The Rusty Old Minivan

Chapter 33

He was all right. It'd been a week now and he was all right. When he woke in the mornings, and the daylight hit his face, the laughter and chat of his family getting ready around him, he was all right. For the first few moments, as his mind slowly awakened, he was perfectly fine.

People bopped around him, going about their business. Freddie cuddled up to his chest and purred happily when Louis kissed his soft little head. The toddlers waddled in, climbed up on the futon and played with his feet. Niall laughed at something that wasn't half-funny and gave him a terrible cup of tea.

He was all right.

Then the kids left for school. Niall left to take them there. The toddlers left to play in their room. Freddie fell asleep.

And Louis came back to reality.

It wasn't an open-wounded sort of pain. Wasn't the kind where you feared you might actually die from heart-ache. It wasn't even a heart-break, really. His heart felt intact enough, at least intact enough to beat in his chest. It wasn't anything like that. It wasn't like it'd been when he was younger, or when he wasn't, and he'd been left. It didn't make him want to scream or cry or even sit there and sulk in self-pity.

It was mostly the little things.

Like seeing something stupid on telly and knowing only one person would get the joke if he'd made it. Like standing in the kitchen and fucking up Freddie's formula and banging his head against the counter and expecting a voice to tell him not to hurt himself automatically, almost hearing that rusty drawl, almost feeling the hot breath against nape of his neck, and then remembering; he'd never get to feel that again.

The night's were the worst.

He lied awake for hours. He did manage to fall asleep at last, most nights anyway, when he drew Freddie out of his crib and kept him close. But the hours before he finally fell into the sweet oblivion of sleep were so dreadful. So long. He didn't miss the sex, not yet anyway. He didn't miss the kisses or the pillow-talks, not yet. He just missed, as childish and pathetic as it sounded, being held. He missed the arms around him, the smell and the warmth of Harry on him. He missed it so intensely, remembered the feel of it so vividly, that the mere thought of letting someone else do it just to fill the void made him want to cry.

But he'd get over it. He knew how to have people leave and he knew how to make it be okay. If he didn't, he wouldn't be the man he was today.

Niall came home from the grocer at 1 pm friday afternoon. Louis was lying in bed, toddler's running around somewhere out of sight and Freddie down for a nap. He hadn't bothered getting dressed, couldn't remember the last time he'd had a reason to.

"Buy cigarette's?" Louis asked, because he was smoking his last one now and the prospects of not having another between his fingers the second it died seemed impossible.

Niall chucked a fresh pack at him. "Thought we weren't doing that inside?" he muttered, feigning irritation.

The other days, Louis had tried not to smoke inside when Niall was there. Niall knew he was doing it anyway, because the room reeked almost aggressively, but it had seemed like something to do. Making a point of at least caring enough to lie. Today though, he hadn't bothered putting down his cigarette in time. Maybe he'd thought Niall wouldn't be home for another fifteen minutes. Maybe he'd just hoped Niall wouldn't notice. Maybe he'd just found Harry's boxers in the laundry and cut them up with scissors and launched them over the balcony when he'd found they'd been rinsed of his smelll.

"Lou," Niall sighed, sitting down with him. Louis braced himself for a half-arsed reprimand about the smoking. It didn't come. Niall picked a smoke out and beckoned for Louis to light it for him. He took a long drag, puffed out into the room and sighed again, before he finally said something; "I'm starting work next week."