24 CHRISTMAS EVES [larry stylinson AU]

13th

"Why won't we meet your family this year?" Eleanor asks when they wake up on the morning of Christmas Eve.

"No'', says Louis quickly.

''Why?''

''Just no.''

"Babe, why?''

''No. And besides, they're not my family. I was a foster child.''

''You don't mean that. They still text you. They still call you. I'd like to –''

"Just shut it. No. No. Nonono.''

''Lou –''

''I. Don't. Wanna. Talk. About. It.''

''Clear'', she mutters and gets up off the bed. After realising she's completely naked, she pulls the blanket around herself and walks to a wardrobe to change. She keeps mumbling something Louis can't hear but right now he doesn't really care. He's just received a message from his... father. It's just a birthday wish, but it squeezes his lungs and turns his stomach upside-down.

Louis leaves the room and slouches into the kitchen, where he takes a cold bottle of Carlsberg out of the fridge for breakfast. He sits beside the counter on a bar stool thing-y and stares outside of the window in front of his eyes. It's raining. Fucking surprising, he thinks. He takes a long sip and the icy drink feels freezing in his throat.

He thinks about the previous year and all its props and cons and somehow there seem not to be anything good to remember. He manages, barely, with his studies and that's a kind of good thing. At least he's not fully failing. His football team on the other hand is not doing too great. Playing still feels like the thing he could do for the rest of his life, because it still gives him a rush of a lifetime and because it's the only thing he's able to canalize his reckless emotions. But his team has literally sucked this year and it's not his fault but sometimes he does think that, because after all, he's the captain.

Things have kind of sucked with Eleanor this year too, mostly because she's working all the time and Louis just finds it impossible to sleep alone, not feeling someone's heartbeats in his members. And it's not just the fact Louis can't live without her; she also can't live without him. They're attached to a hip. They're inseparable until someone else steals their hearts. But in the situation in where they're both living - working like crazy and taking studies at the same time - it's impossible to shake the safety of the feeling that the other one is there all the time, holding your hand, falling asleep next to you, having your back in every situation the repetitious life brings out. And right now there's not a chance someone to steal their hearts, because neither of them really hasn't one anymore. At least they're not using them other than pumping blood.

They might say that they love each other, but in the end they both know they're here and now because they cannot be alone and they're too busy to find someone else to hang to. Perhaps there was a time when they made each other's happy, but don't all the couples have that at the start? When everything is new and exciting? Now it's monotonous and definitely not exciting at all. Louis just loves the thought of having someone to fall asleep with and – no, he's not happy with that – he accepts that. It's better than nothing.

And after all, there's not particularly anything wrong with Eleanor. There's just lots of things wrong in Louis himself, at least he thinks so. I'm still a mess. And always will be, he thinks, sipping yet another bottle of icy beer.

x

In the evening Louis realises he has done absolutely nothing during the day, barely has even spoken to Eleanor. So, he decides to head to a pub because this is not the way to spend a birthday.