilient, really, "so let's compare your time with Lottie to your time with Matt,"

Louis shook his head, he really didn't want to do this. 

"I don't want to talk about him,"

"Because you feel guilty or because part of you knows your time with him is a mistake?"

Well, that was just a bit too bold, wasn't it? Louis felt his skin tingle a bit with anger. 

"You don't know anything about what he's been through," Louis was protecting Matt for who knew what reason. He felt a lingering sense of loyalty to his best friend. It wasn't the first time he'd hurt Louis, they'd been through it more times than he could really remember and Louis knew he'd apologize. Maybe they were both too damaged to ever function normally, but there was something to be said for having someone who understood the darkness like Matt did. No one else had a right to judge that. After everything they'd been through together, Louis didn't know if his loyalty would ever change.