After the End: Book 4

50. Very Nice

A/N: I fell asleep editing this last night and I swear it gave me weird dreams. I have 3 essays due on Monday. I've only started 1. I'm gonna do them...but this is so much more enjoyable to write. Enjoy. I might not post again until those are done though, because I spend a lot of money on school so like... gotta do well. I have no self control so I might just post again anyways though. Y'all know it's not exactly a science I'm sticking to around here 😭

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Louis POV

In the end, I let him stay in his curled up position fused with the sofa for the entirety of Sunday. I wasn't proud of my inability to come to a solution, but he wasn't really in a mindset for solution based thinking.

Naomi had called me around breakfast time to confess that Harry had been rather open about his feelings the previous night. She hadn't called me at first, and I didn't disagree with the decision. He wasn't on drugs. The not-high version of Harry was afforded certain liberties and freedoms and that included the right to decide when and with whom he talked about his issues with. He was perfectly allowed to confide in Naomi if he wanted.

Unfortunately, whatever relief Harry had hoped would come with sleep hadn't come. By my guess, he'd woken up feeling just as overwhelmed and self destructive as he had when he'd gone to sleep and his solution was simply not to move.

He was stuck. He wasn't willing to talk about it, and he wasn't willing to change it.

When I'd come downstairs, he'd sat up only slightly to address me. I'd given him the verbal run down of my concerns. I'd explained the behavior was a familiar one of his, and that he was making naomi nervous again.

He'd replied with, "I don't feel well. I'd like to just sleep, please."

His tone had been tense and worrisome. He sounded like he was trying hard to stay calm, but the way his eyebrows creased told me there was much more to the issue than his explanation conveyed.

I'd stared at him for a moment and we'd made eye contact. He was very obviously sober, but he clearly didn't feel any more rational. I couldn't see how forcing him to talk would help.

"Do you understand why we are nervous about leaving you alone?" I'd asked him instead.

He thought for a moment and then nodded in a childlike way. Then he shrugged lightly and said, "Then don't."

He laid back down with his invitation for monitoring hanging in the air. He closed his eyes and curled away so that his face was buried in the cushions. His lack of interest in maintaining any further conversation was clear.

Daisy and Phoebe came downstairs to sit on his bean bag chairs. They played quietly on their phones while he ignored them and pretended to be asleep, and I sat in the music room with my headphones on writing music for the first time since coming home. We all essentially took a quiet day off down at Harry's place, and Naomi went to see her parents with Oliver. We'd never gotten around to planning something else for his birthday.

He didn't get up a single time. Not even to smoke. Phoebe brought him crackers at one point alongside a glass of water. He ignored them for an hour before sitting up to take a sip out of the glass, and then laying back down. I checked on him atleast once an hour, and when I'd talk to him, he'd answer in a tired mumble, reiterate that he didn't feel well, and then he'd lay back down. That was just if he'd bothered to sit up in the first place.

I didn't push for more. He wasn't actually doing anything wrong. Instead of trying to force him, I just gave him a space to have his depressive episode in peace, and we made sure he wasn't alone.