Misadventure

24

Louis' POV

I sat in agony in the passenger seat of Harry's rust-mobile of a car. Fuck, the withdrawals were really hitting me now. They started on the ski slope, but I had excepted that. What I hadn't expected was to have no means of fixing them.

I couldn't believe I didn't have my 'emergency bag', an old, navy-blue pencil pouch that I'd prepared for the weekend with exactly six pain pills and a dixie-cup sized bottle of vodka.

The weirdest part was, I very specifically remembered packing it. I did so precisely, putting in only enough to keep from getting too sick, then hid it in the bottom of my backpack to make sure Harry wouldn't see it.

It had to have fallen out at some point. There was no other explanation. Harry and I were the only two people in that cabin last night, and I was damn sure he wouldn't take it.

"Roll down the windows. Please." I groaned. This car was so fucking stuffy. My head was absolutely pounding. The nausea was really setting in now too, and I fantasized about asking Harry to turn the car around so I could go throw myself off a mountain.

"Are you okay? Do you need me to pull over?" Harry asked. He meant well, but I was in no state to hold a conversation right now.

"M' fine." I let out another groan, slinging my head forward to rest in my lap and rubbing circles into my temples with shaking hands. "Please just drive fast so I can get out of this fucking car."

"I'll do the best I can." The car lurched forward, speeding up, and the sudden movement caused a dizzying uproar of complaint from every cell in my body.

"Fuck fuck fuck, I'm about to puke."

"Oh my god, shit. Okay, um, hold on..." Harry sounded frantic as he let on the brakes. The vehicle slowed, simultaneously drifting off into the shoulder of the road.

Before Harry could get us to a full stop, my stomach began to forcefully expel its contents with a loud splatter. It was everywhere. The floor. The dashboard. My shoes. The legs of my jeans.

"It's okay. You're okay," he told me, sounding slightly shaken up.

I didn't answer, positive that if I opened my mouth I would lose more of my breakfast from earlier. I frantically threw off my seatbelt and yanked the passenger door open, leaning my head out just in time to be sick again in a ditch full of dead leaves.

I wretched to the point of pain. Bile scalded my throat, and tears pooled in my eyes from the sensation. After a long minute of dry heaving, there was a steadying hand on my shoulder.

"I don't think anything else is coming up, Lou. Let's get you home, yeah?"

I nodded wearily, pulling my head back into the car as Harry gently pulled my seatbelt across me, buckling it with a click. The thing I always dreaded most about withdrawals was the nausea. Unlike with the flu, throwing up didn't help me to feel even the slightest bit better afterwards.

There was only one thing that would fix the way I was feeling, and that thing was lost in a pencil case somewhere between the mountains and campus.

The sky was getting dark. Was it passed six o' clock already? The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that it would be.

After I'd started feeling sick, it had taken awhile to get on the road this afternoon. When I'd tried to start packing, Harry stopped me. He made me lie down while he did all the work by himself, and I honestly wasn't in a position to put up a real fight.

Now, we were still parked on the side of the road, and I stared in horror at the mess I'd made. The smell in the vehicle was disgusting, and there was nothing to clean it up with. "Oh my god. Harry, I am so fucking sorry."