keep driving

26. ashtray

Song: love like this by Zayn

"Damn Louis you look like you've been getting laid every day for the last... like, weeks" Zayn says, examining his best friend from head to toe.

"Oh, you have no idea." Louis grins and leans back in his chair, one hand scratching his abs absentmindedly. Zayn's eyes flicker towards Harry for a second, then back to Louis, a sly smile forming on his face before he takes a drag from his cigarette.

He's a very smart lad, Harry has to admit. That's how he immediately understands what's up, flicks the end of the cig over the ashtray with an effortless attractive movement, and leans forward, giving Louis and Harry his unshared attention. "Then go on, tell me how this" he gestures between them. "Happened. What did you guys get up to?"

"Well" Louis says, a grin appearing on his face, "We stole Robert Downey Junior's yacht and had sex on it"

Zayn's jaw drops and Harry smiles as Louis laughs at his face, before he starts telling the real story of what had happened. He doesn't tell everything, that would have taken too long, but most of it. Tells all the fun parts that have Zayn's eyebrows raising. He tells him about how they stole stuff but always had good excuses for why it was entirely okay to steal in that moment.

Harry kind of gets lost in Louis' words, just lets his boyfriend speak as he dives into the memory.

Hearing it all again from Louis' perspective makes Harry's heart skip a few beats here and there. How Louis noticed different things than Harry noticed in the moment, how he puts emphasis on moments Harry would have only mentioned on the side. Above all, hearing so many of the things he nearly forgot again. 

All of this really happened. It's wasn't a very long fever dream or fantasy in a boring lecture. It really happened. 

It's now August, they decided to charge their phones only to call their friends and say that they won't make it to the flight, but have enough money to take another one. Then they stayed on the yacht, drove around the islands near Skopelos for a few weeks and kind of just had the time of their lives. They crashed parties, made friends with some old ladies that lived on the island and sang karaoke in their pub every once in a while, getting free drinks and dinner in return.

After that, they returned the yacht to Rdj, took their motorcycle that somehow still stood where they'd left it, and eventually made it to Athens, explored the city and had a nice dinner there, real date. Just the two if them in a fancy restaurant, cutely and innocently holding hands on the surface of the table while they shamelessly played dirty footsie underneath the table.

Then they decided to get tattoos in Athens, a reminder... forever, basically, before they flew back to England.

Louis got the rope as a symbol for that crazy night Harry was drunk, Harry got the anchor as a symbol for the best weeks of his life. They walked out of the parlour, and then right back in because they wanted to get more. Louis got the compass, that pointed to home instead of north (Harry pretended not to tear up) Harry got the rose and Louis the dagger.

Considering all the crazy things Harry has done in Greece that the version of him that missed the flight back in England would never have done, that was the craziest by far. Getting a bunch of matching tattoos with a boyfriend of merely a week is objectively crazy and stupid. But also spontaneous and reckless and free. 

That way, four weeks after they were supposed to, they got back to England. Skin tanned and tattooed, hair light and long, their backpacks smelling atrociously. But holding hands and smiling.

Now, they're in Louis' and Zayn's flat on the small balcony, and it's exactly how Harry imagined a place where Louis lives to look like. It's messy. Unbelievably messy. There are clothes scattered on the floor, paint dots on the walls and brushes everywhere, along with tea mugs on every surface and wrappers of sweets laying around. It should be disgusting, but somehow it's rather adorable. Right next to the door are a few skateboards (Harry doesn't know why Louis and Zayn have five of them) and uncountably many pairs of vans.