Chapter Text
He's fucked.
His friends and family have warned him, since time immemorial, that his penchant for overreacting will do him in one day, and Louis has a bad, bad feeling that day is today. He couldn't help it, though. The director had screamed at him, spittle and accusations flying, less than two weeks till opening night and you still don't know your blocking and fucking hell, Louis, your audition was ten times better than this. What was Louis supposed to do? Stand there and take it, in front of the whole cast and crew? In front of his fucking understudy Max who's been gunning for his spot and trying to show him up since day one?
No, Louis did not stand and take it. He ran. Stamped with ringing footsteps up the aisles, out the double doors, into the grey London streets. Wee fucking wee all the way home.
And now he's fucked and probably doesn't have a job anymore and he hates that James was right to begin with because he should've got his blocking down at least a week ago even though his blocking is the most complex out of everyone's and keeps changing and fucking Max will be Ariel after all and Louis hopes the seams of his costume split right up the arse.
Forehead pressed against the outside of his door, Louis jangles through his keyring for the right key with shaking hands. Shoving it into the lock, he turns the deadbolt, walks into his sparse studio flat, and collapses facedown onto the sofa. Its worn, burgundy velvet smells vaguely of stale beer and there are many years of bum imprints that he's pressing his face into, but who cares? His life is over. His first big break in a theatre that sits more than twelve people, and he's blown it.
When breathing becomes a difficulty, Louis lifts his head and violently flops over onto his back, arching his hips up to tug his mobile out the back pocket of his jeans. Swipe, swipe, scroll, until he finds an app that will help hasten his descent into expert level self-loathing. Large Hawaiian pizza, garlic bread because it's not like he's got anyone to scare away with horrific breath, 1.5L Pepsi. His thumb hovers over the 'Order' button for a hesitant second. He does not have the money for frivolous expenses like this, but again, his brain asks, who gives an actual fuck? He orders all the things. He can regret it later, he can have a bonfire of remorse for everything he's ever done in his life, including but not limited to the time he decided he could make it in theatre.
The deed done, he presses his face into the back of the sofa this time, in the angled crease between the back and the seats, its enveloping darkness welcome and the hint of a stench suitable punishment for a series of screw-ups he's sure won't end today.
Ten seconds later, there's a thudding against his door, like someone's kicking at its base. Louis jolts up. Did he suffocate himself into momentary unconsciousness? He lights his phone up; the time display shows him that only two minutes have passed since he ordered his Solitary Feast of Everlasting Regret. It can't already have got here.
Louis eases himself off the sofa, slouches over to the door. He crowds against the peephole, getting an eyeful of semi-transparent, stacked boxes. The unidentified person carrying them kicks his door again. He's most likely unemployed now, so Louis technically has the time for this, but not the requisite patience.
"Mate," Louis demands as he swings the door open. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Hiii," says a friendly, gravelly voice from behind the boxes. Without invitation, he strides right in. "Sorry I'm late. My sat nav tried to drive me into the river. Oh, there's the kitchen."
The intruder makes a ninety-degree turn to the right and sets his boxes on the kitchen worktop, an assortment of tupperware and things that go clank on contact. The large, black duffel bag that's been hanging from his left shoulder is set carefully onto the floor. He turns to face Louis with a bright grin that's all shiny teeth and dimples, offset by the truly ridiculous floral pink scarf that holds dark curls from his face.
"Who the fuck are you?" Louis asks from the still-open door.
The grin dims by several watts. "Oh, sorry, I thought Niall told you. I'm Harry. Harry Styles? I'm the personal chef Niall hired for you? Once a week? Starting today?"
"Hi, Harry," Louis clips to forestall yet another statement-question. If he didn't have much patience before, he's dipping down well into the negatives now. "Who the fuck is Niall?"
Harry's mouth opens, but the question seems to have struck him dumb. After a moment of goldfish gaping, he says, "You're not Zayn Malik?"
Louis rubs his face vigorously. Why is this happening to him? All he wanted was to have a good, miserable time by himself and his life choices and giant mouthfuls of pizza to cram all his feelings down where they can never hurt him again, and instead the universe has seen fit to blitz him with this-- this weird, tall man-- boy?-- dressed like he's going for a play date at Kitchen Stadium. Louis strangles a cry of frustration as it rises up his throat.
"At the risk of repeating myself," Louis says, a picture of calm, ocean breezes, "who the fuck is Zayn Malik?"
