Is this seat taken- lainy122 on Archive of our own

Chapter 2

The thing was that once he was inside, it was very hard not to freak out. Louis had honestly not thought this far ahead, which in hindsight had been a bit stupid. But then, the whole idea itself had been a bit stupid, so at least he was on track.

With a lack of anything better to do, Louis ambled casually along the various corridors as though he had any right to be there. Maybe a plan would come to him.

After a few minutes with no particular inspiration and a growing paranoia of being discovered, he decided to try and find Zayn. It wasn't the best plan, but no other ideas were presenting themselves. Louis was just turning to ask for directions from one of the many harassed-looking people running around when an announcement sounded above him.

"Attention, could all seat-fillers please convene in Green Room 3 for the mandatory show run-down, thank you."

Louis glanced at a sign on the wall next to him, pointing him towards Green Room 3.

Hmmm. Seat-filler. That sounded conveniently both useful as a disguise and also like a lot of fun if he played it right. Louis was an expert playing things right. Paranoia forgotten, he followed the direction the sign indicated.

Green Room 3 was filled with roughly a dozen people, men wearing clean cut suits and tuxedos, and women wearing classy but understated dresses. Everyone was crowded around an imposing looking lady with an iPad. As Louis approached and joined the edge of the group, she began going through what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech.

The first bit about co-ordinating staff to fill unoccupied seats was interesting, because Louis had never given any of that sort of thing any great amount of thought, even though he had been to a number of these fancy music events as Zayn's plus one. As she began to go into the various rules about interacting with guests though, his attention began to wander. He was pretty much going to ignore all this anyway, since it didn't really matter if he got it wrong. He was only tagging along for the night, and it wasn't like they could fire him. He didn't work for them in the first place.

Instead he checked out the fellow occupants of his impromptu cover story.

The men and women around him were all young, although not as young as Louis; pretty much everyone he could see looked to be in their late twenties or early thirties. At twenty-three, Louis seemed to be the baby of the bunch.

Actually, scratch that, there did seem to be someone his age, and she was looking right at him. She was also carrying a clipboard. Oops.

Louis pretended to be paying attention again, but unfortunately the girl approached him anyway.

"I don't recognise you," she said, speaking softly so she wouldn't interrupt the lecture still going on. Just as Louis thought his ill-advised adventure might be over, she added, "Are you new?"

"Yes. Very new," Louis replied with a completely straight face. "Can you tell?" he asked, because he loved pushing his luck, pulling out a sly smile.

The girl smiled back, hurrying to reassure him.

"I'm Eleanor," she said, holding out the hand that wasn't clutching the clipboard. "I work under Miranda."

Louis shook her hand and nodded as though he knew who Miranda was.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Louis."

"Calder!" a voice snapped behind Eleanor, making them both jump. The woman who had been lecturing everyone apparently had finished and had snuck up on them. "Haven't you even finished introductions yet?"

Eleanor flushed in embarrassment. "Sorry, Miranda," she mumbled.

Louis gritted his teeth.

"My fault," he lied smoothly. Miranda's hard gaze and Eleanor's wide eyes turned to him. "Wasn't counting on all that increased security, you know, made me a bit late."