Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

He was seventeen when his father got offered the job in America. He was seventeen when he had to decide then and there whether he was going to stay in his little hometown, the one that only ever brought in tourists because of the local university and had a population of less than ten thousand, or move to the other side of the world to stay with his family.

Honestly, if they had asked him a year before, he would have gone with them without question. But then, when he was literally months away from starting his first year of university, when he had his whole life planned out ahead of him, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave the home he’d grown up in. He couldn’t leave his friends or his town or the school he was planning on going to, that he already had a full scholarship to.

He was staying, and his parents and his sisters were packing up and leaving for six years. He was used to having his father gone; being a military man meant that he was only home for a few months out of the year. And the job he was offered in America promised that he’d be home for ten months instead of just six, and they couldn’t pass that up, not even if it meant completely relocating to a place that none of them were accustomed to.

They weren’t selling their old house for several reasons. For one, it had been in their family for over a hundred years. Louis’ grandparents’ grandparents had grown up in their house (which has been remodelled so many times that it technically doesn’t even resemble the house it used to be, but still, it’s the thought that counts). For another, they were planning on moving back at the end of the six years. Their whole family on both his father’s and mother’s sides lived there, and they were all very close.

So Louis was staying with the house. That was the deal. That was the plan. And maybe that had a little to do with his decision to stay, too, because what seventeen-year-old wouldn’t want an entire house to themselves?

Louis is clutching the flyer tightly in his hand. He has a stapler in the other, and in the bag on his back he has a whole stack of the exact same flyers. And yet he is just standing there, staring blankly at the wall, and he is really questioning the idea to actually do this. Not that it was his idea. It was Liam’s idea, and while normally Liam has wonderful ideas, Louis doesn’t think this is one of them.

Louis wants a car. That’s why he is doing this. He wants a car, and he doesn’t want to have to do more shifts at the store, and this is the best way to get enough money to do so without actually doing anything.

With a sigh, he reaches up and places the flyer against the bulletin board and then, before he can talk himself out of it, he staples the flyer down and walks away, not taking another look at the words on the page because he’s already memorized them.

Housemate wanted. Negotiable rent. In-house washer and dryer. Rent covers all utilities. Free internet and cable. If interested, call the number listed below; ask for Louis Tomlinson or Liam Payne.

Underneath the words, the flyer has been cut into little strips, each one with the home phone number on it, ready to be ripped off if anyone is interested. The flyer doesn’t really say much about the entire house, because they didn’t want to mention the fact that there are four of them already living there. Or that they’re all clinically insane (with the exception of Liam, possibly, but Louis is still on the fence about that one).

He spends the next twenty minutes stapling up the flyers on every bulletin board he can find on campus. When he’s done, he puts the stapler in his bag, stops at the campus coffee shop to reward himself with a large, three-creams coffee with whipped cream (the barista tries to tell him that they don’t do that, but Louis offers her an extra large tip and he gets his whipped cream), and then starts towards home.

He’s done this walk thousands of times in the two years he’s been attending the university, but he seriously hates it. It’s early in September and the sun is still feebly attempting to shine through the clouds, giving his forehead a nice layer of glistening sweat that also sticks his hair to his skin in a way that really fucking irritates him. It’s better than the snow in the winter, though, so he can’t complain all that much (though he still does, just a bit, to himself, in his mind—Example A of the insanity issue).

By the time he gets home, his coffee is nearly empty. Zayn’s shitty car is in the driveway; there are two orange construction cones taking up residence in the backseat, which Louis isn’t even going to ask about because Zayn is fucking weird.

It’s as he’s climbing onto the porch that he hears it. It filters through the cracks in the door and through the open window upstairs. The wailing of Mariah Carey’s We Belong Together is clearly discernible despite the fact that he can’t hear the actual words. And it makes his blood run cold in his veins, because that is not good. That is not good at all. Mariah Carey is clearly a sign of a problem of catastrophic proportions.

The front door is unlocked; when he pushes it open, the music is like a physical thing that presses against him, attempting—and probably succeeding—in escaping out into the neighbourhood. He tosses his bag in the front closet and kicks off his shoes before heading for the living room. He finds Niall on the couch, laptop on his lap, clothed in nothing but a pair of boxers and a sleeveless shirt, a streak of purple paint on his face.

Looking up the staircase, he sees Niall’s mattress leaning against the wall and he thinks he can see the corner of Niall’s side table in the hallway. He squints, recognizes the chipped corner from when Niall tried to nail a shelf to his wall and accidentally broke the table when he slipped instead. Definitely his side table, then.

“What the actual fuck,” Louis starts, yelling to be heard over the music, “is going on?”