"Er, not you?" Harry guesses. He consults the blue scribbles on his palm, and looks at Louis again, lost. "Sorry, this is Flat 3E?"
"I don't know, can you read your letters?" Louis asks, pointing to the tarnished gold plating affixed to his front door, which clearly, clearly reads 3F.
Harry's eyes widen. "Ooh, sorry," he says, and starts gathering up all his things from the counter, looking as distressed as a wet kitten. "Sorry. I'm so sorry to have bothered you."
He's so earnest and his cheeks have gone pink like his scarf, and Louis feels his irritation drain away from him all at once, and a weird desire to give Harry's arm a reassuring touch slides neatly in its place. "Honest mistake," he says, in what he hopes sounds magnanimous and not as put out as he's been since Harry accidentally walked in.
Harry glances at him from under his lashes, a flash of bottle-green as the hanging kitchen light reflects in his eyes, and dials his smile back up.
It's not the prettiest thing he's ever seen, it's not, it's not. Damn near close, though, and Louis manages to return a fraction of it. "Need a hand with that?"
"No, no, no," Harry insists, smiling even bigger. "I've got it. Thank you." He dances across the threshold and into the corridor with his bag and teetering pile of whatever all that is. "Sorry, again. I hope you have a nice day!"
"Bit late for that," Louis says to himself, and though Harry gives him a quizzical look, Louis doesn't answer the implied question and shuts the door.
He stays where he is for a few seconds, hears the muted, dull thumping of Harry's boot repeatedly meeting 3E's door. Someone greets him with a happy heeey and he gets to hear Harry's hiii again, as cheerful as it was before. Then, the click of the door shutting, and silence. Louis kind of wishes he hadn't disabused Harry of the notion of having come to the right flat.
By the time his pizza arrives half an hour later he doesn't want it. Still, he nibbles at a piece of garlic bread out of duty and shoves the rest of the food into the fridge; it'll keep him for a couple of days at least, while he contemplates returning to the hell of shopping centre retail. M&S hadn't been too bad, he thinks; he'd left that one with most of his soul intact and a packet of chocolate digestives for a parting gift.
He could also apologise to James. Ugh. He's not ready to think about that yet. He wants to simmer in the indignation of it all; it is seriously not his fault that James keeps getting these massive creative lightbulb moments that have drastically changed Louis' blocking since the beginning weeks. Even the stage manager's blocking notes for him are nearly incomprehensible to herself at this point; he'd asked her for a cue, sorry am I crossing down right or down centre here, and had got a long pause in return, and then James had just lost it.
Still, it's Louis' job to get it down, whatever the director asks of him. Fuck.
He's not thinking about it yet. Louis clicks on the telly, wastes a couple of hours switching back and forth between a darts world championship semi-final and whatever imported reality TV nightmare Dave has seen fit to marathon. It makes his life feel marginally less horrific for a few minutes, and he gets a second wind for the garlic bread in his fridge.
As a moon-faced Belgian shoots easy dart after dart into the same, precise slice of the target, another knock on the door startles Louis into dropping his bread. It, of course, in the grand tradition of all buttered breads before it, lands face down on the floor. "Shitting fuck," Louis mutters, picking it up immediately and mentally invoking whatever rule it is that makes it okay to eat things off the floor. Barely two seconds of contact; it's like it never left his possession at all.
The knocking starts up again while Louis contemplates the bread. It doesn't sound like Harry's kicking from before, and it's not the polite rap of the delivery person. What it sounds like is someone attempting a drum solo on his door.
Louis wrenches the door open just to make it stop.
"Hi!" says a smiley blond on the other side of it. "I'm Niall."
"Okay…" Louis says with suspicion.
Niall leans forward conspiratorially and stage-whispers, "Here's the part where you introduce yourself."
"Louis," he says reluctantly. What is this day? Why are there so many people suddenly at his door vying for his attention? It's been a veritable parade of cute boys marching across his doorstep, and he is too tired and upset, and he cannot be arsed to do anything about it today. Why is life like this?
"Nice to meet ye," Niall says, reaching for Louis' hand even though Louis has not so much as offered a finger. He shakes it firmly, exuding the affable demeanour of the kind of giant dog that thinks it belongs on everyone's lap no matter how many times it's been pushed off.
Looking bemusedly at their linked hands until Niall drops contact, Louis says, "Can I help you?"
