17 Black

25•

Finals and soccer tryouts this week, ouch :/ that's why I'm being so slow at all this stuff, and I know it's really annoying but just stick with me, the good stuff is coming ;) I hope you're liking it so far; judging by your FUCKING ADORABLE COMMENTS (keep it up) you are, so that's fantasticc! I'm so excited and I love you guys tons YEET
-Bella
___________________________

Louis pours a heavy drink for the third heartbroken and lonely young person to plop down at a barstool tonight. He can distinguish them from the others, you see, by that certain look in their eyes--vacant almost, but more like...acceptant of failure and sadness and every bad thing that could've happened to them to put that look there, in their eyes. Acceptance of the fact that almost nothing that you want to work out ever works out. Louis concludes this to be true. It's an easy answer, given away by the expressions of those unlucky few he's bartended for tonight. Or maybe he only knows this from experience--maybe Louis can recognize that expression of utter defeat so easily only because it's the same one he sees every day in the mirror. Maybe Louis just knows too much about failure to think anything else is possible. Almost everything in his life so far has taught him to lose hope in success, in happiness; his dad abandoned his family before he'd even turned five, his classmates had all turned on him when they found out he was gay, his mother doing the same when she heard, kicking him out of the house and the family without even a word since. His own teammates had resulted to hating him instead of simply avoiding him. The only solid, consistent person he had left in his life was Liam, and he'd almost ruined that by continuing to lie to him. And now he's gone and blown it with the only other person who seemed to care about him lately. Harry. Louis can't even think about that loss quite yet, the wound's still pretty fresh. As much as he wishes he hadn't, somewhere along the way, Louis had gone and gotten his feelings involved with Harry and now it's ended hurting him. So what's the point of trying if in the end it's all going to somehow turn to shit? He knew from the start that it would turn out badly if he had let himself care for anyone, but of course he had to go and start caring about Harry. The one person he couldn't get attached to.

And the one person he swore he wouldn't think about tonight. Tonight, Louis isn't allowing himself to be stressed out. And for him, since being stressed out mostly takes the form of thinking about Harry, Louis isn't allowing himself to do that, either. So tonight, he's just going to be the sad bartender who pours drinks for sad people and tries not to think about why he's sad. And then, as soon as he's off his shift, he's going to go home and study. And after he's done studying, he'll turn on the laundry and climb in bed, set his alarm to go off six hours later. Even though he has the late shift tonight and only gets those six hours to sleep, six hours to be totally and completely thought-free, he could use every second that he gets.

--

Louis did use every second that he could get. Alas, he has still managed to fall asleep three times in his physics class alone. Sometimes, if he's especially tired, he'll fall asleep three times in one day, but never three times in one hour. The teacher catches him the second time and scolds him, going off about "you had your chance to sleep, now it's time to learn" or some shit. If Louis was less tired, he'd probably have come up with some sassy remark to shoot back at her, but all he could do was continue to slump in his chair and mumble a half-hearted, insincere apology. The third time she sees him doze off, her eyes are less angry and more pitying. Whatever. That's mostly how the rest of his day at school goes, except for lunch when Louis actually does get to sleep, in earnest. Ignoring his body's pleas for food, Louis leaves the building and finds his car in the parking lot, sets an alarm on his phone, and curls up in the front seat. It's quiet in there and he loves it. The nap didn't do much for his fatigue not his hunger throughout the school day, but he had figured it was better than nothing.

Now, as he's getting dressed and ready for the football practice he's been dreading all day--and all yesterday, actually, but we don't talk about why--he realizes that maybe the nap really was just useless. The entire time as he's tugging his sweatshirt over his head, sitting down on the locker room bench to pull his sweatpants on--how pathetic is that--and tying his cleats, he's unable to open his eyes, like his body is telling him to sleep right that moment or else. Liam notices, too, and comes over to him finally after an eternity of looking at him with those worrisome eyebrows and big, worrisome brown eyes. He asks Louis, "Louis, are you okay? You look...tired, or something," like he's Louis' fucking dad or something. It's not like Louis minds too much, though, because he doesn't even have a dad, so he guesses Liam will do just fine. He tells Liam that he's okay, just had a late night at work, and although it's true, Liam knows that it's probably not the whole story, even if Louis himself doesn't realize it. Louis can tell that he's still worrying about it just by taking a look at his face.