Play Pretend, Find a Friend? (Larry Stylinson)

11

XI.

The thing about sex dreams was that they changed something inside you. When you woke up, you saw the world differently. Or, at the very least, what you saw differently was one specific person.

Louis startled awake.

He was afraid to open his eyes. He was incredibly warm and cozy and he thought that if he opened his eyes, the illusion would shatter. It still felt real. He could still feel the skin on skin and heady pleasure. The details of his dream were still fresh in his mind.

In real life, his fingers were twisted around something soft. In his dream, his fingers had been twisted around someone's hair. His hair. Harry's hair.

He cracked one eye open—to see nothing but skin.

So Louis' face was pressed to Harry's bare back. His hand was twisted into the side of his plaid pajama pants, near the pocket, clinging to the fabric. One of Louis' ankles was tucked neatly between Harry's. It just kept getting worse and worse. Harry was still asleep, thank god, his breathing pattern long and slow, and Louis felt it more than heard it, because he was so close to his back that he could feel his lungs expanding and deflating through his ribcage.

Louis didn't even have to shift his hips to know he was hard. He could feel it, the hot throbbing sensitivity. How good it felt to be pressed up against another warm body.

He tried not to think about who that body belonged to. He tried not to panic. If he wanted to disentangle himself without Harry noticing, he would have to move with the utmost care and precision.

Slowly, slowly, he unwound his fingers from the fabric of Harry's pajama pants and retracted his own hand back to his chest.

Somehow, stupidly, the small movement jostled them both.

Harry sniffled, and then froze. Louis cringed.

Oh shit, he thought.

"Louis?" His voice was deep and raw from sleep, like he'd since dipped it into a jar of honey.

He very carefully did not move. When he spoke, his own voice was equally shot to hell, and the word puffed out on Harry's skin in a humid breath because of the incredibly close proximity. All at once, it felt much too intimate. "Yes?"

The question was muffled by the pillow and swaths of sheets. "What's..." the long s drawn out in a sigh, "going on?"

"Umm," Louis eloquently stated, mind running a mile a minute, already starting to sweat. He was pressed up against Harry, certain things were touching Harry, Louis had just had a strange, explicit dream about having sex with Harry.

"Are you- Is that-"

Louis had no intention of ever finding out what Harry was asking. He shuffled backwards as far as he could, almost toppling over the edge of the mattress, but his foot was still caught between Harry's ankles.

He yanked his leg to free it, and the momentum sent him over the edge. He had no time to flail before he hit the floor—hard.

The thud rang through the air but Louis ignored it, scrambling backwards. His hand bumped into his phone, discarded on the floor. He gathered the rest of his belongings, not much, just his raincoat and his shoes.

It was still dark in the room so it must've been early in the morning, right? He stumbled to his feet, eyes landing on Harry in bed who was rubbing his eyes sleepily, leaning back on his elbows, looking confused.

"What's going on?" he repeated in that same slow, sleepy drawl, just as lost as before. His hair was messy, sticking up in different places, and now was not the time to think that Harry Styles looked even sexier than usual upon just waking up. In his dream, Louis had twisted his fingers all up in that hair. Real life Louis knew what that felt like, how soft his hair actually was, because he had done the same thing the night at the party, when Louis attacked him in a kiss. Fuck.

"Go back to sleep," Louis encouraged in a stilted voice. The strategic placement of his raincoat concealed his crotch. Maybe Harry would assume this had all been a dream? One could only hope.

"Louis?" Harry tried one more time, sounding more like Lou-eh, but he received no response, because Louis was already out the door. Quite literally running.

He had never been this much of a mess. Stumbling out of a frat house, barefoot on the cold ground, shoes in hand, wondering what day it was. It was a Tuesday morning, wasn't it? Shit, he had to get to class. He had no idea what time it was. This was the ultimate walk of shame, worse than having sex with a stranger. Louis had a dream about Harry while huddled up against his back, presumably drawn to his irresistible warmth and his intoxicating aroma of fancy bath products and musky sweat. Louis had a dream about Harry that involved bedroom activities. He was going to keel over and die.

The sky was dark and no one was out. Maybe it was earlier than he thought. His phone was dead. His head was pounding with a killer migraine, definitely a hangover from drinking all that wine last night.

He considered puking in the bushes, but he didn't even feel nauseous. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins, so he kept running, barefoot, down the street, all the way back to his dorm.

Stumbling into his room was not one of his brightest moments. Niall was asleep and peaceful in bed, dead to the world, snoring. It looked like he hadn't even taken his golf clothes off before passing out. The time on the alarm clock glowed artificial blue in the otherwise dark room. 5:22 AM.

Louis smacked his hand over his head. It was much earlier than he thought. He had at least three hours to pull himself together before his day started.

He trudged down the hall to the communal showers, already admitting defeat. He was, in fact, going to jerk off to the dream memory of Harry taking him in his hand and kissing the sensitive, tingly skin just below his ear as he got him off. There was no point in denying it. The dreamy hazel, the warm press of bodies, the velvety feel of skin on skin... all of it still felt real.