Niall only looks up from his laptop for a short moment before returning his attention to it. “I was sitting in my room, right,” he says while typing away, “eating lunch because I didn’t get any between my classes today because I was too busy talking to that chick from my—”

“Fast forward, Niall,” Louis says impatiently.

“Right, sorry,” Niall says, pushing his laptop away from himself. “He came into my room with two cans of paint and was like, ‘Brooke and I broke up’, and I was like, ‘What?’, and he was like, ‘Get out, I’m going to paint your room’, and then he kicked me out and didn’t even give me a chance to put on pants.”

Evidence of this is clearly visible, given the way Niall’s legs seem to reflect the overhead light. Louis will take him to the tanning beds one day, if not for Niall’s benefit then for the benefit of all of humanity.

“Wait—he and Brooke broke up?” Louis asks, coming back to the real issue at hand, which is the still loudly playing music that seems to shake the floorboards under his feet.

Brooke is a nice girl with flaming red hair and an unhealthy addiction to Skittles. She also enjoys sitting on their couch in nothing but one of Zayn’s shirt while eating their food, and their answering machine is constantly filled with messages from her because Zayn told her that he didn’t own a cell phone so it was the only way for her to get a hold of him. And it’s extremely shocking that they broke up, because Brooke is very obviously infatuated with Zayn—which is more than a little unfortunate for her, since Zayn’s feelings for her are mild at best.

“Apparently,” Niall says, unconcerned. He stands up and runs a hand through his hair before giving Louis a panicked look as another Mariah Carey song, this time Heartbreaker, comes on. It makes Louis panic, too, because he knows that this means. Zayn is not just listening to any Mariah Carey CD. He is listening to his greatest hits CD. “I don’t want a purple room,” Niall adds. “Fix this.”

“Right.” Louis nods, more to himself than anything. They have a system worked out for this; they’ll be fine. “Where’s Liam?”

Niall shakes his head. “No idea,” he answers. “I’ll text him. You turn this shit off and get him out of my room.”

“I’ll do my best,” Louis says solemnly.

See, Zayn is possibly the most predictable person in the entire world. And the moodiest. Thankfully, his moods can usually be predicted. But, in the off-chance that they’re not, it’s always very easy to gauge just how upset he is, because Zayn has two tells for when he’s upset:

First there is the music. Normally he listens to upbeat, catchy songs. If he’s in a good mood, you’ll likely hear Bruno Mars or Usher playing through his door. If he’s in a bad mood, though, he starts with the early 2000s pop songs (songs that Louis might have been a fan of when he was young and stupid, but now there’s only so many times you can listen to Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River before you want to literally cry a river). The next stage is Mariah Carey. Normally he sticks to her more recent songs. It’s when he pulls out the Mariah’s Greatest Hits CD that you are in for a world of trouble.

His second tell is the art. Zayn is an art student at the university, so it’s not really all that odd for him to be found sketching at the kitchen table. When he’s upset, though, you’ll find balled-up pieces of inked paper all over the house. If he’s in a really bad mood, he’ll start digging through the recycling for empty bottles and his hot glue gun will be plugged into one of the sockets, ready to form random pieces of plastic into what Zayn likes to call “art” and Louis likes to call “last week’s garbage”. And when he’s really, really upset, he paints. Not just on a canvas, either. When he gets angry, Zayn likes to have a bit more room to express himself.

Thankfully, they haven’t had a greatest hits/painting worthy problem in months, not since Zayn found out his grandfather was sick on the same day that he’d walked in on Liam having sex with Joseph From Down The Street With The Exceptional Butt on the couch. Their kitchen is still lime green, and Louis still has no idea how he’s going to explain that to his parents when they come back in four years, but he tries not to think about it all that much.

Obviously this is a seriously bad problem, though, which is why Louis heads for the kitchen first, pulling open the cupboards. He locates his last container of chocolate icing—he sobs internally at the sacrifice—as well as the box of chocolate chip cookies that Niall bought the other day. With his arms full of sugary peace offerings, he heads up the stairs.

The way the house is set up is simple: when you walk in, you’re in the main hallway. If you continue forward you get to the living room on the right side, and then the door to the kitchen on the left. Beyond the living room is another hallway, off which you will find the downstairs bathroom, the second largest bedroom, and the door to the basement. Up the stairs there’s one long hallway that branches off in two directions. To the left are Zayn and Niall’s bedrooms (Zayn’s facing the backyard, Niall’s facing the front). To the right is Louis’ bedroom facing the back, the other bathroom facing the front, and Liam’s bedroom at the very end of the hall.

