Chapter Text
“…..I wish I knew why everyone hates me, except Nick Grimshaw and my mum. What did I, Louis William Tomlinson, do wrong to make them turn their rotting tails on me? I suppose I’ll never really know what everyone thinks of me, though I’ve been told it’s all negative. With that in mind and the fact that nobody really loves me, I wish to at least get out of the picture. Weather I die or not, you’ll never know. Will you see my dead corpse in the middle of the lake houses? Or will you just see me living a perfect life in Denver, with the man of my dreams? Hopefully, if everything goes right, none of the ones I was ever close to will know…..”
It was a crisp autumn morning the day Louis disappears, and Nick just has this sinking feeling the moment he wakes up that something awry is happening to his day.
He groans as he rolls on his side in bed, grabbing his phone and turning the alarm off, deciding he might as well get ready for school. Unlike most days where he’ll arrive late enough to have missed first period psych and just slink into the classroom and seat himself beside his best friend, Louis Tomlinson.
Nick hums to himself as he prepares for the day, opting for a simple tank-top blue jeans combination seeing as it was Monday and he frankly didn’t care at that point. He puts those on, and pushes a pair of ragged, dirty green converse towards his bathroom as he goes to finish preparations in there.
It’s a time later that Nick emerges from his tiny, cramped bathroom that screams ‘six year old boy’, with decent hair that he accepts for the day. His dog, Lex, has somehow gotten in his room (his suspects his mum) and is head-deep in his schoolbag. Nick runs over and grabs Lex by her middle, gently scolding her as he places her on his bed, where the little mutt knows she’s welcome.
“You’re a naughty pup, aren’t you, Lexie?” Nick mutters as he plops on his bed, a loud squeal emitting from it as he put his weight on it. The only reply he gets is the small bark from Lex, who butts her bony head into his side, making him grunt rudely.
Nick and Lex stay like that in his bed for another half-hour, watching the sun rise over the little town he lived in. When he manages to crawl back out of bed, the rising sun makes everything appear in a silverish- red color, which he doesn’t really take notice. He’s not into that whole studying the sky crap, that’s more of Harry’s forte, being enormously sappy and philosophy-filled. Instead, he makes his way downstairs to grab breakfast, and notices the almost annoying silence in the house. This was around the time he remembered that he was normally the first one awake at home. His parents and younger siblings wouldn’t be awake until he would be out the door and in his beat-down old impala on the way to school.
Lex circles Nick as he stumbles over to the cabinets, figuring out what he should settle on for a meager breakfast. He pulls out a small box of microwaveable pancakes and decides on that as he rips the box open, reading the almost miniscule text of the instructions. He grabs a plate from the counter where they are kept, and disposes the six blueberry pancakes on it, then moving it in front of the navy blue microwave. Nick opens the microwave and puts the plate in, closing it and typing the number of minutes it should bake before pressing the ‘on’ button.
He steps back as it makes the noise to indicate that it is cooking the food, then turning towards the stove, where he goes to make his morning tea for him and Louis. Nick’s nice in the fact that he’ll sometimes make his best friend tea, because sometimes it’s hard for Louis to find an opportune time to fix it with everyone in his house awake before himself.
Nick prepares everything to get the tea made, and leans back on his chair at the table as the microwave beeps to tell him that his breakfast was done, by this point he’s beginning to lose his appetite. He gets up from the table and goes to get the pancakes from the microwave, putting the plate on the counter as he finds a lone Tupperware container to put them in, because maybe Harry wants some if his mum hasn’t already stuffed him up like a pig to be butchered.
He does take one mini pancake and forces it in his mouth, chewing slowly as he sees that the tea is done, and gets out two insulated cups to pour it in. His phone which he had forgotten was secure in his pocket, rings loudly, the opening notes to “I Just Had Sex” filling in the comfortable silence in the kitchen, startling him. Nick fishes the phone from his pocket and answers it, now irritated. “Who is it? Can it wait until school?”
“No, it can’t wait until school, Grimmy. I need you over by my place, leave Lou’s tea there. He’s not gonna be here.”
Nick instantly realizes its Harry on the other side of the line, and he sighs, looking at Louis’ already prepared cup of tea next to his Rolling Stones cup. “Fine, but can you tell me why I’m coming to your place?” He grumbles, taking the cup anyway because he could always leave it for Harry’s sister, Gemma, who was in the local college. He was seriously too nice to his friends, he swore.
“It’s kind’ve not something I’d want to discuss on the phone. It’s about Lou. Just come over here as quick as you can, okay?” Harry replied, sounding tense, which is unusual.
“Fine. I’ll be over by foot if it’s so serious. Be there in five, Harry. Good-bye.”
“Later, Nick.”
They both hang up their phones at around the same time, and Nick ponders to himself what could have happened that Harry couldn’t talk to him on the phone about it. Harry would usually talk on the phone about anything, unlike Louis who would basically fill up entire conversations with small talk. It must be bad and awfully personal, Nick supposes as he puts the Tupperware in his red schoolbag, then stuffing the cups in the side pockets after checking twice that the lids are securely on.
After he scribbles a note to his parents and letting Lex out into the backyard, he makes his way off of his property, and down his small, quiet neighborhood.
The sky is still a silver-red and Nick still doesn’t notice or care.
He’s at Harry’s and Gemma’s apartment in less than fifteen minutes, where he finds Harry on the front porch, looking pale and like he’s cried at least twice. That image makes him increase his pace, and he’s right up on Harry a minute later, one arm around him, the other pulling out the Tupperware of pancakes.
Harry’s whimpering quietly, sounding more strained then when he was on the phone earlier, and he still has his pajamas on, his hair a wild mess. He leans into Nick, making the elder glad he didn’t wear something exotic like leather or silk that day.
“What in the world is even going on, Harold? I can’t understand why you’re sniveling if you can’t tell me right away.” Nick asks, rubbing Harry’s back reassuringly, wishing Louis were here instead, doing the comforting. It was never his best talent, comforting.
It takes Harry a few moments before he can look up at Nick and answer his question. “L-Louis’ disappeared. Gone. Vanished without a trace.” He murmurs, letting that sink into Nick.
“How do you know that, Harry? He could have just gone to Cederton to get those omelets he likes and will be back like normal.” Nick tries to not believe what Harry says, and denying it was the only thing he could think of doing.
“I already looked there. I’ve looked everywhere in town and in Cederton that Lou goes to. You know he hates breaking habit unless he has a reason. He has one, Nick. It’s written in his blood, too.”
Nick’s eyes widen as he hears this, and his grip on Harry’s shoulder gets considerably tighter as he sucks in a breath.
“I think he did one of two things, Nick.
He either committed suicide somewhere away from here….
Or he ran away from here where he’ll never return.”
Harry shudders a breath as he pulls out a couple pieces of paper from his pocket, rank with the copper smell of blood.
“Louis called these ‘The Silver Bullet Letters’.”