Larry Stylinson One-Shots

#8

*Belongs to imsosorry on ao3 I THINK*

Title: Not Ready To Lose Today

Summary:

"I don't mean, like," Louis starts, coughing a bit, "I don't think he's become a diva or summat. I'm not trying to start shit. But like - he's different, yeah? Or am I different?"

"Maybe neither of you is different," Zayn suggests. "Maybe just, like, your relationship has changed."

That much is obvious, but the way Zayn says it makes it sound profound.

"Tour's gonna be weird as fuck," Louis says with a laugh that's a lot lighter than how he feels.

(Or, the one where Louis figures it out.)

Word Count: 8,625

For Louis, it all comes to a head after the Brits.

It's been three months since he's seen Harry, and it's not like he'd forgotten him or anything, but it is a bit of an overload to go from zero to Harry so suddenly. The five of them are all getting ready in the same hotel room, Caroline wandering around adjusting their clothes and Lou taking turns attacking them with a hair dryer. It's like - it's like before. It shouldn't throw Louis off as much as it does, to go back to a routine he's known for years, but it does.

The thing is, nothing is really different. Harry isn't acting any different, still sauntering around the room clumsily, munching on food from catering through a silly grin, asking questions and listening intently to the answers. Right now, he's talking to Liam about the trip Liam had taken to some exotic island with Sophia a few weeks ago, and Louis can't stop staring at him.

Because Louis doesn't feel any different, either. So much has changed, but they're both the same people, so it feels so inexplicable, the way they just fell out of each others lives without warning. There was no big fallout, no fight, just a slow, calm freeze-out. There isn't much to say to someone after you've spent a solid year in his back pocket. Louis hasn't talked to Niall in ages, either, but it doesn't feel the same.

"D'you reckon I should button it up all the way, or leave a few open?"

Harry's fidgeting with the Alexander McQueen shirt picked out for him for the event. It's a fucking ridiculous shirt - it's got skulls or some shit all over it, but of course on Harry it looks like it belongs on a runway.

He asked the room at large, but most of them are distracted, so only Caroline and Louis answer.

"Unbutton it," Caroline says at the same time Louis says, "Button it all the way up."

Harry buttons it all the way up.

So it's not like they're fighting. Harry grins a small thanks at him, and Louis shrugs back, takes some stupid picture for an assistant who's no doubt going to put it on Instagram in a second. It's no big deal.

Everything goes smoothly for the rest of the night. There's nothing earth-shatteringly different about it, nothing epiphany-inducing, except. Except when they're announced for their first award, and they all climb up on stage, and Harry's not there. Louis feels so turned around and frantic about it, searching for him everywhere, so obvious about it everyone must be able to tell. He'd felt like he was watching Harry all night, so it doesn't make sense that he could just walk away.

When he finally does emerge - his "sorry, I was having a wee" speech charming millions across the globe, no doubt - Louis is so relieved that he can't even process that Harry's looked at him and asked, "What did we win?"

He doesn't doubt the bathroom story until James Corden cracks a joke about it on stage. It's always grated on him a little, the way Harry's portrayed as such a ladies man when he's never been that way for as long as Louis' known him, but this time, he feels like his heart goes into overdrive. Because what if Harry really was having a quickie in the loo? How the fuck would Louis know? They haven't exchanged so much as a text message in two months, haven't been in the same room for longer, so it's entirely possible that Harry's just received a handjob during a commercial break. Harry's not some seventeen-year-old kid anymore - he's twenty, he's hot, he might be dating a Kardashian. Louis doesn't know him anymore.