The music is obviously coming from Zayn’s room, which is where Louis heads first. He steps over discarded piles of clothing and a sculpture made out of finished toilet paper rolls until he gets to Zayn’s stereo system. He turns the volume all the way down and considers taking out the greatest hits CD and snapping it in half, but Zayn would likely stab him to death with the broken shards, so he doesn’t bother.

“Turn that shit back up, Niall!” Zayn calls from across the hall.

Louis rolls his eyes and pulls off the lid of the icing. He heads across the hall and pushes open Niall’s already partially ajar door. The chemical smell of paint invades his senses and makes him wrinkle his nose.

Zayn is standing in the middle of the room on his blue painting tarp. He’s already painted three walls, two of them a bright, blood red, one a deep royal purple. Zayn is also covered in purple and red paint, having splattered it all over his grey sweatpants and the white tank top he’s wearing. He’s got it in his hair, too, like he’s run paint-covered fingers through it without thinking. And he’s holding a paintbrush covered in red paint in his hand, pointing it threateningly at Louis.

“I come with chocolate,” Louis says, holding out the icing.

Zayn’s eyes narrow, but he lowers the paintbrush, at least. “Why did you turn my music off?”

“Because I have a dick,” Louis tells him. “There’s only so much Mariah that I can handle before it crawls up inside my body.”

“Liking music written and/or performed by female artists does not make you any less of a man, you sexist—”

“What happened?” Louis asks, cutting him off.

Zayn shrugs and moves towards the wall. “Brooke broke up with me.” A sharp, diagonal slash of red on purple. “Apparently I wasn’t committed to her or some shit.” Another slash. “Like, what the fuck does that even mean?” He steps back and whips the brush at the wall, but keeps a steady grip on it so only the paint goes flying. “And then Liam’s not even fucking here because he’s got a date.” The wall is nearly completely red now. “Steve, or something. Liam says he’s nice. He works at Starbucks. He’s a complete hipster fucking douchebag.”

“Ah,” Louis says quietly. “So that’s it, then.”

Zayn turns back around, fire blazing in his eyes. “What’s it?”

“So this Brooke thing,” Louis says, ignoring him. He steps farther into the room, carefully keeping a good distance between himself and Zayn while doing so. “We’re upset about that?”

Zayn gives him an incredulous look. “We dated for two fucking months, Louis. So, yeah, we’re upset about that.”

“And this has nothing to do with Liam’s date,” Louis clarifies.

Zayn dips the red brush in the purple, and then turns to the red wall that was already painted and starts attacking it much in the same way that he had with the purple wall, alternating colours. “Why would that have anything to do with this?” he asks, facing the wall, back tense. “Like I give a flying fuck if Liam wants to date guys who wear fucking scarves and listen to Coldplay and have a fucking beanie collection. Good on him. I’m sure fucking to Fix You is thrilling.”

“Zayn,” Louis says quietly. “Put down the brush. Step away from the paint. And stop humming Mariah Carey under your breath.”

Zayn drops the brush in the paint can, drops of red splattering onto the blue tarp. “What?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“There’s no need to get greatest hits upset about this,” Louis tells him firmly. “Okay? So let’s just—leave Niall’s room alone, have some chocolate, and I’ll even sit in your room with you while you have one of your disgusting cancer sticks.”

Zayn eyes him warily. His defensive look crumbles into something piteous. “Scarves, Lou. He has, like, ten of them.”

Louis frowns, cocking his head to the side. “How do you even know that?”

Zayn shifts uncomfortably. “I may have Facebook stalked him,” he says quietly. “Just to make sure Liam wasn’t going out with some psycho.” He lifts his chin defiantly. “I’d do it for you or Niall, too, so don’t act like it’s a big deal because it’s not.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Louis says quickly. He nudges the purple paint can with his toe. “So, we’re going to stop attacking Niall’s walls?”

Zayn sighs and nods, stepping away from the wall.

“All clear?” Niall asks, appearing in the doorway. “You’re done fucking with my room?”

Zayn flips him off. “Your room looks awesome and you know it.”

It does. Louis would never claim that Zayn wasn’t a great painter. But his parents are so going to kill him if they find out that he allowed someone to cover their cream-coloured walls with red and purple paint. He’ll just repaint them before they get back, that’s all. What they don’t know can’t hurt them, right?

Louis hears the sound of the front door opening and closing as Niall attempts to pry the chocolate icing from his hands. A moment later Liam calls, “Where is everyone?” and Zayn goes white before realizing that Louis has already turned off the Mariah. Liam is possibly the only one in the entire neighbourhood (Zayn listens to his music really loudly) who isn’t aware of Zayn’s shitty music addiction, mostly because Zayn is very careful to make sure that Liam is never around when he plays it. The two of them are honestly so ridiculous Louis can even begin to comprehend it.

