Red Brick Heart

5

"That's your alarm, Lou."

"Mmpf."

"Please turn it off."

"Mmmmmpf."

"Lou. Louis. Lewis."

Harry doesn't want to open his eyes, so he just rolls over so he's basically on top of Louis, knee landing on his thigh and elbow hitting his ribs as he nuzzles his face against his back. Louis makes an ooff noise and grumbles, "Gerroff, Harold, I can't breathe-"

"Turn your bloody alarm off then I'll move," Harry says into the fabric of Louis's t-shirt, despite his words cuddling a little closer. Louis sighs again, wriggling so he can reach his phone on the floor, and then there's blessed silence. Nobody moves.

"You need to get out of bed to go to your lectures," Harry reminds him. Louis folds one arm under his head, the other reaching down to pinch Harry's bare thigh and listing off the exact same things he says every week.

"Not going if Zayn doesn't go, first year doesn't count, what's the point?"

"The point is," Harry says, stifling a yawn in Louis's shoulderblade, "you're paying for this. You only have seven hours of lectures a week. This is your only one before midday and also it's the only day I get a lie-in-"

"Maybe you should just go back to sleep and stop moaning, then," Louis mumbles. His hand is still on Harry's thigh. Harry rolls off of him, body hitting the wall as he does so (it is quite a tiny bed) and throwing an arm over his eyes.

"Remind me when you're leaving my room?"

"When someone else has had enough of this place and drops out." Louis's voice is no longer muffled by the pillow, and the bed dips and sways as he shuffles around.

"You'd think that one person would have dropped out by now."

"Hey, Styles," Louis whines, prodding him on his third nipple (he has to ignore the dull spark it sends to his cock, like he has to ignore a lot of things lately), "you trying to get rid of me?"

"Yeah. Can't stand you," Harry says vaguely, already falling back asleep.

"Me neither."

Harry smiles as he feels Louis settle back down on the bed, pulling the duvet up and knocking their ankles together. Louis's skin is freezing, it's always freezing, and the temptation to pull him into his chest so he's acting as his own personal electric blanket is occasionally almost overwhelming.

"Promise me you'll go to your lectures this week," Harry says. It's the end of October and Louis – Zayn too, actually – has already unwaveringly decided all his lectures apart from his Drama workshop on Thursday afternoons are pointless.

"Maybe," Louis says, infuriatingly coy.

"I'll stop making you dinner."

"I'll stop sleeping in your bed."

"Fine. Good, even."

Louis goes for the nipple again, this time one of the proper ones, and gives it a harsh pinch. Harry's eyes fly open and he only just bites back a gasp.

"Fuck off, Lewis, that hurt."

"Want me to kiss it better?"

There's a static silence after that. They haven't talked about the kiss – which Harry's still not sure Louis actually remembers  – and he can't decide whether that's a good or bad thing, though he does think he's going to go insane if he doesn't tell someone soon how he feels. They absolutely don't talk about when Harry wakes up with a raging boner that won't go down after Louis has been wriggling and writhing up against him all night. And they don't ever talk about how when they watch films just the two of them, sitting up against the wall on Harry's bed, Louis sometimes rests his hand on Harry's thigh or his head on Harry's shoulder or, just the once, when he took Harry's hand in both of his own and just left it in his lap, playing absently with his fingers.