Harry - plastered, shitfaced, almost enough to forget your infectious smile, and the way your eyes crinkle up like spiderwebs knotted together, that dimple by your cheek I always used to poke with my finger, brush down your skin to your bottom lip, the place I always used to kiss. I’m drunk, I think, five or six drinks and you’re almost out of my mind, but I’m still swirling, not quite walking straight with wobbling legs like a baby deer, and when I fish my phone out of pocket and nudge Louis out of the way, it’s your number I’m scrolling for. I keep drinking until I’m not sure if I’m drinking vodka or you, listening to the dull ringtone in my ear, before you answer groggily, see it’s me and hang up, and then I call you again, and again and again and again.
Liam - drunk, enough that I’ve got liquid courage to swirl in my stomach like it’s another glass, tipping from side to side and I can feel it as I make my way around the room, fetching my phone from Niall even though I made him promise a few hours earlier that he wouldn’t give it to me, because I’d call you if he did. I’d run straight to you, with all the goofy grins I have on me and slurred words and honest thoughts. Dialling your number with one hand, another glass in the other like it’s routine, and it is, the same every time, lights swirling above my head when you answer and ask me why I’m doing this, why I do it every time, and I’m drunk enough that I can say it’s because you’re you.
Louis - tripping over my own feet, another night out, sloshing drinks and I can’t even swallow them properly, half tipping down the front of my shirt when I try to sip, laughing when I should be drinking, smiling so it all spills down and I have to order another one, and another and another, getting to that place where I’m full of drunken ideas, and you’re always one of them. That I want to see you again, and get between your legs, drunk enough that it’s all I can see, that you’re the face swimming in my eyes when I do it, when I take the shots and bite down on the lemon to dull the sting of tequila, before I dial your number and ask you to do it again, and every time I’m less and less sure of whether or not you’ll say yes.
Zayn - falling off stools, drunk, so drunk that I almost can’t feel it, and when the other boys start a game of pool, they’re not watching what I’m doing on my phone, enough alcohol in me that I think calling you is a good idea, that I think I can tug back enough to get you to answer and hear me, even if I’m slurring every syllable, laughing at some joke the bartender didn’t tell, tipping another drink up and stumbling over to the corner, dialling your number and waiting for you to answer, forgetting why I don’t call when I’m sober, why you don’t come over anymore and what I did, why it’s a bad idea. I’m full of good ideas more than the vodka and the bourbon and whatever else I paid for, and I’m full of you, to the brim.
Niall - drunk, and you’re the only thing that manages to make some kind of coherent sense, the rest a jumble that stays where the lights flash and the music pumps far too loud, in my ears, at the back of my head, loud enough that I can’t even think. But it’s every time, and I’m stripping all those layers down with every shot that I take from the wet rim, swallowing and cringing as it burns, till I’m down to the only honest thought I have left, and it’s you. What comes to the forefront of my mind and calling you seems like fun, whatever it takes to hear your voice and the giggle that sounds when I slur out that you have to come and pick me up, that I’m thinking of you, stumbling on the floor and kicking my own feet before Harry asks me what I’m doing and yanks the phone out of my hand, hanging up the way that I’d never be able to.