Zayn runs a paint-coated hand through his hair, getting even more red and purple in the dark strands. “I need a smoke,” he mutters, moving towards the door. Liam is there before he can get out, though.

“Hey, why are you all—” He stops and gapes at Zayn, and at the walls, before his expression softens with worry and he asks, “What happened?”

He might not know about the Mariah, but it’s a little hard to hide the fact that Zayn + painting their walls = bad.

“Brooke broke up with me,” Zayn says offhandedly. He shoulders past Liam, heading for his own room. Louis watches as he pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his coat, which is lying on his bed, and then takes one of them out.

“I’m sorry,” Liam says to Zayn’s back, though he definitely doesn’t look it. There is a relieved, joyous look on his face. One that he schools as soon as Zayn turns back around.

“How was your date?” Zayn asks through the butt of the cigarette as he lights it.

Niall and Louis are watching them like two exhibits at the zoo. Zayn would be the lion, all thick hair and loud roars. Liam, on the other hand, would be some small, adorable, fuzzy animal that could kill you with one bite without even meaning to.

“It was nice,” Liam says slowly. He runs a hand over his hair and darts a look at Louis and Niall, like he wants them to save him from answering.

“Did you fuck to Coldplay?” Louis asks sweetly.

Liam gapes at him. “No, we didn’t,” he says flatly. “We went to the park, got lunch, had a picnic, fed the ducks. It was nice.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Zayn breathes, letting out a cloud of smoke. “Did he Instagram it, too?”

“Um—maybe?” Liam admits, frowning. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Figures,” Zayn mutters.

“Anyway,” Louis says brightly, knowing that, if he lets them, the two of them will go at each other all night, arguing over little things without admitting what the actual problem is, which is the obvious fact that they’re head over heels, disgustingly in love with each other. “I put up the flyers today. We could be getting a call at any time from a potential new roommate.”

It’s really fucking creepy, the way that the phone rings literally seconds after he’s spoken. The four of them all look at each other, no one moving or saying anything. The sound of the phone ringing downstairs continues to echo through the whole house.

“Is anyone going to get that?” Zayn demands finally. He gives them all a look like he’s questioning their intelligence. That look is Zayn’s trademark, though. It’s as much a part of him as the cloud of smoke that is drifting through his room.

“Shit,” Louis says, moving towards the door just as the phone cuts off and the answering machine picks up. It’s an old thing, one that his mum had bought so many years ago. It was one of the only things she’d left behind when they moved.

“Um, hi,” says a scratchy, tinny voice, barely audible from all the way upstairs. “I’m calling about the room. My name is—um, Harry. So. Yeah. I guess I’ll try again later. Bye.”

Louis gapes at his flatmates and then, before anyone else can beat him to it, he runs for the stairs. Niall is right behind him, and Zayn is, too. Liam is always yelling at them to not run in the house because the hardwood floors are dangerous if you’re in socks, so he doesn’t run with them.

Louis gets to the phone first. He picks it up and checks the caller I.D. and then presses the ‘talk’ button. He taps his foot impatiently as the phone rings. Niall stays leaning against the wall, eyebrows raised; Zayn is grabbing Louis’ shoulder as if he’s considering literally prying the phone from his fingers; Liam is shaking his head at the three of them.

“Hello?” a voice on the other end of the line says. The answering machine is well known for distorting voices, and Louis finds that Harry has a very nice voice. Smooth, deep, relaxing. If his personality is anything like his voice, he’ll be a good fit. They could use a little more sanity (which Liam struggles and mostly fails to supply) in this house.

“Hi,” Louis says brightly. “I’m Louis. You just called about the ad? I’m sorry, I was a little tied up when the phone started ringing.”

“Oh,” Harry says. “Don’t worry about it. And, um, yeah. I was calling about the ad.”

Louis swears he hears a female giggling on the other end of the line, and then the muffling sound of someone covering the receiver.

“Great!” Louis says enthusiastically. “It’s still available. If you’d like to come check it out—”

“Tell ‘im to pick up pizza from John’s and he can have the room,” Niall says loudly.

“Warn him about the haunted attic,” Zayn puts in.

“The attic is not haunted, Zayn, the pipes are old and they make noise,” Liam corrects with a roll of his eyes.

“Haunted,” Zayn and Niall repeat.

“Whatever,” Liam replies.

“Can you three shut the fuck up?” Louis asks without covering the receiver. He winces and says into the phone, “Sorry, I—”

“So how many of you are living there?” Harry asks, cutting him off.

Louis sighs internally, mostly because he knows this is going to be the deal breaker. Harry seems calm and normal, and not at all like the psychos Louis thought would end up calling for the ad. But chances are he won’t want anything to do with them when he realizes that, yeah, the four of them live together. And they’re sort of hard to deal with sometimes.

