Burn to ash

Chapter 13

Liverpool. September 7, 2019.

Louis is pretty sure he's going to be sick.

Not like a little bit sick, a wrench of his stomach that he can work through on stage-no, he's actually going to be full on sick, massively puking up his guts into this not very clean toilet.

Seriously that is something they should have added to the tour rider-please make sure you clean all bathrooms thoroughly just in case Louis Tomlinson needs to spend an hour crouched over one of them.

The hard tile is digging into his jean-covered knees and the floor is freezing but he can't seem to move, doesn't even really remember staggering in here. It was after his hair got fixed and he'd dressed in his simple jeans and t-shirt that he'd decided to wear on the first night. It was then that what he was about to do hit him, and the big lunch he'd eaten had threatened to rise right up his throat.

So he's been in here about an hour, give or take, and it's kind of a surprise that nobody has found him yet, but just when he thanks god that nobody has, the door creaks open and he hears heavy footsteps walking towards his stall.

Louis closes his eyes. He'd wanted it to be anybody but who it is. "Lou," Harry calls softly, "I know you're in here. Are you okay?"

Louis grips the dingy toilet with the tips of his fingers, feels the ceramic edge dig into his skin. "Not really," he mumbles.

"Should've told someone. Not just ran off."

"Didn't want anyone to know," Louis confesses. Especially you.

"Don't care. Should've done it anyway." Harry's voice tone is matter of fact and a little harsh. He rattles the stall door. "Let me in."

Louis exhales and shakes his head before he realizes that Harry can't see him. "No," he says after an awkward pause. "Definitely no."

Harry humphs and then is quiet for a moment. "I could probably break this down, you know," Harry says, and the stall door suddenly rattles. Louis practically jumps out of his skin at the sound.

"I'm sure you could," Louis snaps. "But that'd be rude."

"Don't care." The door rattles again, harder this time, and for a split second, Louis actually considers hefting himself off the floor and bracing himself against the flimsy door in an attempt to prevent Harry's forcible entry.

Not moving wins out by a very small margin but then the door jerks hard in its wimpy foundation and Louis has to reconsider. At this rate, Harry may actually pull the entire construction down and that isn't going to look very good when everyone inevitably finds out.

He can see the headlines now. One Direction destroys bathroom at tour venue.

Louis raises himself a little off the floor, to his knees, and reaches up to flick open the lock. The door swings open and Harry is standing there, wearing an obnoxiously patterned shirt (really, does anything ever change? Louis wonders).

"You're a menace," Louis growls out, dropping back to his original position and praying that sometime in the next few minutes his body finally decides what it wants to do. He's getting rather annoyed with its indecisiveness.

Nevermind that at some point during this evening, he'll have to get it together enough to go out on stage and sing for whoever's actually decided to show up.

Harry crouches down next to Louis, eyes concerned. "You nervous?" he asks.

"No, I ate some bad shellfish," Louis snaps.

Harry chuckles softly. "So nerves it is then."

"Honestly, Harold. Of course it's nerves."

"You have nothing to be nervous about, you know that, right?"