The Rusty Old Minivan

Chapter 17

Louis watched him through the window to the outside-area of his flat. Watched how he paced around himself in circles, tugging his hair in and out of a bun until the elastic band snapped. Watched how he bit his lip over a cuss each time he took his cell off his ear, having to re-dial. Each time he lifted it again, his eyes full of hope and impatience and fear. Even though Louis couldn't hear a thing from where he was waiting inside the flat, it still felt as if each dragged-out beep coming through Harry's phone resounded through the room, like the ring of an old clock-tower, making Louis' head spin.

In the end, Harry gave up and came back in.

Louis knew he hadn't been able to reach the drug-guy (and christ, Louis didn't even know the fucking name of the man who would potentially be breaking his thumbs in the near future) before Harry said anything. His walk wasn't gangly now. Too heavy, feet dragging across the floors, knees nearly bucking under his weight before he reached the bed to slump down beside Louis.

Still, Louis asked him, "reach him yet?"

Harry replied with a heavy sigh. Then he buried his face in his hands and didn't say anything more.

Louis laced his own fingers together, squeezing them hard to keep them still. Didn't care if his knuckles bruised each other, didn't care if his nails dug holes in his skin. Wanted them to.

"Harry," he exclaimed breathily, once the silence between them had become almost suffocating, "what are we going to do?" Louis hadn't asked anyone but himself that question in years. Ever, really. But now he couldn't stop himself from being selfish. Being a child and needing someone else to take charge because it couldn't all be on him, it couldn't because then he'd drown in it, he'd die if Harry didn't just fucking- "tell me what to do!" He tugged at Harry's shirtsleeve, violently. "Harry, for fucks sake, look at me!"

Harry obliged, finally. Louis regretted making him, instantly. The look in his eyes felt like a punch in the gut.

"He'll call me back," Harry said, mouth half-covered in his own hand, fingers pale and red at the knuckles and trembling. "He always calls people back within a day, I think. He's always... he's always done with me. Called me back, uhm," he did a twitchy throw of his head, "uhm, and, uhm, I'm – Louis, shit, what've I gotten you into?"

Shit to up over his nostrils. "Nothing, love," Louis said, realising that if he didn't at least try and keep it together then they'd both fall apart. He touched the back of his fingers to Harry's frosty cheek and added, "but if you want to make up for it anyways, you can drive me home."

"As if I wouldn't have done that regardless."

And he would, was the thing. For some inexplicable reason, Harry was willing to go to great lengths to try and make Louis' life easier, even before he really knew him. Maybe that was exactly the reason Louis wasn't screaming at him for getting them both into terrible trouble. And, well, maybe – well, maybe if the roles had been reversed, Louis wouldn't have been one bit better himself.

*

They drove home to the trailer in silence. Nothing anyone could say could drown out the sound of Louis' own pulse in his ears or the thump of his heart in his throat. Harry didn't put his hand on Louis' thigh as they drove, but Louis suspected it had more to do with wanting to make sure he didn't drive them both into a traffic pole than anything else.

Their limbo of anticipation didn't get any less unbearable once they made it home. The second they arrived in the door, Louis was handed with a screaming Freddie and Harry attacked by the toddlers.

"Great you're here, Fred's needs a changing," Lottie said as she threw a scarf around her neck, "I've got to pop out to the shops, we're out of everything."