I met you in the toilet (Larry One Shots - book 5)

Agony and Ecstasy

From: http://archiveofourown.org/works/617843

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Rating: Explicit

Warnings/tags: coffee shop!AU, more fic in which louis is a slightly depressive drama queen

Word count: 9661

Summary: Louis is a struggling writer. Harry is an artist. Louis hates artists because of reasons.

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Louis gets maudlin at around two in the morning.

Well, Louis is always a bit maudlin. It's just that early in the morning it's hidden by sleepy grumpiness, and from the hours of noon until midnight he carefully covers it up with quick wit and self-deprecating humor.

But every night, like clockwork, two am strikes and like a lonely old woman at a bar sipping her fifth gin and tonic, Louis Tomlinson gets moany and weepy and not-even-drunk dials his best friend.

"Zayn. Zayn, nobody is ever going to love me."

"Louis, you realize that I'm in the next room. You could just get up and talk to me."

"But that would require getting up. I'm impaired by own my misery. I can't stand. I'm staring into an emotional void."

"That would be a good band name."

"What?"

"Emotional void."

Louis huffs impatiently into the receiver. "Are you even taking me seriously? My life could be on the line here. I could be on the verge of blasting linkin park and slitting my ankles."

"Except you hate the sight of blood," Zayn counters.

Louis frowns. "Mixing drugs containing acetaminophen and alcohol?"

"We ran out of Tylenol yesterday."

"Making some truly hideous art...?"

"You don't draw or paint. In fact, I think you said the other day that art is pretentious, incomprehensible bullshit."

"No, I said Jason Pollock's art is pretentious bullshit. Keep up with me, Zayney."

There's a groan and the sound of footsteps as Zayn wanders out of his bedroom to find Louis sprawled on the floor, face-down in the carpet.

"Tell me what brought this...revelation on," Zayn says and sits down next to Louis on the floor.

Louis shrugs and keeps his face buried in his arms. The phone is still lying by his ear as if he was talking on it.

"Just a thought I had. A thought I often have."

"Oh, Louis." Zayn cards his fingers through Louis' hair, and Louis makes a little, pleased groan. Being petted is the only good part of these little spells he has. "You're very wonderful and loveable and you'll find someone who'd be delighted to put up with your angry rants against the art institution."

"It's all shit," Louis re-iterates.

They both know he's only saying it because his last boyfriend was an artist. He's never really recovered from the whole mess, and now Louis holds a grudge against anyone who's ever held a paint brush. It's tragic, really. Another tragic facet to his tragic life.

Louis is a trainwreck.

Zayn tugs at the collar of Louis' shirt. "Come on, come to bed before you start weeping and drinking gin."

"I don't drink gin. Tastes like pine trees, who wants to drink trees?" Louis grumbles, but obliges and follows Zayn off to his room.

That night, like most nights, Zayn cuddles Louis until he drifts off to sleep, and Louis tries to pretend he's in the arms of a lover instead of his overly obliging best friend.