Got the sunshine on my shoulders - by: hattalove

chapter nine

He wakes up to what sounds like an angry waterfall inside his head.
He grunts, then rolls over, and only remembers where he is when he almost topples off the sofa.

The room is unbearably bright, but he chances opening his eyes, blinking into the window that's bang across the room from him, letting in sunlight with curtains wide open.

It takes him a few more seconds to recognise the noise as a kettle.

Someone – Louis – is banging about in the kitchen, opening cupboards much louder than necessary.

Harry wraps the blanket around his shoulders, carefully sits up, and tries to run through everything that happened last night. It doesn't go very well.

He knows Peter was there, and that Harry dragged him off to the pub, and that he ended up walking to Louis's house instead of his own like a complete and utter idiot.

I came straight home, his own voice echoes in his head, as does the confusion on Louis's face.

Stupid, so stupid.

Almost everything after that is a blur, a vague jumble of memories that make no sense when he tries to untwist them. He can feel Louis's fingers around his elbows, still, but that's about as far as he can get.

"Ah, morning," Louis says from the doorway, before Harry can find his shoes and quietly sneak out. "Hope I didn't wake you up."

He's smirking a little, his hands wrapped around a steaming cup.

"No," Harry says dumbly. He clenches his fists tighter in the blanket, pulling it around himself like a shield. This doesn't look like a pleasant conversation; especially when he barely remembers what he did yesterday. "No, it's fine."

That seems to deflate Louis's mischievous mood a little. He makes his way into the room, unbothered by Harry's sorry state, and folds into one of the armchairs.

He looks—soft, Harry realises now. He's got a jumper on with the hood up over his head, and his hands are lost inside the sleeves.

The TV is on across the room, playing what looks like a rerun of Emmerdale with the sound turned down. Louis watches it like it's the most entrancing thing in the world; his eyes don't wander to Harry once, not even when he gets the hiccups and stars squeaking miserably every few seconds. The movement jostles his sore head in a particularly nasty way.

"Do you have a paracetamol I could borrow?" he croaks. His throat feels like it's lined with sandpaper.

Louis waits a few seconds before he tears his eyes away from the TV. The look he levels at Harry isn't particularly bothered, or angry, or too nice. It's—nothing, really. Blank.

"How are you going to give it back?" he asks. He manages to keep a straight face for a fraction of a second, but he seems unable to resist a little smile that curls one corner of his mouth. "If I lend it to you, I mean."

Harry gives him a look. Give me a break, he tries to say, and Louis takes mercy on him.

"Hold on," he says, and unfolds himself again to stand up. He comes back less than a minute later with a brand new box of pills, which he throws across the room. Harry barely reacts when it hits him in the forehead.

"Sorry," Louis bites his lip. "Meant for you to catch it."

He sets a glass of water down on the coffee table, almost apologetic. "Budge over."

Harry moves, confused, clutching his paracetamol like a lifeline. Louis sits down right next to him, disturbing his nest, and slips under the loose end of the blanket.