It's Getting Cold These Days [Larry Stylinson AU]

Seventeen

A/N: Heya! There's a lot of dialogue in this chapter and it's one we're both proud to have written, which makes it that much more exciting to share. Lots of angst ahead as well. We hope you have a great day and enjoy this chapter x

Models and agents lumped together on the stools by the kitchen counter, conversing about everything but career opportunities. Some would hook their arms around Louis and kindle a memory about a modelling session in an abandoned industry area, and that club they got wasted at, and how Louis had been the most sober one in the party despite tripping between the walls of an alley on the way to a hotel. Others brought him to the side and inquired if he was okay being in a polyamorous relationship, given how that pierced girl was snogging Zayn.

Louis was tipsy. During a lull in the upbeat mood, a load of his childhood friends from Doncaster had been allowed into the flat, after being upheld in the hallway by Zayn for surprise, some of which Louis hadn't seen in years. All of them had bought gifts. He let himself be shoved into the couch and swathed by them, unpacking under the observance of his guests, who kept whispering to him and to each other.

"I thought you were going to buy the kettle?"

"It reminded me of that time in Melbourne, when we'd been on the beach all week and you couldn't wash the sand off..."

"Open mine first! It's something all of us can enjoy as well."

Sat upon a mountain of presents, Louis overlooked the flourishing conversations between people he knew as well as the back of his hand but who weren't familiar with each other.

Zayn joined him on the side-lines with an uncapped beer twirling in his hands. He was laughing at a joke Louis hadn't heard.

"My mum hasn't called," Louis said.

"She would call today? This early?"

"Yeah, they're... They're going up north for Christmas. No connection up there."

Zayn sipped from the bottle. Bangles garnished his arm, made of the strings holding the wrapped gifts in place. Some of it spilled from his hair.

"They haven't dropped you off the family radar," he said.

"How can you say that for certain?"

"I can't. But who wouldn't want you for a son, for a brother?"

"Zayn, I was gone for so long. I don't think they owe me a 'happy birthday'. Surely you wouldn't have just welcomed me home if it'd been you."

Zayn nudged him, gauging the foam coasting in his beer with an illegible glint. "I'd make you sleep on the couch..."

"There you go."

"... But I'd also cook for you and force you to play Scrabble with me. A few years doesn't change the fact that you're her son. You were young and now you're... You're still young, but now you've gained experience. Most choices are easier made in hindsight. At the time it wasn't as easy, with all the temptations obscuring what should have been important. Although, I am a very handsome and persuasive man, so it may fall on my lot as well—that I strung you further into the business."

Louis watched Niall, who was by the bowls of crisps, pinching a piece and bringing it to his mouth idly. Niall had refrained from drinking, claiming that he had a last-minute exam the day after. During post-sex and early morning conversations with Harry before work, Louis had been told that Niall was free for the rest of the year—the rare times Harry talked for the sake of filling silence without thinking his words were of weight. Louis wouldn't be the one to participate in peer pressure, so he cracked open a soda and handed it over.