The five senses (Larry Stylinson AU)

Smell

Smell

If there’s one thing Louis doesn’t like to do, it’s waking up early. Especially on a Monday.

After dragging himself out of bed, he goes downstairs to get some breakfast.

His sisters are sat around the table, seemingly half asleep still. Their dislike for early mornings are one of the few things he has in common with them. He has his breakfast with Phoebe perched on his lap, his chin resting on her shoulder, saddened by the thought that soon she’ll be too old to want to be picked up or cuddled by her big brother anymore. He kisses each one of them on the cheek, his mum last, wishing them a good day before leaving.

He drives over to Zayn’s to pick him up. The short journey to school is made in silence, Zayn dislikes monday mornings just as much as Louis does. Once they get there he helps Zayn carry all his art stuff to his classroom, he always thought the size of the portfolios were slightly ridiculous.

“Good luck Z” he wishes him.

“Thanks mate” Zayn nods, but he’s obviously distracted, already planning what he’ll be working on first, Louis assumes, so with a wave, he leaves him to go to his first lesson of the day: business.

Business is not so bad; it’s just that he has no interest in it whatsoever. Still he bears with it, sighing quietly while his classmates groan at the fact their teacher’s just given them a whole lot of homework. It’s one of the only times where he feels not so alienated from his classmates.

Break is boring, and also a little lonely, though Zayn texts him a couple of times. Louis has no idea how he actually manages to do that when he’s in the middle of an exam, but he’s grateful for the little sarcastic inputs anyway.

He prepares himself for  the same at lunch. He sits at his usual place, by himself this time. He’s not really expecting to see Zayn around school for the rest of the week.

It’s sunny out, which is not exactly unusual for January, but there’s frost on the ground and because this is England he still has an umbrella on him because even though for now the sky is blue and cloudless, he knows that it changes in a matter of minutes.

At the end of the day he waits for Zayn in the empty hall, sat on a table with his back turned to the fast walking students all eager to get out of school. He’s got his earphones plugged in, and the volume is turned up high, and it’s not hard to ignore everybody else.

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been thinking about that party, replaying everything over and over, the image of Harry’s smile engraved in his mind as painfully clear as hot iron on skin.

The warning he gets to the fact he’s not alone anymore is the musky, minty-sweet smell that suddenly invades his senses. He turns his head to look around behind him, to see Harry leaning forward over Louis’ shoulder. Startled at the proximity he leans back on his seat, voice failing him once again.

“H-Harry?” he pulls the earphones out quickly, not wanting to miss whatever Harry says.

“Hi Louis” he greets, and there’s a sheepish smile on his face that Louis doesn’t quite understand.

“That’s a good song” he nods at the ipod on Louis’ hands, and Louis blushes even though the complement is not exactly directed at him.

When Louis doesn’t do anything except look at him, Harry clears his throat uncomfortably.

“Er, look, I wanted to apologise for the other day…” he starts, fumbling with his words in a way that’s very familiar to Louis.

“Oh.” He wonders what he’s apologizing for.