Chapter Text
*
The cement wall is hard against his back, the cold seeping through the fabric of his dress jacket, settling into his bones.
It’s been hours. He can’t tell exactly how long because they took his watch, along with his shoelaces, and the chain he always wears around his neck. It’s the first time he’s taken it off for anything other than to shower, and his neck feels weird without it. Naked.
He’s still riding the last of the high, but it won’t be long before he comes down. His fingers are starting to twitch, ever so slightly, and there’s a dull thrumming in his temples, slowly spreading around his head. God, he could really use a drink right now.
He can hear steps right outside the cell, the sound of them mixing with the thump, thump, thump of his heart, pounding in his ears. He’s no expert, but something tells him that regardless of the situation he’s gotten himself into, his heart should not be beating almost out of his chest while he’s lying down. He tries to will it to slow down, to no avail. The footsteps walk away, and Louis is left alone.
There are no windows in this cell, and the door isn’t barred, but a thick metal plate with a peephole. There’s a lamp on the wall behind him that blinks every so often, leaving him in almost complete darkness for moments at a time until it decides to work again. When that happens, the dim light that filters through the peephole washes over the first half of the room, and Louis’ shadow shifts, transforms, and he would swear his hair grows four inches, his shoulders broaden—he hears his own voice, morphing, deepening, a soft, cheerful melody filling his ears, lyrics at the tip of his tongue.
It’s only the drugs.
He shakes his head, closes his eyes, and by the time he opens them again, the lamp is back on, and Louis’ shadow has disappeared almost completely.
A voice in the back of his head keeps asking about Harry, but the high had been strong enough that he’s managed to ignore it so far, to focus on something else. It’s fading now, and the little voice keeps getting stronger. The same question, over and over again, and it makes Louis slam his fist against the wall because it doesn’t fucking matter what Harry thinks. Shouldn’t matter. That’s all done with, anyway.
And if there had been any chance, a sliver of hope of fixing things before, it’s definitely gone now. He wonders how long until the news hit the papers, the radio stations. How long until everyone in the country is hearing about what a fuck-up Louis Tomlinson is? He can’t help wondering what Harry will think when he hears, if he’ll shake his head, frown knowingly because he’d warned everyone that this was going to happen, and no one listened.
Especially Louis.
He hears footsteps outside his cell again, only this time they stop in front of the door. The peephole opens, but it’s too small to see anything but a pair of brown eyes staring at him.
“Tomlinson, you’re out of here,” the man says, his voice muffled by the sound of the clinking keys as he opens the door.
For a moment, Louis thinks that maybe it isn’t the end of the world, that maybe there’s a way he can get out of this one undamaged, and then he turns at the end of the corridor and there, on the other side of the glass door, is Harry.