"Yeah, Harry sent me. The lad who accidentally walked into your flat earlier. Tall, curly?" he clarifies, just in case Louis lives the kind of life where strangers regularly traipse uninvited through his living room and loses track of them. "He's left, but he wanted me to give you this."
Louis looks at the proffered item. It's a small, green, plastic bowl, a chip on the rim, with a generous scoop of ice-cream in it. There's even a little leaf garnish. "I... Why?"
Niall shrugs. "He said there was a really fit boy next door having a bad day, so Zayn and I should share our dessert." He pauses, apparently to rewind and silently replay what he's just said in his head. "There was one part of that I wasn't supposed to say out loud. Are you having a bad day?" he asks, rocking forward slightly, blue eyes alight, as if he's actually interested in the answer.
"Er," Louis demurs. He has not, up to this point in his life, made a habit of pouring his heart out to anyone who turns up on his doorstep, and the odds of starting today are slim at best. "I don't think I really want to talk about it."
The rebuffal appears to be no skin off Niall's nose. "All right. Well, take this; it'll make you feel better even if you're not having a bad day. 'S homemade," he says, holding the bowl of ice-cream out expectantly. "Go on."
Out of societal convention, Louis takes it, though his eyes are still narrowed. It's also societal convention that makes him say, "Thanks." He gets a disproportionately large grin in return.
Tapping the doorframe twice with his palm, Niall says, "Okay! See you around. Come by sometime, maybe." Without waiting for any kind of response, Niall scuttles back to wherever he came from.
Louis cranes his head out the doorway, sees him disappear into 3E. "Right," he says to the empty hallway. "Yeah."
He walks back into his flat, closing the door behind him with his foot, surveying the ice-cream closely. It looks lovely, ribbons of caramel laced throughout. Could be poison. He tries to think of why Harry might want to poison him; he hadn't been very polite to Harry, but poison seems a melodramatic response (Louis' favourite kind, normally). Besides, Harry had seemed… nice. He comes up empty thinking of reasons Niall might have to poison him, or this mysterious Zayn they keep mentioning. Finally, Louis decides that if this is the way the universe wants him to go, he could do worse than a dash of arsenic in his dessert.
Louis fishes a spoon out of the cutlery drawer, takes a tentative bite. Salt hits his tongue first, tastes like the tears he'd cry if he was the kind of person to shed them, and then sweet coats it through. The moan it coaxes from his throat belongs in a porn film. Louis finishes the ice-cream in minutes, licks the spoon, hides in the kitchen with his back turned to the windows so no one can see him licking the bowl clean.
Mid-crouch, Louis laughs at himself, and realises it's the first time he's laughed all day.
***
The first thing he does the next morning is return the bowl, washed, obviously. He dashes off a thank-you note (Thank you. -L, 3F, it says, to-the-point), and considers writing another one to Harry as well, but he doesn't know what to say that wouldn't be the exact same thing. That, or he'd end up with graphical diarrhoea and telling Harry just how much his ice-cream brightened up a truly shit day, even though it was a mere scoop of ice-cream and a friendly gesture at best (that said, he hasn't forgotten he's been christened the really fit boy next door). He decides not to take the risk, that just the one thank-you note is fine and all-encompassing, and then absently fashions it into an origami boat while he mentally composes a much longer, crow-eating, drivelling apology to James.
Grabbing his jacket and backpack, Louis drops the boat into the bowl and sets it outside 3E, four sharp raps on the door, and jogs down the stairs. One storey down, he hears a faint, "Sick!" that could be Niall. Louis chuckles to himself and carries on.
Out in the street, Louis weaves himself into walking traffic, snatches of conversations darting past his ears, an erratic rhythm to the rumble of passing cars. He pulls out his mobile, dials James, and takes a long, deep breath; the air is tinged with the chill of an encroaching autumn, and the city he now calls home gives him strength. Damp, smoky strength, just the way he likes it.
On the third ring, James picks up. "Louis? That you?"
"James," Louis says resolutely. He has his whole speech planned out; it will bring tears to every eye and break down all walls in the near vicinity. Hamlet's soliloquy will be deemed rubbish in comparison. "Listen--"
"Did El get a hold of you? We're starting at ten-thirty today; schedule's had to change a bit. I told El to tell you; did she tell you?"
