Gods & Monsters

Chapter 6 (Part 1)

Niall Horan is set to arrive in three days.

And Louis has done absolutely nothing in preparation of it, despite Liam's gleefully texted reminders and not-so-subtle glints of the eye every time the name 'Alice' or 'Horan' is mentioned. Still, all is not completely lost—he does have a nice little plan of attack mapped out for him. At the time of Horan's arrival, Louis will come to Liam and Zayn's flat, where Niall will appear for an 'introductory visit'. Apparently, Liam sent this smiling-through-his-bared-teeth invitation to Mrs. Horan with the proposed intention to acquaint Niall with some of his peers before the big Charity Gala next week—which, by the way, is still being hosted by the Payne-Maliks. Which is nice. Especially because it makes Liam act a little bit less like an insufferable tit.

So. There's a plan. But.

Horan will be here, here, in three days. And in three days, Louis will need to work his mangled up magic on yet another unsuspecting youth with eyes and lips and awaiting hands. He'll need to do his very fucking best again. Already. Despite it being almost three weeks since he's first started on Harry Styles and he still has yet to obtain any sense of solid ground with the boy.

Three weeks.

It's the first thing that Louis allows himself to think about when he sucks in the cold, burnt smoke of his cigarette, pinched between two dirty fingernails, staring out on the sleeping cityscape. A nice blanket of smog coats the skyline like a little protective blanket, keeping everybody asleep and poisoned under its embrace. There are no visible stars, barely a visible moon.

And Horan will be here in three days.

Really, Louis should be...researching. Or something. He should be poking about the school, poking at the rich kids with familial connections, and he should be hoarding information like a squirrel would its nuts.

See, it's easy to wiggle out secrets around here. It's a small city filled with small minds and Louis knows how to work each and every one of them. And there's no loyalty lost, not ever, because everyone here? All they care about is their image. That's literally it. They care about themselves and nothing else—especially not each other. Because everyone's the fucking same. They're all just bored and bland and menial and identical and not one of them's alive—just a bunch of bodies filling up space, you see. Nobody is 'special' or 'different' or memorable in any way. All of the conversations are the same, all of the whispered intrigues are less than intriguing. Every person, every teen, every child, every adult—they're all just copies of one another. Louis walks down the street every day and he hears the same songs pouring from the same phones clutched in the hands of the same kids wearing the same clothes.

Everything is the same. Everything is boring. Everything is predictable.

Life is sort of like that in general, actually.

And it's for exactly this reason that information is easy to obtain, especially around here. Especially for someone new, someone out of the norm, someone about to become part of the grey matter. Swallowed up whole.

He can't help but sneer at the thought before it sweeps away in the breeze, tangled up in the clouds of smoke from his lips.

But. He's good at the research part, Louis is. It's easy for him, easy because he's above all this shit, above all the people he's stuck with here. He's smarter than them. He swarms through the dull masses and pickpockets the information he wants, all while they're none the wiser, and he formulates his plan of attack while they're all absorbed in the latest scandal or sports game. Or themselves, whatever.

He's good at this game. He followed Harry for days before he finally approached him. He watched the way he walked and observed the way he dressed, studied the way his lips would twist when he talked, placing all of Liam's embittered descriptions in line with the sways of his hips and patterns of his speech.