Shift ☆ Louis Partridge

18 | Stay, Darling

☆
[y/n]

_

"WHY DID YOU LAUGH?" I asked, my back resting against his chest, "when I told you the truth."

Louis and I were sitting on a bench at Blackfriars station, half-empty teacups dangled loosely in our hands as we stared at the tracks in front of us. It seemed only right to reconcile at the place it all began. Tea, trains, and tiny memories being made.

Louis had his arm wrapped around my shoulder, his fingers tapping the side of his paper cup.

"I laughed, because this whole time I thought I was going insane," he explained, "and yet there was a perfectly good explanation."

I smiled. "Why didn't you just tell me you knew?"

"Why didn't you tell me you knew?"

I rolled my eyes at his quick retort, but I knew he had a point. We'd wasted so much time dancing around each other, when this whole time we could have let ourselves speak freely.

"Fair point," I nodded, "we never have been good at communication when you think about it."

"Ah, yes, like that time you tried to kill me back in Neverland," he laughed, "always wondered why you didn't just tell me the truth about Hook."

"Because that wouldn't have made a good story, would it?"

"I suppose not."

A train started to pull into the station, the screech of it's wheels coming to a stop in front of us like a steady rumble. The wind from the cars made Louis' hair fly into his face, and he started shaking his head in annoyance to get it out of his eyes.

I laughed, reaching up to brush the stray strands aside.

"Bloody trains," he frowned, "always ruining a perfectly good moment."

I scoffed. "We met on a train, remember?"

"Well that train has it's excuse, this one does not," he pouted, patting at his head, "it ruined my hair."

It was this domestic behavior that I loved. Well, that word sounds like it hurdled over a million lines of steps in a relationship—if that's even what we are, it's a little confusing right now—but it felt right. We'd been through so much together. We wanted to go through the rest together.

And it was just being together that made the difference.

As people filtered off the trains, got on, got off, yelled into their phones as they made their way home, a thought snuck it's way into my mind. An hour ago Louis said something that struck a chord in my body: I want to stay in this forever with you. Forever seemed like an awfully long time, and as much as I agreed, I couldn't erase the sense of dread that came with it.

I thought it was because of the shock.

But now I realize what it actually was.

"Louis, I have to tell you something," I said, adjusting my seat on the bench nervously, "something important."

The boy sensed the tension thicken. "What is it?"

"You said that every time I shift, you shift with me, right?"

"Yeah..."

"That means we're stuck in a shift right now."

Dropping those words into the air so casually was enough to set the boy's face into a titled press of the lips. I could tell he was confused, and I felt bad for forgetting. It slipped my mind. I let my heart feel more strongly than my brain.