Caught off-guard, Louis' footsteps falter, and someone bumps into him from behind, obviously not having expected Louis to stop entirely. A disgruntled watch it along with pursed, disapproving lips makes Louis wave a hand in apology while he scurries to the side, sheltering outside a Boots storefront.
"Er, no," Louis says, his brow furrowing. "I didn't hear from her." He also hasn't checked his email since yesterday morning, the one he uses professionally, where it says his full name right in the address. The one Lottie made for him several years ago, boobearlouis at gmail, he uses religiously with breezy nonchalance to combat the teenage hipster irony she'd intended.
"Fuckin'--" James says. "Well, can you make it? Ten-thirty?"
"Yeah, yeah." Louis had left with plenty of time to spare for the regular eleven-thirty rehearsal; he'd been hoping to catch James early and alone in case the phone call didn't go over well. He'll get on his knees and grovel for James and most of the crew, but there was no way he was going to do it in front of fucking Max. Louis ratchets his attention back where it belongs. "Yeah, I can make it. I mean… If you'll still have me."
James bursts out laughing, and when they're not fighting about how shit Louis has been at his job, James' voice is maybe one of his favourite things, especially when it takes on this gleeful tilt. "If I'll still have you?" he giggles two octaves above his normal range. "Listen, mate, I had a strop, you had a strop, we're both sorry, and now we're over it. We didn't break up." He giggles again at the thought of it.
Louis can't help but join in, though his laugh is a little bit wheezy with relief. He still has a job, fucking Max isn't staging a coup on his role, and James is still his friend. The apocalypse is the opposite of nigh. What had his mum said about Louis always overreacting, again?
His heart feels a million times lighter when he hangs up. Stuffing his phone into his back pocket, Louis continues his walk to the theatre; he's made this journey dozens of times, usually in a rush to, and trudging with exhaustion from. He picks up his pace, almost to a jog. He doesn't have the time to spare for a leisurely walk now that the rehearsal time's been pushed up, but his feet slow of their own accord as he passes by a French patisserie even before his brain processes what he's seen.
Through the front window, a clear glass view of tiers of breads and cakes, he spies Harry standing behind the display case at the back of the small shop, hands on his aproned hips, brow furrowed in contemplation of the pastry arrangement.
Louis' heart picks up speed with every other beat as he stands there, like he's on the cusp of something important, though he can't imagine what it might be. Louis doesn't have time to talk. He doesn't even know what to say. They're not friends or anything. Harry just happened to walk into his flat yesterday, and Harry just happens to be in the patisserie Louis passes by every day. The universe isn't trying to tell him things.
Compromising, Louis taps on the window with his knuckles. At the sound, Harry's head jerks up, the dent between his eyebrows smoothing as they lift in surprise. Louis mouths thank you at him, and the wide grin he gets in answer unexpectedly warms him all the way to his toes. Harry mimes what Louis assumes to be you want to come in? But Louis gestures right back that he has to go, and Harry nods in cheerful understanding. It's all very… Louis doesn't know what word describes it, whatever this is, but the smile that he keeps having to fight off, long after the patisserie's been left far behind, tells him enough.
It's with a skip to his step that he breezes into the theatre with more than a few minutes to spare, met almost immediately by their stage manager Eleanor, who elbows him in his left lung to welcome him back. "Diva," she murmurs with a smirk.
Louis raises his palms. "Guilty." With most of the other cast and crew already gathered for their first run-through with the majority of the set built, Louis calls out, contrite, "Sorry for walking out yesterday, everyone."
"You weren't missed," says fucking Max, in a tone that could be construed in perfect seriousness or as a wry joke, but he gets punched in the arm by one of the running crew, and no one else echoes the sentiment.
Louis wonders what James said to everyone after he stomped out; maybe James is magical, or it's possible that after weeks of rehearsals in close quarters, people actually kind of like Louis enough to let him throw a fit once in a while. That would be nice. Also nice is that James swings by to give him a bear hug and apologise, seriously, for losing his temper with Louis.
While they wait for tech cues, Ian, who's the best Prospero Louis has ever had the privilege of seeing on stage, not to mention working with, pats him on the shoulder with avuncular affection. He leans in to say quietly, "The first time I landed a big role, I celebrated so hard I turned up piss drunk to rehearsals the next day, tried to kiss the producer, and got fired on the spot. Take heart, my boy. It could've been worse."
It's not the fuzziest thing he's ever heard from someone who looks like a cuddly grandpa behind the scenes, but Louis will take it. He grins.