“Four,” Louis says quietly. The others are finally quiet, thankfully.

“Cool,” Harry says. “So can I set up a time to come check out the room, or…?”

“I—what? Serious?” Louis blurts.

“Um. Unless you don’t want me to,” Harry says awkwardly.

“No—no, definitely. Right, the address is 1209 Russell Street. It’s the one with the piece of shit car out front,” Louis says quickly, lest Harry change his mind. “Come by at any time, really. Just ring the doorbell.”

“My car is not a piece of shit,” Zayn says, glaring at him.

“It’s a 1994 Ford Escort that should have been taken off the road ten years ago,” Louis argues. “It’s a piece of shit.”

“I’ll come by later tonight at seven, if that’s okay?” Harry says, reminding Louis once again that he’s on the phone.

“That’s perfect,” Louis tells him. “Absolutely perfect. I look forward to meeting you.”

“Mutual,” Harry says. “Um. Bye.” He hangs up before Louis can awkwardly return the sentiment.

He hangs up and puts the phone down on the side table in the hallway. “He’s coming at seven,” he tells the rest of his housemates.

“That’s only three hours from now,” Liam says quietly.

“Shit,” Niall says, equally quiet.

“Shit indeed,” Louis agrees. He stands a little straighter. “Everyone start cleaning. Zayn, open Niall’s window to air out the smell of paint. Liam, the dishes in the kitchen are literally overflowing out onto the counter. Niall—put on some pants, please, for the love of God.”

Louis grabs the broom from the front closet and starts in the living room. The house is fairly messy, and he wants to make a good impression. It’s not that they’re slobs, they’re really not. But there’s four of them, they’re all male, they have no adult supervision, and—yeah, okay, they’re slobs.

“Why the fuck is there a half-eaten banana under the couch?” he shouts.

“I forgot about that,” Niall says from the top of the stairs. “Sorry, mate.”

Louis throws it at him. It doesn’t even make it to the landing at the top of the stairs, but instead falls dejectedly on the third step from the top with a disgusting squelching sound. Ugh.

By the time they’ve finished cleaning and airing out the smell of paint, it’s nearly six. Louis sighs and collapses on the couch beside Liam. Niall and Zayn are upstairs, Niall doing whatever it is that Niall does, Zayn showering to get the paint off his skin.

Louis changes the television over from cable to the DVD player and starts up on the episode of Supernatural he’d started last night. He’s on season five now—Zayn owns every season on DVD, and he’s passive-aggressively forced them all to like it—but one day he will be completely caught up. One day. Not a day in the near future, obviously, because they’re hour-long episodes and there are, like, thirty of them in each season.

“Is Zayn really okay?” Liam asks, not really paying any attention to Jensen Ackles because Liam has horrible taste in men.

“He’ll be fine,” Louis says with a wave of his hand. “You know how he is. His soul thrives on dramatics.”

Liam snorts. “That is possibly the most hypocritical thing you’ve ever said.”

“Don’t be rude,” Louis scolds. Liam looks instantly guilty. “Anyways, how was your date?”

Liam shrugs, finally looking at the television screen, suddenly incredibly interested in the Winchesters. “Like I said, it was fine. Steve is nice. He just—isn’t what I’m looking for.”

Louis shakes his head. Of course Steve isn’t what Liam’s looking for. While they’ve only lived together for two years, Louis has known Liam his whole life. Liam had moved in with Louis as soon as his parents moved out, leaving his own parents (who live only a few blocks over, not that Liam ever really sees them on purpose) behind. But in all the time they’ve lived together, Liam has dated plenty of guys and none of them have been what he’s looking for. Probably because what he’s looking for happens to be coming out of the shower at the moment and playing Usher’s Yeah loudly in his room. Louis knows Liam far too well to be fooled into thinking it’s actually because of the douchebags he tends to go for.

“Well,” Louis says instead of pointing this out, “I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for soon enough.”

Liam grunts noncommittally. Eventually Niall and Zayn come down to join them, Niall sitting in the armchair with his laptop because that thing is practically fused to his body, Zayn sitting on the couch next to Liam, an arm around Liam’s shoulder.

“Saving people,” Zayn says in a low, rough voice, shaking Liam’s shoulder for emphasis, as the episode starts up. “Hunting things. The family business, Liam!”

Zayn will try to tell you he’s cool. This is a lie.

The doorbell ringing has them all jumping in their seats. Zayn pauses the show and Liam gets up. The look that Zayn gives his back is one of complete, unabashed longing, the kind that he only gives Liam when Liam isn’t looking, because Zayn is a balls-less son of a bitch who can’t admit his feelings to anyone, possibly not even himself.

