Into the Blue

16

To add insult to injury, Zayn leaves on the illusion of a perfect summer’s day, the sun beating down from a cloudless sky. He’s due for the resort’s airport shuttle, along with a number of tanned, well-rested guests, the driver blasting some bullshit exoctic beach holiday music that makes Louis want to throw up. Instead, he clings to Zayn, Liam crowding into the embrace too, and they hold on until the driver blares the horn.

Louis flips him off, but he also steps back and wipes at his eyes.

“I’ll call all the time,” Zayn promises, just before the door closes.

He does send them a message as soon as he touches down in London, a picture of the queue at Immigration in Heathrow titled, ‘Welcome back I guess,’ and then a couple more from Kings Cross Station, where he’s about to hop onto a train to Liverpool. The first one is a rectangle of blue sky with the caption, ‘Indian summer in the uk, good time to be back!’ The second one shows the sign pointing towards Platform 9 and 3/4 and says, ‘Harry Potter was here.’

Louis stares at the text, thinks, Harry Harry Harry. Harry and London and Harry, and Zayn is in London, and Harry is in London, and Louis is in Madeira, and his fingers are stumbling over the words he is trying to type in reply.

‘Sorry mate , summer in britain is like winter here .’

It’s absolutely true, but somehow, sending it feels like a lie. Slipping his phone into the suddenly free shelf space that used to hold Zayn’s cigarettes, Louis leaves the boat’s cockpit and goes to watch the new guy chat with the guests.

New guy. George. He seems alright, even charming.

He’s not Zayn.

--

By now, Harry's duvet doesn't even smell like him anymore, and the sheets could benefit from a washing. Each time Louis runs into Eleanor, she frowns at him before her expression softens. "Tomorrow, though," she tells him, and each time, he nods and doesn't comply.

It would feel too much like giving up, like accepting defeat.

--

The afternoon was windy, several of the dive guests seasick on the way back. For all that Louis has grown mostly immune, he'd put George in charge of a beginner, and had thus spent an additional hour on the lurching boat while everyone else had been underwater.

Traipsing back up to the cabin, Louis feels mildly queasy, his brain still swaying with an imagined swell. He barges in calling for tea, George somewhere behind him on the path, and Harry looks up from where he's sitting on the work surface.

Harry is sitting on the work surface.

Harry.

Is sitting on the work surface.

Harry is here.

Louis stops dead in his tracks, his stomach dropping to his knees, thoughts screeching to a complete halt. Harry. Harry, what? Is this---is he---what?

With a tentative smile, Harry slides to the floor, staggers a little before he rights himself, and oh God, his little stumble, how he combs his hair off his forehead, that's just so endearingly, wonderfully familiar, and Harry is here. It's a Thursday, he should be at uni, surely he has classes he's skipping? Skipping so he can be here instead. Here with Louis.

"Hi," Harry says softly, just as George runs into Louis' back and steadies himself with a hand on Louis' shoulder.

"What's the hold-up?" George asks, peering around Louis.

Immediately, Harry's gaze flickers to the point of contact. Which is ridiculous, because Louis hasn't even looked at another guy since Harry left, and because George is straight anyway, and because---because Louis is in love with Harry. He's stupidly, stupidly in love with Harry, and Harry came back.