The room of the inn turned out to be much more tightly packed than he had expected. And by the time the stray beams of the moon had started dwindling, he was still wide awake, supine on the bed with his arms laid atop his stomach. Louis was fast asleep beside him if his steady breaths were anything to go by, and Harry watched on enviously, averting his gaze when he felt he was staring for a tad too long.
When the clay tiles of the roof got too mundane to watch, he turned on his side with a huff, arms wrapped around himself. This position, it seemed, gave him an unobstructed view of Louis' sleeping form. The alpha had a palm resting below his squished cheek, eyes closed, and lips parted.
He looked so endearing. Would anyone notice if he shuffled just a little closer to Louis? Just then as if to respond to his question, the alpha sighed in his sleep, his head lolling down and a decision was made. One that benefitted Harry greatly, of course.
As discreetly as he could, he shuffled forward — barely even an inch but considering the compact bed they were laid in, it felt as if he had gone from one end of the planet to the other. From his peripheral vision, he could see the movements of his chest as it heaved, his breaths coming in non-uniform lapses that seemed so unnecessary to him; a bit over the top.
Why was he so nervous around Louis all the time?
He tried to will himself to fall to sleep after that, clamping his eyes shut but to no avail. His mind kept venturing into the very unsolicited thoughts of just how it would feel like to snuggle up to Louis' chest. Giving up, at last, he turned on his back, blinking up at the ceiling. His eyes were heavy with sleep but he couldn't for the life of his find one fiber in his body that was willing to shut itself down.
It was an interminable battle that he fought with his brain as it kept teetering on the edge of sleep, pulling him in and out of consciousness but never once giving him the satisfaction of just shutting off. It was somewhere around the time when the lantern had started showing signs of dying that he sat up on the bed. Running a limp hand through his tousled hair, he went to get out of the bed. He padded his way across to the bureau, the room too dim for his liking.
Maybe, he could end up finding a candle or two in one of the drawers. He was certain he wasn't going to get any sleep tonight, and staying up in a dark and unfamiliar room sounded like something he wouldn't wish upon his worst enemy (except Richard, maybe. Or the rascal who killed his mother).
Outside, the skies roared ear-splittingly loud as he pulled open the top drawer.
"What are you doing, 'Arry?"
Startled by the sudden noise, his hands flailed about to shut the drawer close. In such haste, he ended up with his index finger wedged in the tiny gap between the bureau and the base of the wooden drawer. If he hadn't screamed at the sudden scare he had been given by Louis, he definitely did scream at the torment his poor finger had been bestowed with. It was an angry shade of red when he pulled it out and cradled it against his chest.
"Heavens, let me see. Does it hurt?" He looked up to see a disheveled Louis fussing over his finger, brows pinched tight in concentration. A little chunk of his nail had come off, oozing out a bead of blood that did anything but faze him. But Louis, Louis was on the other side of the coin, worrying over a piffling wound as if it was a cut that could put his life at stake.
Harry had seen blood being shed so many times in the training grounds of the castle, but since he had been playing the part of a sheltered omega raised on the banks of Comantem for quite some time, he was not going to back out of that now and ruin his cover. And so, he nodded, blinking his eyes vigorously until they became bleary with moisture. Louis looked up at him then, the alpha's features softening when he noticed his teary eyes. "How about you go lie on the bed and I'll go downstairs to see if they have any spare cloth we could tie around your finger?" Though worded as a gentle suggestion, it was nothing short of an order that had Harry rushing towards the bed.
YOU ARE READING
Polaris || l.s.
Fanfiction[discontinued until further notice] Harry's heart was dead set on freedom. It was not a recent thing, he had been itching to get away from the confines of the responsibilities he had as the prince of Eonshire. Running away from home was easy, but b...
