nothing worsens, nothing grows (l.s)

0.3

vegas --> albuquerque --> denver

Louis

Of all of the ways that Louis thought his evening would go, this was certainly not one of them.

They'd gotten a full ten minutes down the road to the casino before Louis realized he'd forgotten his wallet. Liam had begrudgingly turned the car around, only because he didn't want to be stuck paying for him to gamble later, and Niall complained the entire drive back.

Life was much simpler back then.

Fifteen minutes later, Louis has his back pressed against the hotel door, fingers clenched tight around his forgotten wallet, the image of Harry's hand wrapped around his cock burned into the backs of his eyelids.

He blinks once, twice, and waits for his rapidly beating heart to slow down a bit before taking a step forward. When he hears Harry start moving around inside, he rushes to the lift and presses the button several times, standing right up next to the doors so that Harry wouldn't see him if he were to come out.

Once he's safely inside, Louis panics. They're only still at the beginning of the trip, how is he supposed to look Harry in the eye after this? He can't. There's no way to get home, though, either. Louis will have to devise a careful plan to avoid Harry whenever he can. He panics for another reason, too.

He's hard.

With a falter in his steps and his hand awkwardly covering the front of his jeans, Louis returns to the car and slides silently into his spot behind Liam and Niall. They'd been talking, but they glance back at him when he doesn't say anything.

"Alright, Lou?"

"Yeah," he nods at Liam, waving his wallet in the air, "I've got it."

Liam turns back toward the wheel and puts the car into drive, but Niall tosses him a confused look over his shoulder as if to say, I know something's up. Louis just smiles tightly at him and fumbles with his seatbelt as a distraction. Swallowing, Louis tries to calm down a bit.

Before, it was easy to imagine that Harry wasn't good. Louis could see his strong arms and his muscled chest sometimes through his shirts, but he could always at least imagine that maybe Harry had a weird birthmark or something. Some sort of secret that made him undesirable, somewhere.

Tonight, Louis realized that it didn't exist. There was no part of Harry that wasn't absolutely flawless. Louis has to make a conscious effort to remember to blink, his wide eyes focused on the road in front of them as it disappears underneath the car.

This predicament had opened up a very odd, very not appropriate door inside of his brain.

In some ways he's disappointed. But in almost every other way he's just, well, turned on. There really isn't any other way to describe it. He doesn't have to deal with these feelings usually, back in London. Getting off requires quite a bit of preparation for him and had always seemed like somewhat of a chore. Louis had to plan a night ahead of time, make sure Liam and Niall weren't going to show up randomly, and then make sure he had everything he'd need just so he could spend hours trying to feel those few seconds of release.

In his years of experimenting (alone, locked away in his room) he'd discovered that he felt better when he used his fingers instead of doing it the normal way. Unfortunately, his method demanded more time and attention, forcing him to go through countless bottles of strawberry-scented lube that he keeps hidden away in his nightstand, and most nights he didn't even feel like doing it - either too tired or sad or both.

Especially over the last few months, when school was getting to be too much and he was hearing less and less from his family. Louis was stressed, and he'd been unable to get excited about anything for a good couple of months now. He wasn't some sort of sex maniac by any means but that seemed like a long time for an adult male. Part of it worries him that he doesn't work correctly, like there's something wrong.