Chapter Text
The duvet cover slides down his legs as easily as if it was made of silk. Louis turns around in his bed and puts his feet down, cold floor touching his bare skin as he shivers. He stands up, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand while he with lazy steps makes his way out of the bedroom and over the carpet. In the middle of the carpet though, he stops, blinks and stares down to his feet. His naked toes curl into the carpet, carefully, like it could bite them off any minute. Even though the carpet has been there since they first moved in, Louis can’t help to feel like something’s extremely different about it; or wrong, perhaps. He does not know, but is immediately disgusted by the thought of what his toes are actually curling around and what it is in the carpet tickling his feet, so by that he keeps on walking. They really need to vacuum.
Louis shivers and quickly wraps his arms around himself while making his way to the kitchen. Why is it so cold?
“Tea.” The word is small, quiet and a bit shaky, but enough to remind Louis that Harry is actually holding out a tea cup with his favourite tea for him and even though Louis can’t stop wondering why the fuck Harry is up in what he guesses is the asscrack of dawn making tea out of all things, he still takes the cup from his shaky hand. This he does with a wrinkle in his forehead, eyebrows drawn together. He stares down at the cup he just took into the both of his hands, then up at Harry with his blue eyes piercing into his like they were reading his soul. Truth is he actually wishes he could, because he’s so very damn confused by now, it’s killing him. So he opens his mouth, but doesn’t get a word out, so he closes it again and mumbles a thank you. He then lifts the cup up to his lips to take a small sip of the hot liquid. It burns the walls of his throat and he clears it directly after, eyes dropping to Harry’s feet which are crossed. This, Louis has learned, is a nervous manner of his and makes Louis wonder even more what the hell is going on. When he looks up again, Harry is biting his bottom lip with his front teeth, but this time Louis doesn’t even bother to call him out. Instead, Louis drops his head to the side and stares up at the younger boy before him.
“Are you high?” he blurts suddenly. Ironically, since what’s been happening in his life until now literally has revolved around drugs, those not taken by Harry. Or maybe that is what is going to happen? Or maybe it’s just his imagination, it’s all in his head. Maybe? He doesn’t know. One more thing he doesn’t know is why this is the first thing that comes to mind, Harry being high, but his eyes are a bit cloudy and he’s acting really strange. Louis has got this really strange feeling of déjà vu by now.
Harry immediately frowns. “N-no, why would you think that?”
Yes, the feeling of déjà vu is definitely there and it’s scaring him shitless.
“Well, you’re shaking pretty badly,” Louis mutters as an answer. Harry just shrugs.
“’M not high.”
“Then what the fuck is up? Because I wanna go back to bed and you’re kind of scaring me, to be honest.”
Louis feels quite selfish to say this, but he can’t help it. He’s so extremely tired and no, he doesn’t mind taking care of the younger boy because after all, he’s his best friend and he’d do anything for him, but sometimes a prince needs his beauty sleep, you know?
Harry sighs and shakes his head. “It’s complicated.” he mutters.
“Well, everything’s complicated in the early hours, innit?” And there it is again, the feeling that this very moment has happened before.
Louis has barely touched his tea, and neither has Harry. He just stares, but Harry seems to only have eyes for the ceiling. And perhaps something actually interesting is up there, but Louis doesn’t care because he has decided, as the annoying fuck he is, to stare at Harry until he gives in and tells him what the heck is up so they can go to sleep again.
“Sooo…?”
Harry sighs. He licks his lips and suddenly he looks right at Louis, and Louis becomes extremely aware of how intense the green colour in his eyes actually is. It’s almost a shining colour – or maybe it’s the light – but it even gets him to the point where he’s quite terrified. Still he stares back, right into his eyes, green meets blue, and Harry parts his lips to say the least expected thing in the whole wide world:
“I'm in love with you.”
For just a second, Louis’ entire world stops. The earth stops spinning, the air stops running through his lungs. The feeling of déjà vu is stronger than ever before, it almost tears his body apart, ripping at his flesh and bones until there’s nothing left of him but a beating heart. Still, the feeling is calming; comfortable, even. It’s almost like it feels safe, knowing this has happened before.
Louis looks at Harry. He takes it all in, every centimeter of his pale skin and bright eyes and messy curls. He swallows him with his eyes, piercing and blue, and he doesn’t understand how he hasn’t seen just how beautiful Harry is. He doesn’t understand how he hasn’t realized how gorgeous he is – until now. He’s overwhelming. It’s like looking at the sun, so bright he shines, and Louis almost needs to squint his eyes. It feels like his breath is just immediately taken away from him, beaten out of his lungs by Harry’s beauty, because he really is out of this world.
The first thing Louis realizes is that he’s been given a second chance; a second chance to do the right thing. Either that, or he literally just dreamt about his future and this is the real truth in the real world. Maybe nothing of what just happened, happened. Maybe, even though Louis is having a hard time believing it, it was all a dream – which would by the way be a lot more likely than that he would’ve been sent back into the past just to make the right choice. But either way, Louis has now been given a second chance to fix his life.
That’s the first thing he realizes.
The second thing Louis realizes is that life is short – way too short to not be honest, especially to yourself. Too short to take any risks. Too short to waste it on things that don’t even fucking matter, especially when you have the chance to do the opposite; too short to live.
The third thing Louis realizes is that he loves Harry.