A House Built Out of Stone

Part 3

Louis wakes up in the middle of the night with the familiar crick in his neck. Both the lamps have been turned off, and the shop is quiet and calm, still asleep. His blanket’s been pulled up around his shoulders and his book’s been closed up and sat on the arm of the chair.

He stands up on unsteady legs, wiping sleep from his eyes and checking the door. Harry’s locked it on his way out, and and Louis breathes a little easier.

There’s a book on the table where Harry had been working. Farenheit 451. There’s a note on top, quickly scribbled out in what must be Harry’s scrawl.

I told you everyone has a favorite book. This one’s mine.

Louis tucks it under his arm along with what he’d been reading. His blanket trails behind him as he pads up the stairs to the flat. It’s too quiet up here, too still, but Louis settles on the bed anyway.

He turns on the lamp next to the bed and he reads until the exhaustion from before takes him again, and this time there’s no one there to turn off the light when Louis falls asleep.

Zayn stops by the shop in the mornings, sometimes. It’s usually when Louis is dusting the shelves and scrubbing down the windows, the early morning sun shining too bright through the streaks. He sweeps in like smoke and sin, his hair gelled back up away from his face and his leather jacket hanging loose off his shoulders.

“Hi, babes,” he says. His arms still feel familiar wrapped around Louis, the jut of his chin fits on Louis’ shoulder and the jagged angles of his body find space against Louis’ curves. “Late night?”

Louis cleans on the mornings when he hasn’t slept well. These are more common than uncommon, but Louis has gotten used to the bone-deep exhaustion that sits heavy over his frame. It is a part of him now, like the words in his shop and the pages that fill it. He doesn’t mind so much anymore. So he cleans when it’s been particularly bad, when he closes his eyes and sees nothing but black and sleep still won’t find him. When his exhaustion takes the form of restlessness that not even a book and his chair can calm, hard as they try. And they do try.

“It’s nothing,” Louis tells him. “At least this way I can clean her up like she deserves.”

Zayn takes the broom from Louis, nudging him a bit with his hip. “I’m gonna do this. Go read or something.”

He looks a bit silly, leathered down and gelled up and sweeping, but the shop loves him just the same. The floors creak in familiarity under his heavy boots. The drips in the ceiling send him a greeting and Zayn says one back, grabbing the bucket from behind the counter with ease and settling it down on the floor.

Louis grabs a rag from behind the counter and takes to cleaning the dust off the cash register. They work in a tandem, practiced and efficient to get the shop looking its best. Zayn hums while he works, something unfamiliar and probably not Louis’ taste, but it’s reminiscent of a time before, when Louis got to know Zayn’s little quirks more intimately.

“How long you been up, then?” Zayn asks. “I got off a flight late as hell last night and wanted to just crash here.”

Louis shrugs. He doesn’t watch the clock at night. He tells the time in pages and words and character progression. In the race towards the climax and the comedown after. Zayn taught him that, once upon a time. “I was probably awake. I would have made tea for you and everything.”

“Yeah, I just.” Zayn is many words bottled up in one person, too many thoughts and not enough time to say them all. Zayn is an entire universe hidden in a body, Louis thinks. “Yeah, I know. Next time, okay?”

“Next time,” Louis agrees.

The shop smells like cleaner eventually. The chairs rock with gratitude when Louis passes by and slides a gentle hand over their arms and legs, making sure to shine them down as good as he can, even though the wood is old and dulled and smoothed down. He and Zayn take to the shelves, wiping down between the spines and in the nooks and crannies and over the tops, as well. Zayn keeps pace under his breath with a breathy tune, something smooth and quiet that somehow plays over the steady drip drip drip that’s on a constant loop in the background.