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Louis finds him in the washroom at four o clock in the morning.
The lights are dim, the building quiet, but less eerie and more- peaceful. Louis like his apartment building, it’s small, but it’s cozy, and a family of six is a tight squeeze, but. It’s nice, nonetheless, and it always smells like apple cinnamon, probably because of the old lady on the bottom floor who is constantly baking and sending deserts up to his suite.
He’s wandering around- he often does this, passes the front desk security woman who is almost always asleep (she takes the night shift to pay for her only son’s ballet class, bless her soul), checks the mail, takes the bills out so his mum doesn’t have to stress. He likes to wander, and it’s quiet, the sun not quite awake but the moon falling asleep, a state of limbo. Likes to pass his reflections in the many mirrors hung on the walls, despite the fact that he wishes to see anyone else but himself.
He doesn’t expect to find another person.
“Harry,” he breathes, startled and confused.
Green eyes, red rimmed and glossy, meet his. “Lou,” Harry says, and his voice cracks a little.
He doesn’t really know Harry well, just that he lives in the building, the first floor, and that back in the day Louis and Harry’s older sister, Gemma, were good mates, and he’d always see the head of curly hair passing through, but Louis never actually paid much attention. Didn’t have a reason to, he supposes.
“Are you alright?” Louis asks, tentatively and softly, taking a careful step forward. Harry looks shaken up, and Louis isn’t quite sure what to do.
Harry sniffs, wipes his eyes, and then laughs, a strained sound that warms Louis’ heart nonetheless.
“Laundry,” he says, like he’s explaining everything wrong with the world. “I can’t do laundry.”
Louis is tired, sure of the bags under his eyes, suddenly hyper aware of his jammies and the fact that he is bra-less. He hates it. He pushes all of it to the back of his mind.
“That’s nothing to fret about, love,” he says instinctually, walking over to examine Harry’s load.
He peers inside the washer. Harry’s mixed his dark blues with his lights on warm water. The bin is a blur of wet colors. He can’t help it. He laughs.
Harry laughs too, something musical, but confused all the same.
“M’not sure what I did wrong,” he admits, voice slow and breath hot on Louis’ shoulder.
Louis straightens up, then puts the wash to rinse, drain, and presets a second rewash, cold water. He explains all of it to Harry, like he’s teaching Lottie how to do her wash for the first time. Harry listens intently, so much energy for four in the morning.
He doesn’t know how it happens, but he ends up sitting on top of the washer, coming to when the machine slows to a stop. The clock on the wall reads fifteen til five. He must have dozed off. Harry’s sitting in the chair at the table in the far corner meant for folding, hand under his cheek, neck awkwardly bent over his elbows, drooling slightly. Louis smiles.
“Harry,” he says quietly, not a whisper but not quite so forcefully. He repeats himself three times before Harry wakes up.
“Lou,” Harry mumbles, and it sounds like a nickname, could be a nickname, but Louis knows it’s not.
“Your load is done, love,” Louis tells him. “Do you want to dry in the machine or hang them up?”
Harry stretches, yawns, blinking slowly. “Can you put everything in the dryer? It seems easier, so I can pick it up in the morning.”
“It’s already morning,” Louis grins sloppily, but obliges anyway. Why is he doing this? Harry can stick his clothes into the machine by himself.
“Thank you,” Harry says quietly when he’s done, green eyes sleepy but wide and genuine. The world falls away for a second. Louis almost forgets.
“Of course,” he responds, sniffing from the cold.
“Gemma usually helps me,” Harry explains suddenly. “Now she’s off at uni, and. I suppose she was right.”
“What do you mean?” Louis asks, leaning against the machine for support, the weight of not having slept starting to fall on him.
Harry smiles. “Girls are much better at laundry than boys, yeah? I’d be a proper mess had you not come along.”
Almost. Louis almost forgets. But then he doesn’t. Doesn’t forget who he is or what he’s trapped in, hyper aware of the weight on his chest or the braids in his head, the boys in his life who are good and the ones who aren’t. He finds the reason he can’t sleep at night again.
“I should head back upstairs,” he tells Harry quietly. He’s suffocating. Everything is too much and he is not enough and he hates himself for what exists but loves himself for what doesn’t.
Harry’s eyes get wider. “Was that offensive?” he asks. Louis sidesteps around him, shaking his head.
“I’m really sorry,” Harry apologizes. “I’m really, really sorry. I usually don’t make comments like that, and I didn’t mean that in a misogynistic way, and I don’t see you as some sort of housewife object or whatever. I just meant like, girls are more clever, yeah? Because you’re really clever, sorting out my color problem and all that. I didn’t mean to sound sexist or anything.” He rambles on, but it kind of blurs out for Louis.
“It’s fine,” Louis says quietly, and, it is. With Harry, it is. Harry doesn’t know.
“You’re beautiful,” Harry blurts, then covers his mouth. “I’m really sorry about that, too, honestly I haven’t had much sleep, I’m usually not like this, but I see you a lot at school and here, well not here, in the washroom, I really didn’t expect to see you here, but you are and you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever met and-“
Louis cuts him off with a half smiles and a “Harry, it’s fine.”
It’s quiet for too long, so he adds, “I’m just really tired, is all.” And, that’s not a lie. He is. Tired, that is. But in different ways, like it’s a sticky exhaustion clinging to the depths of his consciousness and fogging up his lungs, and. He’s just tired.
“Okay,” Harry says softly, giving up but also not. “Good night,” he tells Louis, dopey grin that subsides Louis for a second long enough to return it.
“Na night, Harry,” Louis says.
Louis crawls into bed, duvet cold but welcoming. It takes him a while, but he’s warm and thinking of green eyes when he finally falls asleep.