wake me up {l.s.}

one.

The rays of glared sun that shot for Louis' eyelids awakened him. The morning was as assured as the tides, and just as unstoppable. He needed a few more hours of blackness - not to sleep, but to prepare. To pour out his thoughts, reorganise and prioritise them, and pack them back in again. But already, through hooded eyes, he could see the chaos in the room; the dark ragged outline of the furniture and the dirty clothes from the night before on the floor.

It reminded Louis of the time he and the lads had slept in a beach hut in Miami, watching the ocean emerge under the golden shimmer. For a moment, his mind conjured the sound of rhythmic waves, soft on the sandy shore, and felt his heart beat to the same slow pace.

The space beside him was empty, the duvet completely wrapped around him burrito-style, but Louis could still feel the comfortable heart radiating from where Harry was once laid. Probably woke up early to watch the beautiful sunrise from the roof, Louis contemplated.

The bed was warm, the draughts were cold, yet Louis' feet swung outward into the chill. He rose unsteadily from the bed, his vision still blurred from the sleep and something about his weight and the way he was carrying himself feeling unfamiliar. He brushed it off in favour of a wonderful morning.

Harry always made blueberry pancakes for breakfast in their non-stick pan that had lost its non-stick. Even if Louis only pretended to like them, he was still looking forward to their morning routine, soft kisses and the sound of bare feet on tile floor. He'd still get McDonald's breakfast on his way to the studio and Harry would still be nice enough to pretend he didn't find the packaging in their car later that day.

But, these clothes. Around his waist were shapeless cotton shorts and a loose-fitting black sweater was draped over his shoulders, the sleeves falling inches below where they should've. He'd always been a fan of baggy clothes, but this was ridiculous. He felt like a child in his Dad's jumper, like someone took extra precaution in wrapping him up to protect him from the biting cold.

urtains, noticing how up close the light poured through every open space between fibres, no different from how it once came through the beach-hut walls, illuminating like brilliant fire-flies each dawn. The material was warm beneath his fingers, and when he drew the drapes and the sun flooded the room, painting the colours anew, he felt a little of those golden rays soak into his skin. Spreading sunrise, pinkish glow, clouds tinted, colours spread across the sky announcing the new day, oranges and reds painted across the clouds as if by a celestial hand.

Then, In the haze of the morning glow, Louis seemed to have forgotten of the London buildings that obstructed their opportunity for pretty views like this to wash their room golden, and the buzzing noise of the rush-hour traffic, the wavy lines on scorched drab cement that laid out for countless miles and awoke them each morning.

Under blue and sunlit skies, this view was wondrous to behold, for the lake before the window teemed with life. To the chorus of birdsong from the surrounding green bushes, and the sound of carp sucking amongst the flowering lily-pads. A mother duck, watchful for the predatory pike, scooped the surface for food, with her young trailing behind like a row of bobbing corks. Dab chicks and coots fed in the haven of the reed-beds, whilst flashing blue and green dragonflies hovered above.

It was pretty, but it wasn't their view. Beneath his bare feet were floorboards, cold and hard, instead of plush carpet that peaked out between his toes like sand or newly cut grass. The sheets didn't smell like him, or Harry for that matter; in fact, the entire room smelt like vanilla and slight traces of cigarette smoke, in contrast to the frosted pear candles and flowery air fresheners they kept around their room.

Louis walked up to one of the canvases cautiously, stroking the bumps of oil paint with a gentle touch. The tone of the painting was muted, the style reminiscent of Monet. Each stroke had a smudging quality that rendered the image watery, like a reflection in a rippled puddle. The scene was a street - London, he'd bet. The umbrella bearing pedestrians were battling against rain and the red double-deckers and black cabs rumbling by. It reminded him of Oxford Street, looking out of a rain-splattered window at the rivers of people that moved in each direction. Like in the painting, they moved so randomly, pushing against one another, flowing, like water. Perhaps to this artist that's what people were, Louis thought, small drops in a sky full of rain, each one looking out and saying to themselves 'Wow, that sure is a lot of rain.'