Dare To Love

24 - Stay

☆ Warning: Mature content...ish ☆

. . . . .

The cold had Louis burying his face in his scarf, hands shoved deep in his pockets, as thy walked through the streets. Neither of them wanted to go back to campus and neither of them were ready for the date to end. so they'd opted for a stroll after the movie. The sun had disappeared hours before and left nothing but the bitter chill of winter and sparkling lights.

The tips of Louis' ears were starting to sting with the cold, but the way Harry was nearly skipping along beside him, enthusiastically describing the events that had happened in Deadpool 2, had it all feeling worth it.

They wander into the streets hand-in-hand, simply enjoying each other's company. They swung their hands between them and talked about everything from primary school to their mums to football to reality television. It felt good to be just the two of them, talking and walking hand-in-hand. 

However, Louis' relief was shortly lived as he spotted a girl with her jacket open to reveal a sweatshirt with their university's insignia on it as she walked by with a young man, undoubtedly her boyfriend.

"Wouldn't it be my luck if the guys all decided to come into town for dinner tonight," Louis joked.

"I could just hide," Harry offered with his playful grin, unknowingly bringing to light Louis' guilt and worry.

Harry crouched, hands on Louis' shoulders for balance.

"No, this won't work," he decided, standing back up. "You're too small."

"I'm not fucking small," Louis complained, swatting in Harry's direction and watching as the taller boy moved away with a mischievous giggle. "I'm a growing boy."

"You're pretty small," Harry mischievously added, stepping to the side of the sidewalk and holding his arms up in an imitation of branches. "Or I could be a tree. No one could tell the difference."

"Absolutely no difference," Louis snorted.

Harry laughed happily, arms dropping as he fell back into step with Louis. Harry's strong features were emphasized by the artificial glow of the lights as he stood to his feet. The street lamp traced over the slope of Harry's nose, catching on his eyelashes, and shining off his freshly licked lips.

Louis wished he could stop and get a hand around the back of Harry's neck again, pulling his own scarf down and pressing a kiss to those lips, but not there. Not on the street with people passing by them and cars idling at a stop sign.

They walked for half an hour, trading stories of all the times they wanted to do or say something to each other but never did. It was incredibly freeing to finally get all of these old things off his chest, to turn them into a thing to laugh about with Harry.

In the end, there was reason for Harry to become a tree. After walking around for a bit longer, until Louis' toes had started going numb in his boots, they'd called for a cab in front of the movie theater and had gotten a ride back to campus.

Harry had insisted on walking Louis back to his dorm, and Louis could feel his pulse spike as a large hand was pressed to the small of his back over his coat. Their date was over, but not quite. He was just praying that no one else came in and needed to get on the elevator.

Harry was fidgeting next to him, taking his gloves off and shoving them in his pockets and Louis assumed they were both thinking the same thing. The elevator chugged on its way down to them, and Louis felt Harry lean into his side, their winter coats brushing.