Louis awakens the next morning with a head that may have the potential to spontaneously combust.
“Oh god,” he breathes, blindly reaching for water on his nightstand. But fuck, there is none—and where exactly is Niall? Shouldn’t he be checking on him and fetching him things?
When Louis finally stumbled his way through the door last night, the boy was nowhere to be found, only the remnants of some Irish stew lying in the sink indicating that he had been there at all since Louis had last seen him.
It didn’t irritate him or anything. It’s not as if he had mentally planned out his tirade about the party and Harry Styles on the way home or anything. He really did enjoy the peace of solitude. If Niall HAD been there, he probably would have ended up playing the fucking piano or farting.
But now Louis is awake (only in the most generous sense of the word) and is weakly grasping at air, pillow over his face as he quietly suffers through existence.
“Niall,” he calls weakly, voice burdened from sleep and dehydration.
Champagne is evil. It’s pretty and fun and it loves you and it’s evil.
“Niall,” he tries again, but his door is closed and he knows Niall is nowhere near doting enough to be listening for Louis’ weak pleas.
Thankfully, this is the twenty-first century.
Feeling like he just crawled out of the devil’s ass crack, Louis fumbles for his phone, finding Niall’s name (he’s not talking about the fact that he’s made it to his list of favorites—it was for convenience and nothing else) and pressing it with all the passion his hungover and pitied state can muster.
It rings once.
“Tommo!” Niall answers robustly as soon as he picks up. “Where are you? I was just about to have Rory get us some food.”
“You sound very chipper for being awake so early,” Louis rasps.
“It’s nearly midday.”
“Midday is early. Anytime of the day involving the sun is early.”
“Can’t say I disagree with you there. But even so, I had lecture. Just came back, in fact.”
Lecture.
It’s Monday.
Fuck.
FUCK.
“Fuck,” Louis repeats, and it’s a squeak of despair. “I slept clear through! I’m going to be kicked out of school at this rate.”
“Don’t be dramatic. So what say you, then? Want anything in particular? Salmon? A sandwich? Lasagna?”
“I’m going to need petrol. And a match. Throw in some gunpowder while you’re out.”
“…Does this have to do with Harry?”
“No. Well. I mean, I guess it could. But no—Niall, I think I’m dying.”
“Where are you?”
“In my room.”
“You called me from your room?”
“Yes.”
“You’re in there right now?”
“Yes.”
There’s a pause on the other line, then the sound of heavy footsteps. The door bursts open, and there’s Niall in black jersey shorts, a cream colored long-sleeve shirt, and a snapback, phone pressed to his ear. He looks tired, shadows deep under his eyes, but the brightness of his smile chases any of the darkness away.
