It's Getting Cold These Days [Larry Stylinson AU]

Thirteen

Once more, Harry faced the daunting silence.

Not even the floorboards creaked as he, with his toes, scratched his calf. Whenever he proceeded his pacing his left sock furled a little further beneath his sole. For the last twenty minutes he had been toeing between the living room and the kitchen, waiting for anyone to join him.

He had woken on the edge of the bed, knuckles brushing the floor. Unable to find his clothes, he had grabbed the only sweater in sight and traipsed out in the flat. More than the burden of silence, he despised watching Louis slumbering soundly next to him, fingers curling into the mattress in search of his body.

Even so, heat twisted in his chest.

He returned to Louis' bedroom where he remained in the doorway. Goosebumps had risen all over Louis' skin in spite of the flat's proper isolation. Harry couldn't imagine how his own flat must feel.

A violent buzzing forced him out in the hallway.

Louis' hand found the phone on his nightstand, fumbling to shut it off. He fell right back down in a mumble. Then he turned his face towards the empty space beside him and said, "Sorry, baby."

Harry took a cautious step back inside, heart still racing.

"Why would you have an alarm?" he said.

Cracking one eye open, Louis spotted him in the gloom. He scowled.

"You don't have one?"

Harry shook his head, staring at his coiled socks.

"No. I don't sleep very well."

Louis' hand skimmed across the expanse of the mattress. The blinds drew back. He buried himself in a groan, fisting the sheets.

"Come on," Harry said.

"No, you come on. There's space here." Louis emphasised by rubbing the other side of the bed as frantically as he could.

Wisps of hair poked from the duvet. Harry knew their softness—unwillingly imprinted like every other part of Louis—and he allowed himself to stroke them. He was rewarded with a whine.

"Give me a second," he said and slipped out of the room.

Treading over scattered Scrabble letters and DVD-cases, he found the bathroom. Just as he switched the light on, someone else entered the room.

Zayn squinted at him, more in suspicion than in exhaustion, Harry presumed.

"What are you looking for?" Zayn said.

"Shaving cream."

Zayn's squint deepened and travelled to Harry's hairless jaw.

"Sure you are."

At the slight resistance, Harry's heartbeat picked up. This shouldn't be a problem.

"Why are you up?" he batted back.

Zayn peeped past him to the kitchen table where Scrabble stood, half-finished.

"Shaving cream."

They stared at each other. Lilac circles framed Zayn's eyes, which swept across Harry's own. They made a silent agreement Harry didn't know the details of, but it was enough to make Zayn retreat to his bedroom.

"They should be somewhere below the basin," he said accompanied by a gesture before closing the door.

Making sure he was alone, Harry ducked down to the cabinet.

A bundle of condoms fell out when he moved aside some bottles of detergent. At least five different sorts lay in the mess. A few of them had been fastened together with a stale rubber band in a sacred collection. He went for one of the scattered ones, unable to recollect when he had last held one in his hands. Liam had never been much for them, with Harry or with other people.