Some things change. | l.s.

8

"Good morning." Harry mumbled and dropped his head when he felt his cheeks heating up as soon as he stepped over the threshold between the entrance area and the elevator.

The doors closed slowly and it started moving, the roaring of the ropes that were pulling up the metal cabin seemed louder than ever.

He could feel a gaze on him and glanced up, seeing how Louis stared at him with an expression on his face as if he was trying to get around something- a mix of some kind of confusion and disbelief, but it could also be disgust, hatred or anything else really.

"Morning." He eventually muttered after what seemed like an eternity.

Harry felt pathetic, when everything else yesterday screamed insecurity and fear from Louis' side it was more the other way around now and why? Just because Harry was so stupid and after practically running out of his office he didn't manage to get anything productive done anymore, he couldn't even hold a conversation and to be able to sleep was wishful thinking.

Zayn and Liam had asked him several times what was wrong with him and if he was feeling okay because he looked kind of sick, but Harry refused talking to them. What should he have said anyway?

Taking a deep breath and squeezing his eyes shut was something he did a lot lately when he had to make a decision, just like right now before he gathered the courage to lift his head properly to meet Louis' eyes.

"About yesterday-" He started hesitantly and Louis huffed out a light laugh, barely noticeably shaking his head- nothing humorous was to see in any of his features.

"Let me guess. You just wanted to mess with me- again-, but remembered we're supposed to be adults now who don't do shit like that and now you feel bad. Wait no, you just don't want to lose your job- because 'you' and 'feeling bad' doesn't match." Louis rattled down without moving a muscle on his face, but with a tight chest and a slight fear because of his forwardness.

He didn't know what came over him suddenly, he had never been someone to talk back or be snappy, and although he always had in the back of his mind what consequences this could have it was like something shifted inside of him since yesterday when he saw Harry sincere and- Louis was sure he just imagined it, but he held onto it because that was the only positivity that resulted from that conversation- vulnerable for the first time ever.

It didn't matter if that was just an act or not, but Louis had thought about it all night when he was laying in his bed all by himself, the cold of the empty side where Mallory was usually laying haunting him. If Harry showed him some kind of humanity then maybe there was a way to get through to him and get him to at least leave him alone. It never worked with just keeping quiet- he remembered whenever he didn't say anything at all especially when he was asked a question and just stared at the ground with burning eyes and waiting for the first punch he mostly got beaten up worse than when he said something- so maybe it was more effective showing some backbone, which was a challenge because Louis barely had any.

"What? No!" Harry said quickly, feeling the pang in his chest that Louis thought of him like this. Are you really surprised?, his inner voice asked him. Of course Louis would think like this, Harry never gave him a reason to expect anything genuine coming from him and he was angry with himself for daring to feel hurt by Louis' words. "I just wanted to apologise for throwing that at you so out of the blue. I wanted to make the situation better, but I feel like I worsened it."

Louis furrowed his eyebrows in incomprehension as he stared at him and repeated the words he just heard in his head, but the more he thought about it, the less he understood.

"Okay..." He sighed. "I really don't know what you want from me and why you feel the need to think you can somehow make up for anything really, but let me clarify one thing. You neither made the situation- as you call it- better nor worse. For that to happen I should understand what you want from me which I don't because whenever you open your mouth everything I expect are lies and nothing else. So, can we...please just stop with this? If you want to mess with me or harm me then, I don't know, do it. It's nothing I'm not used to so just...get it over with...and if not then please, please leave me alone."