The rest of the day runs as smoothly as a preliminary dress rehearsal can go, which is to say, not very. Things that have been superglued and stapled and welded together on the set fall off at the slightest bump, Leigh Anne trips over her costume and leaves a giant rip in it, Olly runs into a beam and gives himself a shiny bruise that he can't stop prodding at, James loses a page of notes somewhere in the stalls. It's all incredibly soothing in its own way. The best part is that Louis forgets his blocking in just one scene, the closing scene, and that's only because he gets distracted by their lunch orders being delivered, and he's not the only one.
It's dark by the time James lets them leave, the sky inky behind a thin layer of wispy, grey clouds. Louis trudges home through lamplit streets, tired, his feet dragging, but happy. He slows his pace when he approaches the patisserie, though he thinks Harry probably isn't in there anymore since their brief encounter mid-morning. A quick, surreptitious peek through the front window proves him right, and it's a mild disappointment that accompanies him all the way home and up the stairs.
He's met by a butterfly-shaped post-it note on his door. Come hang out - Niall x, it reads. Helpfully, he's also drawn an arrow pointing towards 3E. In the same handwriting underneath, smaller and cramped as he runs out of space, there's also a We have beer, but we will accept more.
Louis enters his own flat, deposits his backpack on the floor, throwing his keys somewhere. He considers the invite. He considers the three bottles of assorted beers that clink invitingly at him every time he opens the fridge. The universe appears to have taken a sudden and unsubtle interest in his life. Louis has no choice. He gathers his alcoholic friends and carries them next door.
"Ayyy," Niall cheers as soon as he opens the door.
"I brought beer," Louis says, lifting his bottles up as evidence.
"Beautiful boy," Niall declares.
The flat, a corner unit, is a much bigger one than Louis' own little studio, which he can only afford because the landlord Ed has more compassion than he does fiscal sense and lets Louis earn his keep by doing the occasional odd job; it works out great because this means he also gets the spare key to the rooftop where he can run lines like he means it without disturbing anyone through his flat's walls. Sometimes Ed smokes weed up there, too, and shares.
The expanse of the flat would be the first thing Louis noticed, but what really draws the eye is that every available surface, save the kitchen, is covered in paper.
Louis relinquishes his beer to Niall's waiting arms. "Er, you're an artist?"
"Not me; can't draw for crap. Zayn's the one," Niall says, jerking his head towards the bedroom door through which said Zayn emerges, clad in black from head to ankle, barefoot as he steps carefully through the pictures that litter his floor.
Zayn rubs a sleepy eye and acknowledges Louis' presence with a nod. "Hey," he says, with a slight wariness in the set of his bare, narrow shoulders. From them hangs a loose black vest with a cobra head on it, ready to attack, the diametric opposite of Zayn's soft features. "You from next door? Niall said you might stop by."
"I'm trying to socialise him," Niall says to Louis in a loud whisper, the back of one hand arched at the side of his mouth. "He needs to get out more."
"I'm workin'," Zayn counters.
Niall ushers Louis in towards the living room and sits him on a plush, sheepskin rug on the floor. "Sorry, too much crap on the sofa to move. Have a cushion," he says, plumping one up and wedging it between Louis' back and the front of the dark leather sofa before Louis even knows what's happening.
Zayn comes over to join them, sitting not exactly next to Louis, but just far enough away not to be rude.
"Zayn's doing the art for a new comic book series. Just got commissioned by a major publisher. It's gonna be massive," Niall announces proudly, even though no one asked. "What?" he says when Zayn gives him a look. "You're too modest to tell people, so I have to do it for you. That's what PAs do. Especially since you're too nice to actually let me do anything for you. Which is what you hired me for, by the way."
Louis studies a couple of the pencil sketches closest to his feet; they're of different angles of a costumed man in motion, each drawing so lifelike the character might just dash off the page at any moment. Louis doesn't pick the papers up in case Zayn's sensitive about people touching his art, but he says, "These look amazing, bro. It's like, you can almost feel the movement."
"Thanks," is all Zayn says, but there's a little curl to the corner of his mouth that suggests he's pleased.
"Louis, what do you do?" Niall asks, as he sits opposite and sets the beers at his feet.
"I'm an actor," Louis says.
"Cool," Niall says, and it looks like he actually means it.
