i'll love you for a lifetime // larry stylinson

two

published: march 16th, 2021

note: i recently published a new drabble/short fic called "in this damn world" which is basically about louis getting his wisdom teeth removed and being all cute and loopy, it would be great if you guys would go check that out!!

also so sorry for not updating "love me, please?" in like a month... i know what i want to happen in the chapter but when i write it it's just not working if you know what i mean?? i'll try to finish it soon but i'm struggling (as always).

*****

Fate must've really hated Louis, because it turned out Harry was in Louis' history class, too. That took the tally of classes the two shared up to three, which was about three too many if Louis wanted to make it out of this school year alive.

Even worse, both Niall and Zayn weren't in his history class, which meant Louis was all alone for this class. He wouldn't have anyone to do group or partner work with, he wouldn't have anyone to go to when he didn't know how to do his work, and he wouldn't have anyone to gush to when Harry did anything remotely cute or attractive in class.

All in all, Louis was a nervous, fumbling, and lonely mess when he walked into history. It was only the first week of school after months of holidays, and Louis was still trying to fall back into the rhythm of waking up early and going to all of his different classes. It didn't help that Harry was seated so close to him in every class they shared, and now Louis was in a permanent state of anxiousness.

The history teacher, Mr. Andrews, hadn't arrived yet which meant his classmates were milling around, chatting with each other. Louis knew people in this class, but he didn't know anyone he'd particularly like to chat with so he sat awkwardly in his seat, rifling through his textbook and pretending to read when in reality he wasn't concentrating on the words and was just trying to kill some time.

He wasn't expecting it when a dark shadow fell across the pages of his textbook and a deep voice said, "Hey, are you Louis?"— and he most definitely wasn't expecting it when he looked up and found that the shadow and voice belonged to Liam Payne. Sure, Liam's eyes were warm and friendly but he was so tall and muscular and what the hell did someone like him want with Louis? Louis refrained from cowering in his seat.

"Um, yeah." Why had his voice turned so squeaky? Louis cursed himself and cringed at how awkward and embarrassing he must look right now.

"Well, I'm Liam." Yeah, no shit, of course I who you are— but Liam was smiling and he held out his hand to Louis, presumably so Louis could shake it, and Louis was all types of confused and bewildered.

It would be terribly rude to not shake Liam's hand, though, so Louis stretched his hand out and slipped it into Liam's. "Do you need anything?" he blurted out. No one, besides his friends, ever talked to him unless they needed something from him, homework help, usually. School had only just started though... did Liam really need help already?

A light chuckle left Liam's lips. "No, it's just that I've been seeing you around a lot, but I've never talked to you before."

"Oh." Louis managed to muster a smile. He also then promptly forgot to say something else to carry on the conversation, like an absolute idiot.

Luckily for Louis, Liam wasn't socially awkward like he was, and he continued, "What do you think of this class? I mean, I find it pretty hard."

"Um, well, it's pretty interesting, a little hard, I guess," Louis answered honestly, fidgeting a little with the sleeves of his sweater.

"Yeah," Liam agreed. "Definitely interesting. What's your favorite class?" 

Liam's eyes were so intense to Louis and it was making him so nervous that this popular jock was even looking at him, so he quickly tried to distract himself by looking down at his dirty Vans. "Oh, um. Well, I guess I like most subjects. Maybe my favorite's math or something."