We live in cities you never see on-screen ~ls

two feet under the ground

"Louis, what the fuck", Zayn calls the man who was lying on his desk. He slept all night in the record store. He must have been so tired, that he fell asleep in such an uncomfortable position.
"Man, are you alright?", Zayn tries to shake him awake, in a not so pleasant way. "For fucks sake. I'm not your doll", Louis cries out and throws his pillow in Zayns face.
"I hate to tell you that, but we open in five minutes", Zayn smirks.
"Asshole", is everything he grits out.

"Good morning loves, how can I help you?", Louis greets the two young women that just walked into the sales room.
"I don't think you can help us. We're searching for a specific vinyl!", one of the girls says. "Which vinyl?", Louis dimples are popping out, while he's smiling a them. "One direction", there's a glint of hope in the girls eyes, he can't unsee ever again. Pictures are rushing behind Louis eyes, making him so uncomfortable in his own skin.
There are so many question floating through his head. People still know one direction? Do they remember him or Zayn? Or just Harry, Liam and Niall? Do they really like their songs or are they just desperate to have more albums with Harry in their shelves? How do they even know about one direction ? It's been so long. So long.

"Excuse me sir?", the two girls seem insecure.
"I'm sorry, yes, I was lost in thought! Give me a second to look if we still have it in stock", Louis runs as fast as his small legs could carry him.
He knew they don't have the vinyls officially in stock, because they're exclusive and such rare items, but the girls don't even seem to know that."
But he doesn't want to disappoint them either, so Louis goes to the back of the shop and gets the vinyls, he, of course, still has them in his private section. He doesn't want them to pay so much money for that, nor does he think these vinyls are worth so much, so he does something he'd never do. "there you go", he gives them the made in the am vinyl and their eyes start to shine as bright as diamonds.
"Enjoy", he smiles, so do they. "Thank you so much. You have no idea. Their music saved my life."
Louis is almost tearing up at her words, because he knows exactly how they feel.
The first girl is already out the door, while the second girl is still looking around the room. She stops at Louis face. A small smile beams it's way on his face. "You saved my life, Louis. I hope you remember that", she smiles and gives him a short hug. He's so surprised, that's he's unable to react, but that's okay, she knows that. When both girls left, maybe Louis whispers something. Maybe it's a thank you. Maybe he says thank you for the memories they brought back, even if it's been only five minutes the girls spent in that room. Maybe for the crack in his heart they caused, after mentioning his past. He's so thankful for that.

He completely lost his self control that night, he found himself in his bedroom, watching full one direction interviews, listening to their old songs. After an eternity he finds a video he was avoiding all day.
He remembers the day, as if it was yesterday they sat on that campfire. Maybe it was, and he's just being paranoid.

"What's mad is that one day we won't be doing this", he can hear him saying that. He's full on crying by now. The tears are leaving his puffy red eyes and dripping down his pretty face. "Isn't that scary? The best times of your lives are now", he looks in the sky as he did 20 years ago, at least he is imagining, that he did that. He actually wasn't scared. No matter what they did and at the end of the day, they didn't have the strength, to fight for it to not find an end because they knew. They knew it was going to happen sooner than rather. Now he knows he should have been scared, at least frightened but he took it for granted. He took everything for granted and that was his biggest mistake. If he failed with one thing, it was one direction. It was the missing interactions between him and his former band members and not only Zayn.

He thought it was his destiny, to be with these four boys for a lifetime, to sing all that air out of his lungs.
He never thought he'd miss it. He never thought he needed to miss it. They all knew one direction was going to end one day, but they didn't know that it was also the end of their friendship.
He's not crying, because he misses the stage, the spotlight and all these red carpets he can buy in every stupid ikea shop. He's crying because he misses his three best friends. They were the brightest stars his little life had seen. He could get wasted with them and they would have had fun with him. He could get wasted in front of them and they wouldn't judge. He could get wasted and they took care of him.
They all had a hard time back then. The spotlight broke them, especially Zayn. He couldn't imagine a life without him. That would be Louis' end. Zayn was the one he wanted to spend his life with. Not in a romantic way. Hell no. Zayn is the anchor and Louis is the rope they need to attach or loose the anchor. If it wasn't for the anchor the rope was useless. You can compare their friendship to Martin Luther King Jr's quote: only in the darkness can you see the stars. You need darkness to see the stars, so does Louis need Zayn to see the way he should go, to find the sparkling "stars" he knew were somewhere in his eyes.

Zayn was wasted back then. He was destroyed and nobody knew to fix him, except for Louis. It was in his responsibility to fix him, fix a mirror that broke into thousand pieces of cutting glass, because what he saw in the mirror was horrendous. It wasn't what he wanted to see, neither was it, what Zayn actually represented. But they knew better than to give up. You can't fix what's already broken, but you can use the broken glass, to build something new.
If this friendship is not for an eternity, he doesn't know if he can deal with the future. Because if it wasn't for Zayn, Louis would be at least two feet under the ground by now.

———————————————————————————
I don't want to offend ANYONE. That isn't my purpose, this is just fiction and I don't hope or think that anything I wrote here is in any way according to the reality!!

This song makes me want to throw up, I'm so in love with it.
What do you think? Give me feedback <3
I don't know what to think about it tbh..
Either way I hope you enjoyed it!

dandelions - Ruth B
7 nov 2021