Rumors, Rumors, Nothing But Rumors (L.S)

Chapter Twenty-Five

A/N In all honesty, I'm not doing great and there will be a minute in-between updates from now on because of that. Take care of yourselves, loves!

Louis is devastated. Absolutely fucking crushed is probably a better description. His body feels too heavy, his heart aches, his eyes red and puffy, but it's nothing compared to the pain of his thoughts running wild.

Harry, Harry, Harry. That's everything on his mind when Louis wakes up. He doesn't even get the second of bliss that comes from a night's sleepy forgetfulness because even his dreams were haunted by Harry's 'leave'.

Louis thinks about Harry before he even realizes that he has woken up in his own bed - somewhere he definitely didn't go to sleep - collapsed is probably a more accurate word. It almost feels like an impossible task to open his eyes, and despite just having woken up, his eyes are wet with tears and so is his cheeks.

He feels like a downright mess, and that isn't too far from the truth either. With an inhumane effort Louis turns his head on the pillow, looking towards his window with squinted eyes. There is light behind the curtains and judging from the glow it must be somewhere in the afternoon.

It takes Louis a minute to fully awaken, the pain of everything trying to drag him back into sleep - not a comfortable sleep, but rest none the less and that alone offers an escape.

He have been staring mindlessly at his curtains for at least five whole minutes when he notices that there's other people in the room. A soft snore sounds behind him, and Louis wills his body to turn over despite his deepest wishes to stay immoveable.

What meets his eyes is enough for the tears to overflow again, this time a silent kind of cry when he studies the two men seated beside his bed in a chair that shouldn't be big enough for both of them. Liam is sitting on the chair, cradling an exhausted looking Zayn in his arms and the two of them are dead-asleep, quiet snores escaping Zayn once in a while. For a second, Louis just watches them silently, trying to ignore the two tears rolling down the side of his face. He doesn't really want to cry, but he doesn't know how to stop anymore.

He must have made a sound or moved around slightly, because within a minute Zayn is jostling awake, eyes immediately trained on Louis' face. He seems almost panicked as he sits up straighter, jolting Liam's body as he moves about. "Sorry... Sorry I didn't mean to fall asleep. Louis, darling? Are you okay? Lou?"

If Liam didn't have his arm around Zayn's waist, Louis is pretty sure his roommate would be patting him down this instant, once again assuring himself that Louis doesn't have any undiscovered stab wounds or anything like that, but his boyfriend restrains him calmly. "Baby, deep breaths." And then he turns to Louis, flashing a weak smile and adds, "Morning, Lou".

Louis only grumbles a bit, not trusting his voice in the slightest and then Zayn's hands are on him, stroking his hair comfortingly. "Lou..."; he starts, sounding really unsure despite having rehearsed the words over and over. "I don't know what happened yesterday - only that you scared me to death - and you don't have to tell us anything right now. You should take the day off, call in sick and I'll stay here with you?"

It's phrased as a suggestion, but Zayn's tone makes it sound like a question, as if he expects Louis to jump out of bed and demand to go to work. To be fair, that's exactly what Louis would do under most circumstances - rush out and fix things, or at least pretend like nothing happened, but he's pretty sure he'd be kicked out on sight - if not by Harry himself then by his manager.

Also, he doesn't even have a job to call in sick to - neither as a photographer nor a fake boyfriend. Hell, he doesn't even have a boyfriend at the moment - at least not one that wants to talk to him or as much as look at him.