Red Brick Heart

14

He wakes up on the last Wednesday before term ends with the worse hangover in the world, his mouth dry and sticky, his hair plastered to his forehead. The room is still spinning as he struggles out of bed, balancing himself on the wall for a moment before deciding the bathroom is probably about twenty feet too far away and taking a piss in the sink. Once he's done he flops face-down back on the bed again, heart rabbitting away in his ears from all the exertion, wondering whether he's going to be sick or his head's going to split open from the pain. He tries to remember how he got home the night before, or anything at all, really: it was Quids In Tuesday at one of the student bars in town, and the girls had wanted to go out and had basically dragged them along with him. He'd finished off the vodka he and Louis usually shared – which, now he thinks back on it, was a lot – and all he remembers from being at the club is singing along at the top of his voice to all the songs and doing shots with the girls. Lots of shots.

And...Mark Fennelly.

He whimpers into his pillow, his stomach giving a traitorous lurch at the memory. He'd been out with a bunch of people Harry didn't recognise, and there was definitely no Louis in sight, but he was – fuck. He was so offensively attractive, with his arm around some skinny brunette Perrie seemed to know, there's no wonder Louis wants him rather than Harry. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck.

He sleeps through his three-hour seminar because the mere thought of even leaving his room makes him want to heave, and by the time he wakes up again at one his hangover has subsided to the tiniest grumble in his stomach and he feels capable of sitting up and eating some mango chips he finds stashed behind his laptop on the desk. He sits cross-legged on his bed, chewing carefully as he reaches for his phone – urgh, sticky with alcohol, he dreads to think what happened last night – to find he has about fifteen snapchats waiting for him. He has no idea what he sent to provoke this, but he scrolls through them all fairly amused, until he gets right to the last one. Louis Tomlinson. He stops chewing, stomach growling with anticipation as he holds his finger down over it.

It's not a picture of Louis, somewhat disappointingly: it looks like an essay on a computer screen, with the caption: u kissin boys n me doin work, how things change.

Harry just stares at it, not noticing the timer as it clicks down and then vanishes. Kissing boys. What the...? He doesn't remember that at all.

He scrabbles out of bed, pulling on a pair of pants – no time for jeans – and wrenching his door open, peeking into the empty kitchen before knocking quietly on Jesy's door.

"Whozzat?" a blurry voice calls from inside.

"Me, Harry, I need – can I come in, Jess, I need to ask you something-"

He's cut off as Jesy opens the door, squinty-eyed and wearing only an oversized Chelsea football shirt.

"Wha? Woss going on?" she says, rubbing her eyes. "Cor, Harry, what a bod you're hiding under all those baggy hipster clothes-"

"Did I get with anyone last night?" Jesy frowns, though she's still staring at his stomach. He reflexively covers his nipples. Well, the big ones. "This is important, Jess-"

"I don't – oh, could be," she says thoughtfully, shifting her weight onto one leg. "I remember you snapchatting it – hang on, I haven't checked my phone yet-"

He steps into her room – which smells overwhelmingly and rather nauseatingly of peach schnapps –  as she grabs her phone off the desk and unlocks it. She grins as she turns it to him.

"Nice one."

Harry's eyes widen in shock as he sees the picture: it's blurry, of him and some boy he doesn't recognise, their lips not quite matching in the UV glow of the club.