So lets cross the lines we lost

Chapter 5

Harry keeps checking his phone.

He keeps checking his phone while he's driving, and Louis is getting particularly tired of swatting his hand away.

"You're trying to kill us, aren't you?"

"Of course, that's exactly what I'm doing." Harry says, a tiny curve in his mouth, barely there for a second, the van slowing down as they drive past kids getting onto a school bus. "Sorry. I'm just – it's... not important."

Louis watches him for a little while longer, but he keeps quiet after that.

He's sitting in the passenger seat of the van while Harry drives them to uni. Harry, with his odd far away eyes and furrowed brows, one hand clutching loosely to the steering wheel and the other resting on the gear stick, his body pliant yet rigid somehow. It's all very strange, to say the least, for a multitude of reasons, but the only one that Louis can really focus on is that he's struggling to actually focus altogether. There's music playing from the shitty radio, but he's not able to pay enough attention to hear the song that's playing, not before his thoughts go wild and hazy.

He can't stop thinking, is the thing. His head is still slightly dizzy and reeling from the night before, he doesn't think it should have meant anything, but of course it meant everything, and he can still feel Harry's words in his skin and his bones, in the spaces where they shouldn't be – the spaces where there's only room for Harry.

They didn't say much else while they were out on the swings, the night was settling over them and Liam was calling their names – Louis stood up and nodded towards the house and Harry followed, both with heavy eyes, heavy hearts, so much left unsaid, and so much Louis didn't know how to say.

When he and Zayn got back to their flat, Zayn leant against his shoulder, smelling of alcohol and mumbling something about wanting to know what he and Harry actually were "back then." He didn't seem all too satisfied with Louis saying: "well, we were friends... then we just weren't," but the boy was wasted and tired and frowning for some reason, and Louis doubts any of last nights events will stick with him.

And then there was this morning.

Which. Louis isn't sure he can deal with how confusing things are becoming, like. There are a multitude of people Louis would have preferred to see when he woke up, but Harry, there, sitting on the armchair in the corner of his room, flipping through a book like some creep. What the fuck? (Louis completely ignored the brief moment of panic he had at the thought that Harry had stayed the night without his knowledge, but no, the boy was fully clothed, composed expression, boot covered feet crossed on the edge of the bed.)

"How long have you been there?" Louis murmured suspiciously, sleepiness still prominent in his voice. He let his eyes close again.

Harry snapped his book shut, leaving it on Louis' shelf. "Not long," he said––as if that's at all reassuring––and swung his legs off the bed, wandering over to Louis. "Came to wake you up, Liam said I should give you a lift."

Louis opened one eye. "Is he not coming to class?"

"He's a lightweight," was all Harry said, and Louis remembered the copious amounts of alcohol Liam had showered himself in while they played their silly games and talked rubbish, stumbling off to bed insisting the room was spinning, clutching onto valuables until all four of them had rushed up to give him a hand.

Louis made a disgruntled noise, pushed off the covers and got out of bed, immediately falling back down when the room swayed. Or maybe he was swaying. No, it's definitely the room. "Whoa."

His head was burning, which is unsurprising given the circumstances, and he pressed his eyes closed, feeling Harry's hand on his shoulder, steadying him. "You're hungover. And you look like a dying hedgehog."