strawberries and cigarettes (always taste like you)

Twenty Four

Trigger Warning: Mentions of the f slur and mild panic attack (summary at the end of chapter)

Louis' POV:

The next couple of hours were monotonous and chaotic at the same. Once Harry and I were done talking about the situation at the police station, we walked out to join Alaska and Zayn outside. Both of them looked at us strangely, but thankfully, they didn't say anything. Alaska flagged down a cab, and we all piled into it within seconds.

Harry made it very clear that he intended to sit next to me. That definitely attracted curious, questioning glances, but Harry's demeanour was firm. He clearly wasn't accepting any questions. Honestly, Alaska looked a little scared of him, and I can't say I blame her. Harry is the softest, nicest person ever, and I don't think any of us have ever seen him be so strict and unwavering from his decisions and opinions.

Hence, Alaska sat in the front, and the other three of us took the back seats. It took us ten minutes to get home. I was honestly dreading even stepping through the main door of the house. Liam is going to be so mad. Ugh.

Turns out, I was right. Technically, when am I not? But still. Liam was pissed, and lectured us for like fifteen minutes straight. It probably doesn't sound like that long of a time, but it felt like eternity, okay? He made it very clear that it was incredibly disappointed with us. Niall just sat there, not really saying anything. He however did ask if we were okay, though. How nice of him.

Anyway, once Liam was done lecturing, that's when he asked Zayn and I for an explanation. Fucking finally. You'd think they'd want an explanation first. We took our sweet time explaining everything, though. Not that there was much to explain.

Basically, earlier today, Zayn and I were bored. Harry was going to be home late, and quite frankly, I had nothing to do. So, the two of us decided to hit up a few bars and get high. We smoked some weed in the alleys before actually going to the bar. The bar wasn't very crowded, and we were just having fun, but then this group of guys arrived out of nowhere and started yelling at us for no reason.

We ignored them at first, even when they called us the f slur. You know what it is, right? Yes, that. Then some random person started defending us, and the offensive group got mad and started throwing around punches. They were quite obnoxious about it too, fully intending to harm. That led to a fully-fledged fight and somehow Zayn and I got involved.

I think it was because the leader of the group or whatever decided to smash a bottle on Zayn's hand. That's how he got the wounds on his hand. Somebody else smashed a bottle near me as well, and a tiny piece of glass cut my cheek. Harry was absolutely livid when he heard that; even though he was trying to keep his emotions in check.

The fight continued until one of the customers called the cops, and all of us with blood on us were arrested. It didn't matter when we tried to explain that we didn't really do anything. We got taken to the police station and put in fucking holding cells. When the cops came around to ask who we wanted them to call to come and get us, Zayn and I weren't sure which one of our flatmates we wanted to call. As it turned out, we didn't have an option, since we couldn't really get anybody's numbers from our phones. We had to leave our phones outside at one of the officer's desks. Fortunately, Zayn remembered Alaska's number for some reason, so we had the cops call Alaska. And the rest, as the kids say it, was history.

And by history, I mean that Alaska and Harry came to bail us out and then take us home, and at home, Liam lectured us for a bit and then asked us to tell this story. Once we were done explaining, everyone was more mad at the offensive group at the bar rather than us. They were very upset over their homophobic and unnecessarily violent behaviour. We talked about it for a while, before Liam decided that it was getting late and that Zayn and I needed to rest. We weren't going to argue with that, obviously.