Usually when Louis tells people what he does for a living, they get a sort of frozen smile on their face like they're wondering what the gentlest way is to break it to him that it's not a real job and he should be memorising lines like Hello I'm Louis and I'll be your waiter tonight instead. Louis decides Niall gets a lifetime pass for not even going near that look.
"Are you in anything we would know?" Niall asks. He wiggles his fingers at Zayn until he surrenders a lighter, and cracks the crown cap off a beer bottle with it. Doing the same with the other bottles, he then passes the beers around, taking a long swig of his.
Louis shakes his head. "Probably not. I mostly do theatre." It's not that he hasn't tried for something in television -- bit parts here and there, one-offs; most recently as the red herring on an episode of Endeavour, that was fun, great costume. It's just that he doesn't get the same kind of charge from it as he does performing live -- the sway of an energetic audience that can push or pull a performance one way or another, how every single night is different despite them saying the exact same words and treading the exact same boards, and, he'll freely admit, the ring of applause in his ears. There's nothing like the rush of making an audience laugh or cry with a single word; he lives for it.
There's also nothing like watching people's eyes glaze over when he goes on and on about how much he loves theatre, so Louis asks, "Did you guys just move in? I don't think I've seen either of you before."
"Yeah, a couple weeks ago," Zayn says, fiddling with a loose thread at the hem of his shirt, as if admitting this much is too much. "From Bradford."
"I don't technically live here," Niall says. Rather than extrapolating, he takes another pull of his beer. "Ahh, nectar of the gods."
Louis squints at him. "So… You're squatting here?"
"'S'why the couch is a mess," Zayn says.
"Uh, tell me about messes again?" Niall says, no compunctions about Zayn's sensitivities as he lifts one of the drawings with his toes. "If I wasn't here, you would never go outside, you'd never meet people, you'd forget to eat. How can anyone forget to eat?"
Zayn just shrugs one shoulder like he doesn't owe anyone an explanation, but Louis understands. He knows the laser focus of getting so into a project that literally everything else in life is an unnecessary distraction. It's the best feeling. Maybe not the hollow, gnawing emptiness in his stomach and the near dizziness when he finally surfaces, but it is the best, nonetheless. He says as much, and gets a sage nod from Zayn.
Another thought strikes Louis. "Is that why you have Harry cooking for you?"
As if on cue, there's a knock at the door, and Niall scrambles to his feet. "Ha, Harry!"
Louis glances up at the ceiling, eyebrows curious and mouth slightly agape. "Fifty million pounds," he tries, but it fails to show up on the doorstep. On the upside, it does make Zayn chuckle, and Louis decides this is a game he'd like to play, figuring out what earns a laugh from Zayn.
"Only works on people," Zayn says, as though he's privy to the mysterious workings of the upstairs. Then again, he does have that descended-straight-from-the-heavens look about him. "And once, my dog."
Louis laughs. "Aren't dogs supposed to come when you call?"
"Wasn't my dog at first, was he? Was a stray," he explains, as much as that's an explanation.
"Hiii," says Harry's voice near the door. "Brought some day-olds if anyone wants them."
He walks in with Niall, and Niall takes the pastry box from him, sticks his fingers in, and rummages around. "Ooh, this one's mine," he says, picking out a large chocolate eclair. He stuffs half of it in his mouth, emitting a thoroughly indecent noise as he bites into it. His attempt to speak through his mouthful is incoherent, but Harry gives him a thumbs-up.
"Hi," says Harry again, a little softer, when his gaze meets Louis'. He plucks the box from Niall's grip and shuffles closer, holding the box out in the middle of Louis and Zayn. "Pastry? They're from this morning."
Zayn gestures with a lift of his chin that Louis can go first. He likes Zayn, Louis decides. He's not the most expressive, but he says whatever he thinks needs to be said and leaves it there. It's a good skill to have, probably. Also, he willingly shares his desserts, the mark of a true friend.
Louis peers into the box containing the patisserie's cast-offs, an assortment of glazed tarts and rich gateaux. He looks up at Harry, who's watching him closely and trying not to look like it. "Did you make these?" Louis asks, already impressed.
"Some of them," Harry says, a little shyly.
"Which? I want to eat one that you made with your own hands," Louis says. When Harry points out a pecan tart, Louis snatches it up immediately, breaks off a piece, and pops it in his mouth. "Jesus Christ."
Niall makes a noise of agreement and motions for Zayn to get in on the action.