“I’ll get it,” Liam says quickly.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Niall says. Louis has to agree with that. Liam is definitely the least intimidating of the three of them.

Louis hears the door open, and then Liam’s greeting of, “Harry, right? I’m Liam. Come on in.”

“Hi,” Harry responds, and his voice is even deeper in real life. Sort of rough but still smooth somehow, not that that makes any sense. Also vaguely familiar, which has Louis’ eyebrows drawing together as he tries to place it.

And then he and Liam walk into the room, and Louis’ mind screams no. Nope. He can’t live with them. That’s it, it’s finally. Not happening.

“Hi,” Harry says again, awkwardly waving at the three of them.

The music is so loud it actually hurts his ears. It’s his first uni party, and he’s really starting to question why he’s even here. But then he remembers: Niall wanted to come, and Louis happens to adore the little shit, so he went with him.

It’s fairly surprising that the police haven’t shown up, he thinks. If the music isn’t enough to draw them, the flashing lights and shouts of the people crammed into the tiny, one-storey house should be. And yet, everyone is just drinking, singing, laughing, dancing, having an all-around good time, not at all worried. So he tries to do the same as Niall drags him through the house.

Less than an hour—and not enough alcohol to calm him—later, he decides that he shouldn’t have come without Liam. Liam is his rock, his anchor, his lighthouse guiding him to shore through treacherous waters (okay, maybe he’s had a fair amount of alcohol, actually), and Louis is sort of lost without him. Niall ditched him off about twenty minutes ago to make out in a closet with some short brunette with a really, really annoying voice, leaving Louis completely alone in a sea of people he’s never met. He recognizes a few faces from some of his classes, but none of the people here are the ones that he normally associates with.

“You look lost,” someone says to his right.

Louis turns abruptly, the liquid in his clichéd, red plastic cup sloshing over the brim, splashing the tops of his shoes. “Can I help you?” he demands, raising an eyebrow.

The boy in front of him has wide green eyes and the kind of face that does not suit his body, nor his style. His cheeks are red and round in a way that makes him look fairly young, and his mouth is wide, pink lips spread over white teeth. Pleasant, friendly, cute. His body, on the other hand—he’s tall, really tall, and thin, too, but his shoulders have a good bit of definition. He’s wearing what are possibly the tightest jeans Louis’ ever seen, though, with a band shirt, sleeves rolled all the way up to those shoulders, revealing a collection of tattoos. And he’s got massive hands. Louis has no idea why this is important, but it definitely is.

“I don’t know,” the guy says, raising his eyebrows. “Can you?” Louis rolls his eyes and turns back around, but this guy is not letting up. He moves so he’s in front of Louis now, a grin on his face. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I don’t really know how to, um, do this.”

If it weren’t for the bashful, apologetic tone, Louis might have just walked away. As it is… “How to do what, exactly?”

“Talk to the hottest guy I’ve had the pleasure of laying my eyes on tonight,” the guy says, pushing his curly hair off his forehead. A moment later he extends his hand to Louis. “Nice to meet you.”

The rest—he sort of has no idea how the rest happened. One minute Curly is asking him his name and Louis is refusing to answer until Curly gets him a drink, and then the next he’s in the bathroom, knees probably bruising on the tiled floor, sucking him off. That was not the plan. Louis doesn’t really do this, but he’s a tiny bit drunk, out of his element, and hey, isn’t this was university is all about? Experimenting, finding yourself? And plus, Curly is sort of deliciously attractive, and he’s got a way with words that seems to crash through Louis’ walls with little resistance.

When they’re done, they leave the bathroom, heading back into the party. “Later, Jeremy,” Curly says, patting Louis on the shoulder. “It was nice meeting you.”

“It’s Louis,” he says automatically, frowning.

“Is it?” Curly asks, his expression mirroring Louis’. “Could have sworn you said Jeremy.”

And then he’s just—gone. Drifting back into the party. Half an hour later Louis finds him pressing some girl with nothing but a pink bra to cover her upper body against a wall, her hands fisted in that curly hair that had been silky to the touch. Louis leaves then, texting Niall once he’s in the cab on the way home.

At least he has a name for the douchebag now, he thinks. It’s not that he hasn’t seen Harry many times on campus. Their university isn’t all that big. They don’t have any classes together, though, and they run in different crowds. Occasionally Louis will pass him in the coffee shop, or the cafeteria, or in the quad, and Harry will look right through him, the way someone does with a stranger that they’ve never met. So he let it go, decided it wasn’t worth his time, but Louis is very, very good at holding a grudge.

