we'll live to tell the tale (l.s.)

breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating

tw// illness , trauma , implied self harm

a tame chapter imo. disclaimer: in no way am i trying to achieve personal gain through louis' real pain. this is fiction, and nothing written is based off of real life. jay is not going to be a large part of this story at all, but i needed it to explain part of what had forced louis to mature so quickly. 

i don't know how i feel about this tbh, it's 4:30 and i just finished proofreading. kinda tired, let me know what you think. i'm thinking about combining some of my early chapters, but after everything is done. there is still a ways to go with this fic, though! if you're still here despite my shitty writing, thank you so much. 

twitter: @louflymehome

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he remembered the first time his mother had one of those dreadful, violent fevers. it was a tuesday morning on his second to last year of high school. normally, she would have already left the house for work by the time he was awake; so when he had to grab a towel from a closet in the master bedroom, and she was still there, breathing audible from even several feet away, he felt a spectrum of emotions course through his veins in just a split second.

it started as a flicker of hope, that maybe, she had decided to take the day off, or drop some shifts to spend more time with him. that, for the first time in months, he wouldn't come home to a house that felt uninhabited for years. but when she hadn't responded to his excited rambling as he dug through the bottom of the closet, he sensed something was off. maybe she was just resting, he thought.

it came to his attention, then, his it looked like his mother looked as if she had just finished taking a shower. she was flushed a vibrant red and her hair was sticky with what he realized was sweat after the odor had made its way to his nostrils as he stepped closer.

it scared him. how heavy she was breathing, how violently she was shaking despite being completely engulfed in the covers, how unresponsive she was to his words.

"mum?" he remembered saying, louder than he had intended, so much so that the door of lottie's room flew open and she padded over.

"is everything okay?" she said, suddenly wide awake.

"mum, she's... fuck. can you get like, advil and water or something? and then go right to school. i can take care of this."

"but-"

"you know better than to skip school, lotts," he said sternly. "now go. make sure the rest of the girls get to school as well. sorry i can't take you guys, today."

lottie was back shortly with two white pills and a glass of water. she set them down before grabbing her bag. "she'll be okay, right? she always is."

"yeah. don't worry about it, love."

his mother's fever went down slightly by noon, but she was still weak and disoriented.

"fuck. what day is it?" she asked, when she fully came to.

"tuesday. but you're sick, mum. don't worry about work."

"god, i'm going to be so behind tomorrow. i need to at least-"

"there's no way you're going in tomorrow, are you crazy? you had a fever of thirty-nine degrees!"

"lou, i have to. things are starting to pick up," she said wetly. he hated seeing her like this, all feeble, with tremors still racking her entire frame.

"we'll see how you're feeling tonight," he sighed, knowing full well he could not stop his mother from doing what she wanted.

she was significantly more steady by the next day, but they hadn't figured out the cause for the fever. just a normal flu, he'd figured, heightened by exhaustion. perfectly normal for someone that worked as hard as her, he told himself.