Because sometimes boundaries only exist for Louis to kick them down, he takes another piece of the tart and aims it at Zayn's mouth. "Catch," he says, and because Zayn is as perfect as he looks, he snags it between his lips with barely any effort, and smiles as he chews; Louis sort of feels like he's been approved of.
"Harry," Louis says, patting his socked foot. "Harry, this is amazing. Best thing I've ever put in my mouth since the ice-cream yesterday, which was the best thing I've ever put in my mouth since ever."
Zayn nods. "Chicken yesterday was good, too. Thanks."
The pale pink flush that overspreads Harry's cheeks is a sight Louis files away for future perusal, and now that he knows saying nice things about Harry gets that look on his face, Louis is determined to do it more often. Assuming he gets the chance, because--
"Thanks," says Harry, rubbing one foot against the other. He looks apologetically at Niall and says, "Anyway, sorry to cut the party short, but I've just got off a double shift, so."
"Yeah, comin'," says Niall.
"Wait, you were there?" Louis' mouth asks Harry before he can shut it up. It carries on, heedless of his brain's signals to stop. "When I walked past the shop a little while ago, I didn't see you."
Harry's lips lift into a pleased smile that he unsuccessfully tries to bite down; it seems they are compatible in at least one way, rogue facial muscles. "You looked for me?" he asks.
"Just… You know," Louis says, gesturing something so vague he doesn't even know what he's trying to gesture. "Peeked in. Just to see."
Zayn steals the rest of the tart off him, looking like he's enjoying himself as Harry smiles at Louis again as if Louis' the only one in the room. Louis could maybe get used to this.
"I was probably in the back," Harry says. He glances at Niall, who's busy shuffling some of Zayn's stuff around and dropping assorted detritus into a tatty messenger bag, and comes back to Louis. "Erm, did you have a better day today?"
Louis feels a smile creep up on its own. "Yeah, yeah, I did, thanks. And thank you, again, for yesterday. Like," he says, and pauses, doesn't quite know how to rein himself in, "it was literally the best thing in my whole day."
"Glad I could help," Harry says, biting on his bottom lip and giving Louis a close-mouthed smile that still pulls his dimples deep.
"Okay," Niall says, with an amused lilt to his voice, dropping the strap of his bag across one shoulder. He grabs Harry by the arms and steers him towards the door. "Let's go home, darlin'. Thanks for coming to fetch me. See you tomorrow, Zayn. You too, Louis."
It's fortunate that Louis has been trained from a young age that when someone bids him goodbye, the least he can do so as not to be labelled an ill-mannered brute is to wave. So he waves. The rest of him is stuck to the floor as he watches Niall usher Harry out, their arms linked. He's sure he hasn't just imagined the near flirting between himself and Harry, and granted, he has known Niall for all of twenty minutes, but in zero of that time has Niall given his gaydar the tiniest ping. Okay, so maybe he will have to jettison his plans to casually frequent the patisserie until Harry has no choice but to fall for his charms. It had seemed a great plan three minutes ago. Now he just feels like an idiot, not least because the disappointment that lines his chest in lead should empirically not feel this heavy. He just met Harry yesterday, for god's sake. And Harry is already entangled in someone else's charms. Get it together, Louis.
"They're flatmates," Zayn says.
The words barely pierce Louis' garbled consciousness, but he manages to say, "What?"
"Flatmates," Zayn repeats, with no inflection whatsoever. "Niall and Harry."
Louis doesn't know what's happening. Neither does he want to acknowledge the little thrill of hope that sparks back up inside him. "And?"
Shrugging, Zayn says, "Just saying. Thought you looked like you were wondering."
He won't thank Zayn for the information because he thinks he'll just get another shrug again. "Does this work for you? This whole…" Louis draws a circle in the air around Zayn's person. "Strong, silent thing?"
"Yeah."
Louis considers this. "Maybe I should try it sometime."
"Wouldn't last five minutes, you."
Perhaps Louis should be insulted, or appalled, at the very least, by the amount of presumption, but all he gets is deepening endearment. "I could do it," Louis argues for the sake of it. "You don't know."
Zayn's lips quirk upwards, but he chooses not to counter Louis' statement.
"Oh, you're good, I hate you," Louis says, and this time it earns him a quiet laugh. He quite likes this game. Getting to his feet before he overstays his welcome, he takes his nearly finished beer and deposits the bottle neatly in the sink. "Thanks for the company. See you around, yeah?"