“What’s up, bro?” Zayn says lazily, nodding his head towards Harry in greeting.

Niall looks up from his laptop and quickly says, “You’re not allowed to use that word in the house. House rules.”

“Do you want to see the room?” Liam asks abruptly, probably stopping an argument before it can begin.

Harry looks at each of them. His eyes do not linger on Louis any longer than they do on Niall or Zayn. There is no recognition in them at all.

“Sure,” Harry says. He grins, lopsided and sort of endearing, and follows Liam through the room, towards the hallway. Louis can kind of hear Liam muttering something, and Harry replies, but he can’t make out their words.

“He is so not living here,” Louis says, slapping Zayn’s shoulder.

Zayn makes a face at him. “Don’t hit me, you dick.”

“Emphasis, Zayn,” Louis hisses, hitting him again. Zayn moves to the edge of the couch while Louis leans over the back, making sure that Liam and Harry are still in the room. “Tell Liam he can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” Niall demands, not whispering the way Louis had been because he obviously doesn’t understand how to be sneaky at all.

“Because,” Louis says, sitting properly on the couch again. He hesitates. Niall has no idea what happened that night, mostly because Louis isn’t a sharer. Liam happens to know, but that’s only because Liam knows, like, everything about him. “He’s not allowed. I don’t like him. Look at that hair. You can’t trust someone with hair like that.”

Before Zayn or Niall can comment on this, Liam and Harry come back into the room. Louis goes to say something, like “Get the fuck out of my house now before I put to use that lawn mower in the shed that hasn’t been touched since my parents left.” Harry speaks before he can, though.

“Is that Supernatural?” he asks, leaning his elbows on the back of the couch.

Zayn frowns up at him. “Yeah, it is.”

“Awesome,” Harry says, grinning. “Fifth season. I personally like the third season best. That episode with the Trickster, where Dean dies, like, a hundred times? I’ve seen it so many times I bet I could recite the dialogue from memory.”

Louis’ heart sinks as Zayn’s eyes widen. “You can have the room,” he says breathlessly.

“Um, no, he can’t,” Louis snaps. Harry turns to him, confused, and Louis sort of wilts under his gaze, feeling guilty instantly. “We need to have a house meeting about it,” he explains swiftly. “Make sure everyone’s comfortable. We’ll get back to you as soon as we’ve decided.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Harry says. “And you’re, um, which one again?”

“Louis,” Liam supplies. “The one beside him is Zayn, and the one with the laptop grafted to his body is Niall.”

“Can you cook?” Niall asks without warning.

Harry shrugs and says, “A bit, yeah. Nothing, like, major, but I’m not bad.”

“Have you ever caught an entire kitchen on fire while making salad, though?” Zayn asks.

“No?” Harry looks a little wary now.

“That was a fucking accident,” Niall hisses. “And Zayn likes to randomly redecorate bedrooms, in case you’re wondering why it smells like paint in here. He gets angry and takes it out on the walls. And he has a Mariah Carey obsession.”

“Louis takes hour-long showers!” Zayn says loudly. “And he leaves his clothes everywhere all the fucking time.”

Louis gapes at him, for a moment forgetting about Harry’s entire existence. “Don’t bring me into this. But if we’re going to have a Who’s The Worst Roommate show-off, Liam labels all his food obsessively and he also wakes up before six, even on the weekends.”

“Leave Liam out of this,” Zayn snaps at him.

“Why? Because you’re so in—”

“Anyway!” Liam says loudly. “We’ll call you by Friday to let you know either way, Harry. But I have a feeling things will work out, if you’re still interested in the place.”

“Nice to meet you guys,” Harry says, moving away from the couch. “Thanks for showing me the room, Liam. Hopefully I’ll see you guys later.”

Liam sees him out. The door shuts behind Harry and a moment later Louis hears a car starting up, followed by the headlights flicking on just outside the curtain-covered window. He watches the car drive away as Liam comes back into the living room.

“He seemed really nice,” Liam says, falling into the seat between Louis and Zayn once again.

“He’s not,” Louis says darkly.

Liam gapes at him. “What? Why?”

“He can’t live here,” Louis says instead of explaining. He doesn’t want to in front of Zayn and Niall. “I didn’t like him and it’s my house, so.” He shrugs, end of conversation.

“Yeah, but we all live here,” Liam reminds him. “Majority rules. We’ll all take a vote on it. Personally, I think he’s great. He didn’t even react when Zayn and Niall opened their mouths, and he doesn’t seem like the type to sacrifice the neighbours’ cats to Satan or anything. I think we should give him a chance.”

“Seconded,” Zayn says instantly.

“He seemed alright,” Niall puts in. “He’s got my vote, I guess.”

