Undercover (Larry Stylinson)

22. just hold on

It was about 11am on a Sunday when Harry knocked on Louis and Liam's door. Liam answered, a bit surprised.

"Oh, hey, Harry," he said hurriedly. Harry observed his tussled hair and the purple love bite marking his neck. "What's up?"

"Must have caught you at a bad time," Harry replied, blushing. "I was looking for Louis, but I can come back later."

"Oh," Liam replied. Giggling echoed from the room behind him and he popped back into the house, whispering something. "Sorry, um. I think he went to the diner. Usually does when he's sad. If not, come back a bit later."

"Okay, thanks, Liam," Harry replied.

It was only on his way to his car that he remembered how much he hated Liam. Or how much he should hate him for giving his real name to his boss. But in the end, he got Niall back in his life and in some weird, twisted way Liam was responsible for it. So he called it a truce and decided to let it go.

The drive to the diner was only a few minutes, but to Harry it felt like hours. The past two days with Niall had been brutal. Last night, for example, Niall had a night terror, and it took almost an hour for Harry to get him to calm down. On top of that, his anger outbursts were growing more and more frequent and he was refusing to eat more than a bowl of cereal for each meal.

Harry felt bad, but it was honestly a relief to be away from him for a little while. It was just so hard watching him go through this things. It made Harry's heart hurt in ways he didn't know it could.

"I'll be back in a little," Harry had said on his way out the door earlier. "Text me if you need anything."

"I'll be fucking fine," Niall grunted, not looking up from his place in front of the videogame he was playing. Harry was worried that playing violent videogames might trigger his PTSD, but he thought otherwise about pointing that out when he noticed the malicious glare on Niall's face.

Now, as he entered the diner, he wondered if he should go back and check on him. Maybe that anger was a precursor of an even more intense outburst to come? Or what if he was going to hurt himself?

All of his panicked thoughts came to a halt, however, when he spotted Louis sitting alone at one of the booths in the back, sipping on a milkshake.

"Hey," Harry called, walking over to him.

Louis looked up from his shake, his blue eyes widening. "Oh my god, wait, why are you here..." he stammered.

Harry shrugged, taking a seat across the table from Louis on the read vinyl booth. As he sat down, he noticed two other milkshake cups on the table. Empty.

"But i know you don't eat dessert....Was someone else here before?" Harry asked, confused.

Louis looked at the ground. "Um, yeah."

Harry cocked his head to the side, suddenly putting the pieces together. "Ohhh... you... okay. It's okay. Don't be embarrassed. I stress eat too sometimes."

Inhaling sharply, Louis shook his head. "This really isn't a good time, Harry."

"I'm sorry... I, just needed to talk to you," Harry replied, lowering his head. His emerald irises looked a bit dimmer than usual, and Louis bit his lip, sighing.

"Okay, what is it?" he snapped. He shifted uneasily in his seat, tugging at his oversized hoodie so it covered more of his body.

"I.... I missed you," Harry breathed.

"Harry," Louis said, sitting up. "I don't want to talk about this right now. I thought it was a real emergency."

"I know," Harry said, his eyes lighting up. "I know, but I haven't been keeping in touch with you and it's my fault and I'm sorry... I just want to hang out again. If you don't want to, I understand. But I can't stop thinking about you."