under the cut is an excerpt from my 70′s au that i felt compelled to share given louis’ recent shirt choice :’))
...It doesn’t take long at all for the weed to catch up with them, leaving them in a flushed, giggly heap on the floor. He doesn’t remember when or why exactly they’d decided to lay on the floor of the recording studio, but when he finds himself comfortably pressed shoulder to shoulder with Harry, he’s grateful nonetheless.
They laugh at Simon’s horrible fashion sense and how the shoes he wore last week gave him the appearance of having tiny hooves, at Zayn’s magnificent Bob Dylan impression, at one another. Their laughter only spurs forth more laughter, until they don’t even know what was actually even funny in the first place. Time fees like it stretches on slowly.
“We should listen to something,” Louis says suddenly, stretching out like a cat on the floor. It feels incredible. He feels like he could sink into it forever. He thinks he might already be.
“You’re not,” Harry says abruptly, as he stands to fiddle with the dials on the desk in the hopes that at least one of them will somehow magically get a track playing.
“What?”
“Sinking,” Harry clarifies. “You’re not sinking.”
“Didn’t realize I said that out loud,” Louis laughs, heart jackhammering in his chest. Fuck. What other stupid shit has he been letting slip out? He wills the sudden onslaught of anxiety bubbling in his stomach to die down, instead focusing on the shape of Harry’s shoulders, shirt stretching taut against his back as he rummages through a stack of albums.
After what feels like forever but in actuality is probably closer to a few minutes, through trial and error with the litany of buttons on the desk Harry wondrously does end up getting music to play - and Louis recognizes the album instantly with a groan.
Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’.
“Oh, man,” Louis sighs. “This record makes me head hurt.”
“What? Why?” Harry asks, voice tinged with concern, resuming his place on the floor with Louis.
“It makes me all… existential like,” he sighs. “Makes me think too hard. Just does my head in.”
“‘S a good album,” Harry nods contentedly to the phaser-heavy guitar intro, his eyes red, lids heavy. Louis feels like he’s sinking again, and this time he welcomes the feeling. He wants to sink into the floor, melt into a puddle, become nothing more than a malleable pile of matter for Harry to mend into whatever shape he’d like.
“I think that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do, right? I think… I think it’s all a metaphor for life.”
“Okay, Curly,” Louis teases. “You’re stoned.”
“Piss off,” Harry laughs, nudging Louis’ shoulder with his own. “m’ serious. I’ve thought about it a lot.”
Louis smiles. Despite his teasing, he wants to drink endlessly from the newfound fountain of knowledge Harry proclaims to be.
“I’m guessing you don’t think it has anything to do with the usual good and evil, dark and light?”
Harry shakes his head firmly. “No.”
“Alright. Hit me with your philosophies, then, wise guy.”
“So I think the album is telling two cautionary tales, split down the middle,” Harry begins, rolling flat onto his back. Louis hum, considering, watching in fascination at the way Harry’s ribcage rises and falls while David Gilmour’s voice croons on all around them about fearlessness.
“One half is warning you about the perils of an unfulfilling life. The other side is about the things that keep you from living the life you’re supposed to. Greed, war, going mad, you know, all that.”
Louis nods sagely, hanging onto every word. He’s not quite registering what Harry’s saying, not really, too hyper-focused on the pinkness of Harry’s lips and the way they move when he forms words, but he thinks it makes sense.
“The album ends and begins with a heartbeat, right? So everything in between those two songs make up life’s journey. It’s like... a life cycle. The story of a life unlived. Or lived, depending on how you look at it.”
“Wow, Haz,” he whispers breathily, suddenly feeling like he’s on unsteady footing.
He wonders what Harry knows about unhappiness, where his life could possibly fall short - and if it’s in the same areas as Louis’ own. Namely, the feelings - and lack of feelings - that he doesn’t quite know what to do with. He wonders if Harry would be disgusted with him if he brought them up, or if their freak-show similarities would overlap.
He wonders if he could ever be enough to be a remarkable part of Harry’s life journey.
Harry says nothing but turns his head, big doe eyes sleepily searching Louis’ for some sort of affirmation. It’s immediately far too intense, their faces aligned like this, and the proximity of Harry’s plush mouth is making Louis’ head feel dizzy. The ground feels like it might be spinning beneath him.
He forces himself to sit upright.
“That’s actually quite smart,” he rushes out. “Maybe we should smoke more often. Eventually we’ll have you solving world peace.”
“You wanker,” Harry slaps at him blindly, rolling his eyes, and Louis laughs it off. They dissolve back into a fit of giggles, the moment quickly passing with Harry seeming none the wiser.
Louis’ anxiety creeps upon him once more as they sit silently through the grand wailing chorus of ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’, the thought of embracing death with open arms a little morbid, a little raw.
Harry’s garish two-tone trainers tap to the beat, and Louis’ eyes dart down to them. He can’t help but to be entranced. Everything Harry does is noteworthy. Everything Harry does puts Louis on high alert. It’s fucked up, really.
“If you can hear this whispering, you are dying,” the track murmurs to it’s audience of two, enveloping them whole.
On the inside, Louis feels a little like he very well may be.