“He’s not getting the room,” Louis says flatly.

Liam raises his eyebrows, schooling Louis with a look that is very reminiscent of the one his father used to give him when he was in trouble. “Why? What was wrong with him?”

Louis flounders for a moment, trying to think of something. And then he blurts, “Because he’s attractive. I refuse to live with someone that I want to have sex with. I mean, look at Zayn and—” He cuts himself off before he can finish and quickly covers his tracks. “Zayn and Niall. The sexual tension makes everyone else uncomfortable. I’m only looking out for the wellbeing and comfort of us all.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Zayn asks.

“The obvious sexual tension between you and our computer addicted friend,” Louis says, waving a hand at Niall who is too busy playing on his computer to listen.

Zayn snorts and says, “I don’t fuck douchebags. It’s a rule.”

“Did you just call me a douchebag?” Niall asks, looking up.

“You own fourteen snapbacks, you drink nothing but cheap beer, and you once referred to your dick as The Torpedo,” Zayn reminds him. “Sorry, mate, but you’re a douchebag. A lovable one, but a douchebag nonetheless.”

Niall shrugs. “Eh, I came to terms with that a long time ago.”

“Good for you,” Zayn says.

“Can we get back to the issue at hand?” Liam asks. “Give me a reason, Louis. We were talking in the bedroom, and he’s got a really uncomfortable situation back at the dorms with his roommate. He just wants space of his own, and he really did seem like an okay guy.”

The thing about Liam is that Louis truly, deeply loves him like a brother. Liam is possibly the sweetest person in the entire world (not that you should assume this fact makes him weak, because he’s watched Liam punch a guy straight in the face once for shoving Zayn at the bar, and that guy had dropped like a sack of fucking potatoes). If Louis told him the reason why he doesn’t want Harry there, Liam would let up immediately and he’d probably have a strongly worded conversation with Harry about respecting others and treating them well, because that’s what Liam does. But, at the same time, Liam is also extremely determined, and he has a thing for wanting to save everyone. Unless Louis comes right out and tells him why he doesn’t want Harry there, Liam will not let it go.

And, a part of him rationalizes, that all happened almost two years ago. Is it really fair to hold a grudge for that long when Harry is probably not the same person? Not really, he knows. The past is the past, and Harry apparently doesn’t even remember that any of that happened. So maybe Louis should let it go.

He just can’t.

“I don’t want him here, Liam,” he says firmly. He tries to convey with his eyes what he can’t with his words. Liam frowns at him for a long moment, but Liam knows Louis just as well as Louis knows Liam. “Please, just—no.”

“Okay,” Liam relents after a moment, nodding his head slowly. “I guess we’ll just see who else calls for the ad. I’ll give Harry a ring tomorrow, tell him that things didn’t work out.”

“No,” Louis says quickly. “It was my decision, I’ll do it.”

Liam sighs, shrugging. He looks at the television screen instead of Louis. “Sure. Whatever.”

He heads for the hallway and grabs the phone. Harry’s is the last number that was called, so he hits redial and waits as the phone rings. A moment later Harry picks up and says, a confused lilt to his voice, “Hello?”

“Hi,” Louis says. He coughs to clear his throat. “It’s, um, Louis.”

Harry is quiet for a moment. “Louis,” he says slowly. “Hey. What’s up?”

“I was just—”

“Calling to tell me I can’t have the room,” Harry guesses, sighing. “Yeah, I figured that. Too good to be true, you know?”

Louis pauses, eyes on the wall in front of him. There’s a smudge of something there. Something red. He prays it’s not blood. “What do you mean by that?”

Harry laughs, but it’s sort of bitter and wrong. “Just that the place was great,” he explains. “You guys seemed pretty normal, the room was in good shape. Last place I checked out, I’m pretty sure the one guy was actually selling crack out of the living room. The one before that probably should have been condemned by now. Not that many rooming houses in this city, weirdly enough.”

“Oh,” Louis says, wondering why his stomach twists uncomfortably. “Well—”

“Thanks for letting me check it out anyway,” Harry says abruptly. “It was nice meeting you, Louis.”

“Um. Yeah. Nice meeting you, too,” Louis says softly.

“Bye.” Harry hangs up.

Louis puts the phone down and then spends the next minute glaring at it. He does not feel guilty. It’s not his fault Harry can’t find somewhere to stay. It’s not his fault that people are selling crack in town. It’s not his fault. Karma, he thinks. Harry doesn’t deserve his pity.

And yet…

“Oh, fucking hell,” he mutters, reaching for the phone. He hits redial again. When Harry answers, instead of saying hello or anything like that, he says, “You can have the damn room.”