Collision; Larry

9.

Louis is thrown into the chamber headfirst, and he scrapes his small elbows on the rough concrete.

Harry is right behind him, cursing and yelling as the guards leave through the heavy door without as much as another word, and he shakes the bars as if they should falter under his frantic grip. It's-quite disappointingly-changing absolutely nothing, and Louis rolls his eyes when Harry still doesn't stop.

"Look, mate," he says. "If that plan worked, we'd be sneaking down the hall looking for Liam and an exit right now. If you want out you've got to come up with something else."

Harry gives him a frustrated glare. There's a vein on his neck that doesn't seem to have any problem of making itself known, and Louis gulps because if he didn't know better, he might just find it a bit attractive.

He doesn't, though. Obviously.

(Or maybe he does. Possibly. But like, in a completely objective way.)

"What other ways would there be? Why is it so hard, why is it not budging?" Harry questions and gives the cold metal another rough shove for emphasis. Louis raises his palms defensively.

"I don't know, but it's clearly not doing the trick. Sit down for a moment. Let's think about this, yes?"

The sprit looks extremely reluctant to this suggestion, but he seems to realize that there really isn't much else to do, and so he finally slides down against the wall with an exasperated sigh.

"So. What the fuck do we do, then?" he mutters, sliding his legs up to rest his elbows on his knees.

Louis doesn't know. He honestly has no idea. It bugs him to no end, because just like before, he feels like he's missing something obvious-he just can't put his finger on what.

"Hey, Louis?" Harry mumbles from his corner. "What's two plus three?"

"I..." Louis frowns. He's quiet for a few seconds, narrowing his eyes and straining himself to search for the answer he knows must be somewhere in his clouded mind-and he doesn't succeed. A cut of panic slices through his chest when he realizes he doesn't even remember what the numbers look like. It's all a bundle of weird shapes in his head. "I... I don't know."

The spirit groans and buries his face in his hands.

"This is fucking great," he exclaims into his palms. "Really."

Seems like Harry wasn't lying back by the giant mushroom-about this place inevitably messing with your brain.

This isn't what Louis had imagined then, though. He'd imagined his mind going chaotic, a screaming, pounding mess of colors and emotions and shapes and nothing left to stabilize them. He'd feared spiralling and panicking and losing his mind. He'd feared an explosion, not this... Fizzle. This fog. This creeping, calmly swirling smoke of not insanity, but confusion. There is nothing left to stabilize the rational content he'd usually have no trouble remembering, so in a way he guesses he was right, but there's nothing loud or chaotic about it. It's a blur, is all it is. A calm, smeary blur which doesn't mess up his head. It hides away certain parts.

It's certainly more annoying than Louis had imagined it to be. In this state that Louis and Harry are in, it's so obvious that they're missing things, it's so evident that something is restricted and shielded, but Louis can't reach in and find it. He can't reach in and find what's usually making him recognize shapes as letters or numbers, he can't find the voice telling him what it is that's making the bars stay solid and unmoving.