Waving at him from the floor, Zayn lets Louis let himself out.
***
Is it too much? It is too much. Louis mashes his face into his pillow and groans like a maimed beast. He'd set his alarm last night for the ungodly ten o'clock hour, with clever plans of taking some extra time with his hair so it can look artfully windswept as he ambles very slowly past the patisserie window and repeatedly if need be. It is now ten-forty-eight, having pressed snooze seven times, and Louis is not sure any boy is ever worth getting up at ten for. But if there was…
Indulging in a soft-focus lens dream sequence in which Harry smiles that dimpled smile at him again when Louis surprises him at his work, Louis doesn't actually manage to get out of bed till four minutes past eleven, by which time, his hair will just have to fend for itself, and Louis has to book it.
He spends enough time in the shower to get drenched, brushes his teeth for much shorter than the dentist recommended amount of time, fusses with his hair for several minutes he doesn't have and it wastes the minutes he doesn't have by refusing to cooperate. Throwing on joggers and a shirt off the floor that doesn't smell, Louis rams his glasses onto his face and a knitted beanie over his head, and runs out the door with his jacket in one fist and backpack in the other.
It takes fifteen minutes to get to the theatre if he speedwalks at Olympic records, eight if the bus just happens to turn up at the stop at the exact time Louis does. It doesn't, because public transportation hates him and all that he stands for; this is his theory and the bus has yet to prove him wrong.
So he has to walk-run through the streets like he does every morning, except this morning he cannot not stop at Harry's patisserie, which he doesn't even remember the name of, it's just Harry's patisserie now. It's already out of hand, this effortfully casual stopping-by, and this is only the first time he's done it on purpose. As before, Harry's behind the counter surrounded by well-lit, artfully decorated pastries. Louis taps on the window, grinning and waving as soon as Harry looks up, then dashing off down the street again because he seriously doesn't have time for this.
The length of a bank has just streaked past his peripheral vision when Louis feels a light tapping at his shoulder.
"Hi," says Harry, who's suddenly appeared next to him, jogging alongside.
Louis does not nearly trip over his own feet, nor does he yelp like a small dog, and he will cut anyone who dares suggest otherwise. "What are you doing?" he asks. Before Harry can answer, he adds, "Can't stop, gonna be late."
"You don't have to," Harry says, keeping pace easily. In fact, he's practically skipping; his spindly giraffe legs taking one step for every two of Louis'. He looks a sight, gambolling out here in just a black t-shirt and an apron over black jeans. "Have you had breakfast? Or, erm, elevenses?"
"What? No?"
"Good, 'cos I, er," says Harry, shoving at him a small paper bag, "made this for you. In case you came by." He bites his lower lip, already gone red from running in the cool autumn air.
"Harry, that's mad," Louis says, accepting and clutching the bag close, before Harry can take it the wrong way. So they both have problems playing it it close to the vest; relationships have been built on less. "Thank you, you're my new favourite person. Aren't you supposed to be working, though?"
Harry grins, part of his bottom lip still caught under his teeth. "Taking my break early."
They stop only because the red don't walk sign is staring them down at the other side of the pelican crossing, though Louis bounces on his toes to keep his heart rate steady. He takes the opportunity to peek inside the bag, sees a flaky chocolate croissant that makes his stomach groan with anticipation.
"You're going to make me fat," Louis grumbles, even as he pinches off one end of the croissant and eats it with a happy jiggle to his shoulders.
"Not with all this running you're doing."
"You gonna run with me all the way to the theatre?"
For a moment it almost looks like Harry's going to say yes, but he ducks his head with a slightly guilty sheen in his eyes. "I should actually get back to work. I didn't exactly tell my boss I was taking my break. You were just running so fast..."
"Harry!" Louis laughs. "Go."
"Okay." Harry smiles and turns to leave.
"No, wait." Louis grabs his arm, a mental idea driving his movements. He lifts the beanie off his own head and fits it over Harry's, having to get on his toes to do it, making sure to cover the tips of Harry's cold, reddening ears. "Now you can go. Catch your death coming out here in just a t-shirt."
The smile Harry gives him is nothing less than brilliant, and in that instant, it's clear that Louis could get up at ten o'clock for this boy every day. Nine, even. Eight is pushing it, but nine, he can do nine for Harry.
When the light changes, they part ways, and Louis' heart skips with him all the way to the theatre.