Summary:
He literally jumps when the organ starts playing, and looks over to the entrance of the nave to see Nick appear, a smug smile on his face. His hair's still in that dastardly pompadour, and now he's slipped into a tight black suit jacket over his ensemble. Louis can now see the whole bride/groom thing happening with Harry and Nick's outfits, and it's like all of a sudden he's hit with the realization that this is is actually happening.
[AU where Harry's getting married in 90 minutes and Louis has no idea what the hell he's going to do]
**
Louis pulls his hood up as he wraps his jacket tightly around himself. It's only around 10 in the morning but it's still fairly nippy outside, and he walks faster as some clock tower in his vicinity starts chiming away, as if to taunt him about how late and fucked he is.
The wedding starts at 11:30 am sharp, the invitation said, though, knowing Harry, it'll probably only get underway by 11:45. So Louis has a solid hour and a half or so to get there, but he's still a good distance away, and he's got to get there by foot, since he sold his car ages ago. This, unfortunately, gives him a solid ninety minutes to do nothing but think about what the hell he's going to do once he walks into that church.
He supposes he could just wait till the ceremony starts and run in, making a huge grand entrance and whatnot, but it's been at least a year since he's had any contact with Harry and he's fairly sure the last thing the boy would want is to see Louis stroll in, all chipper, as if absolutely nothing has changed over the past 400 days.
Because, honestly, everything has.
When Louis had stealthily packed his bags--or, to be more honest, bag--and flown his ass over to France, hoping to escape all contact with anyone he'd known in his life so far, he'd never imagined that things back home would keep going on, as if nothing had happened. Sure, it was a fair bit selfish of him to assume that everyone's lives would come to a dramatic stand-still until he had returned, but everything had just become so fucked up that Louis was suffocating from all the judgements and responsibilities. Everyone's attention seemed to be on him 24/7, so could you really blame him?
The wedding invitation, though, was the biggest punch to the gut, and Louis remembers just standing there, in his mother's kitchen, staring at the cream card stock, unable to breathe. When Jay had wandered in a moment later, the smile had slid off her face and she'd made a valiant effort to snatch the card out of Louis' hands, but he'd moved too fast for her.
Of course Harry would've sent an invitation to his mother--Louis had definitely dated him long enough for that to be acceptable--but she hadn't mentioned a thing to Louis about it, so that night he'd locked himself up in his old bedroom and cried himself to sleep.
Louis hadn't left the house since then, and really hadn't planned to until Jay had lightly knocked on his door this morning, dressed formally enough for him to easily guess where she was going.
"I'm taking the girls," she'd said, her voice soft and understanding, and she'd hesitated a bit before closing the door. "It's not too late, y'know. He never stopped loving you."
Louis hadn't reacted until after he'd heard the car pull out of the driveway. He'd sat up immediately, pulled on a pair of jeans and a hoodie, and walked out the front door, his heart thumping wildly, numb to the protests his head was screaming at it.
And now he's here, strolling through the quiet streets of his hometown, and his pulse races as he realizes that he's almost reached his destination.
