falling for your hallelujah // l.s.

one

Day One: Coffee (milk, no sugar) and a sprinkle doughnut

There's an order to Louis's morning that never goes uninterrupted. Mostly, he runs the mornings on autopilot, because each action has been performed meticulously until there're all ingrained into his schedule, the same as sunrise and sundown. Seeing as he does this so well, he'd probably be able to wake up later and carry on smoothly with his morning (even though that would be an awful interruption to his timetable), but he never does. So, the manager of the little coffee shop where he works decided that as Louis always popped up to work at least half an hour before he really needs to be there -precisely, it's usually forty three minutes, depending on the traffic-, he could open up shop for him. Louis accepted, even though it wasn't technically in his job description, and Louis's all for technicality, but there's only so many times you can wipe the same tables before you have to grudgingly accept that there aren't any spots left on them.

But today, there's something wrong with the picture. Not the kind of thing that's really going to impact on Louis's timescale, because he doesn't even have to acknowledge it, if he wanted.

There's someone in a sleeping bag outside the shop, curled up and face buried into the material and ears hidden until a knitted hat, right by the front window, under the yellow shade (Louis's not really sure what the actual name is of the things shops have overhanging over the front, and he can't abide not knowing, so he pencils a reminder in his mind to look it up). The someone, the nearer Louis gets to him, is making soft snores that would probably be louder if not snuffled by the navy fabric, and Louis clutches at the edges of his jacket forcefully, as though the guy is actually a sleeping lion who might pounce suddenly and wrestle it off him. 'We're edging into winter,' Louis thinks, trying to produce an explanation for the movement of his limbs, 'I'd be quite desperate for a coat too'. Louis clearly doesn't think about how his first instinct wasn't to actually protect the jacket, but to give it to the bloke, because obviously this interruption is beginning to bend his mind after all.

Louis doesn't cope well with interruptions, and he's already wasted a minute just bloody staring, so he unlocks the cafe, steps (albeit quietly) through the door and slips inside.

The rest of his morning runs like clockwork.

His mind isn't so organized, however. Whenever his thoughts hit a lull in conversation, they drift back to the figure outside, who must've woken up by now, what with the heavy footed customers trampling through. It's not as though this is the first homeless person Louis's seen, they're all over London, but this one seems to have needled right into his head.

"Where's the real Louis Tomlinson?" Asks Han dryly, as Louis blinks heavily and asks the customer to repeat their order (this is not the first time it's happened this morning, but it's most definitely the first time it's happened twice in a row).

"Bunch of goddamn aliens came down and decided I was the perfect example of humanity, so took me away to make me their God." Louis replies, bending around her to put a cup under the coffee machine (two shots coffee, one shot caramel, and milk but no sugar, and Louis knows this, he does, because the same woman with the flyaway hair and dazed eyes orders it every morning.

"It's always the aliens." Han says, shaking her head slightly in indignation. Louis notices her golden name badge is crooked on her black shirt, but Louis's used to noticing these things. He could tell her that her glasses are beginning to slip down her nose (but they do that every day) and that a few strands of hair have been missed out when she pulled it up into a ponytail (but she always misses a few out) and there are a few small dust mote-size flakes of mascara that have floated down from the morning's wear and tear under her eye (but there always are). Louis notices these things, but he doesn't mention it.