Red Brick Heart

3

The rest of Freshers' Week is a blur of drunkenness and the associated hangovers: Louis likes to climb into Harry's bed when he's drunk, and Harry doesn't stop him, curling his whole body around him and tickling him with his curls so that Louis splutters and wriggles indignantly as they pass out. He still doesn't stop him when they go out, when Louis sits on Harry's lap at predrinks, or when he digs his fingers into Harry's hips and holds him close and whispers into his neck and dances up close when they're at the club. Harry starts thinking that this is it, that he should kiss him now, because he's never wanted to kiss anyone – let alone another boy – as much as he's been wanting to kiss Louis for the last seven days. He's about to do it on the last night of Freshers' Week when he loses Louis for five minutes and finds him again with his tongue stuck down another guy's throat. Tall. Blonde. Harry's heart drops so fast it's almost physically painful.

"So," Liam says, when Harry follows him and Niall outside for a smoke, unable to stay on the dancefloor without watching Louis having his neck sucked on by the fucking vampire he's getting off with, "Louis's gay, then."

Harry tenses up a bit: Liam seems like the sort who'd have a problem with it. He picks at the sleeve of his jumper and coughs quietly into his fist.

"So?" Niall says, and Harry's heart swells a little. "Christ, what does it matter? Good for him getting some, that's what I say. I've been trying to get a girl to come home with me since last Saturday, I'm fucking off my game, man."

Liam takes the cigarette from Niall, puffing and saying, "Mate, you need to start following Zayn around. The girls literally throw themselves on him. Not that he's taken any of them up on their offers, or that I've seen, anyway."

"Do you really not mind that he's gay?" Harry blurts out, drunk and bold. Niall frowns at him.

"No, why, do you?"

"No," Harry says, and then the silence stretches and he looks from Liam to Niall and back again. Niall throws an arm around his shoulders.

"Good on ya. Love an open mind. Mind you, I'd let him know it'd be best not to take it back to your room tonight. Unless you want the full show, that is."

"No way," Harry says, far too emphatically, but then the smoke is tickling his throat again and he goes back inside to find one of the girls or Zayn. He finds the girls outside, absolutely hammered and with what looks like several dozen empty Jagerbomb glasses around them. Zayn is holding Perrie upright, his hand just a little too high on her waist, and Harry regrets asking, "Are you okay?" when Jade promptly throws up on the table.

Harry goes home early with Jade, who gets kicked out of the club and can't make it to the taxi without being sick again; he sits with her while she throws up in the toilet and puts her to bed and waits up but Louis doesn't come back.

When his alarm goes off at seven thirty Louis is still not there, and he's the only person awake when he drags himself out of bed and into the kitchen for a cup of tea and some toast. It's Monday morning – it's also raining, how unappealing – and as Harry sits and chews his toast and tries not to fall asleep where he sits he realises that this is it – the shit side of uni. The working part.

He'd had an introductory lecture on Thursday, but it was more a meet-and-greet, a time to make a few acquaintances and get some reading lists. Harry's tried to do some preparatory reading but Louis always distracts him, watching TV on his laptop without headphones, so Harry inevitably gives up and crosses the room to sit with him and watch the rest of the show.  Today is the start of real lectures: he's got two hours, nine til eleven, then a free afternoon which he had originally planned to spend in the library but is now contemplating just going home for a nap.