Unsteady L.S

7.

"There was this little boy with blue eyes and a burning desire to be a firefighter," Harry listens to Louis' quiet voice as he tells him a story when he was little.

"Me mom took me to this fair where firefighters and cops were showing their trucks and what were inside of them," Louis' soft voice and the gentle fingers running through his hair, made everything so peaceful.

"I was so happy that day. One of the firefighters let me sit on the front seat when he drove, because he felt bad for me being so small compared to others, and they were bullying me," Harry frowns at the information. He could imagine small 6-year-old Louis standing in the line to see the truck and other little kids making fun of his height.

Before he can open his mouth and say that he felt bad for him, Louis continued the story. "He talked to me the whole drive-- it was only a ten minute ride, but it was the best thing ever to me."

"Why do you sound so sad?" Harry asks quietly, his voice sounding quite loud in the quiet room. They were laying on his bed under the covers. It was well past midnight, but Harry didn't want to sleep just yet and Louis offered to stay up with him and cuddle. Probably clear what Harry wanted.

"Well I started to look up to him, just like every other kid looked up to a celeberity. I just felt like he was a real hero," Louis says humming. "His name was Mark and he apparently took a liking towards me, because they had agreed with me mum that I could visit the station once in every two weeks."

"But that doesn't sound--"

"Let me finish cuddle bug, okay?"

Harry nods with a light smile on his face. He really liked the nickname. "So I started to visit the station regularly and with every visit, my burning passion toward the job grew massively," the older boy stops to take a breath. "But then..."

"You don't h-have to tell me, I don't want to make you sad," Harry whispers, feeling how Louis' heart starts to beat faster.

"I want to, it doesn't make me sad," he says softly before continuing with his story. "But then one day, when we went back to the station, one of the firefighters came over us and told that Mark was in a hospital. He had been inhaling too much smoke as he had hurried inside the burning house they were trying to save. He had heard someone screaming upstairs and his instinct to help had kicked in. He had helped the woman and her baby out of the house and few minutes later passed out."

"He sounds brave," Harry comments, afraid where the story was going.

"He does," Louis agrees softly. "I started crying as I was scared that something had happened to him. The man telling us, immediately convinced me that everything was okay and we could go see him. He even drove us to the hospital and everything. He did tell us his name, but I can't remember it, I was too caught up with being worried over Mark... So we get to the hospital where they tell me that Mark has slippen into coma-"

"I'm so sorry," Harry whispers frowning.

"Not your fault love. He was in the coma for less than a week and when he woke up, I was there. He was so surprised to see me, a six-year-old boy who he had showed what was it like to be a firefighter, that he actually teared up. He thanked me over and over again, until his pregnant wife came in. I have no idea why she came to visit that late, but I want to think that they lied to her at the station so she wouldn't stress too much, since the stress isn't good for the baby."

"What happened then?"

"Mark moved when his son was born. We didn't keep in touch, since it would've been kind of odd. I found out when I was nine or so, that he had died in the line of duty."