The Brother I Never Wanted (Larry AU)

Chapter 5

"Man, I forgot how hot he is. He's so much better looking than I remember."

Louis' arm swings up to whack Niall in the back of the head, voice dropping to a low hiss. Niall can't keep his fucking eyes off the boy in the stands, and Louis' genuinely starting to get anxious. What if he looks up and sees both of them staring so intently at him?

"Stop staring. You're making me nervous."

"I'm not even staring at you," he points out, face scrunching. "How the fuck am I making you nervous? It's not like he's going to look over here. Coach isn't even out here yet, and he's been staring at the same scuffed up piece of turf for the past five minutes. I think you're safe."

Louis shuffles on his feet uneasily, trying almost painfully hard to keep his eyes from following Niall's gaze, eyes tracking the patterns the black and white makes as the ball spins across the grass instead. "Surely he can feel us staring at him. Haven't you ever gotten that feeling like you're being watched. Like the hairs at the back of your neck stand up, and you get goosebumps all over because you swear a kidnapper is going to jump out of that tiny shadow in the corner and drag you away to his basement?"

Niall's eyes flicker to him briefly, then back. "That's almost morbid, Lou."

"It could happen!" he protests weakly. "I'm just saying that it's a natural instinct to be able to sense that other things are watching. Watch the nature channel once in your life, and you'd know that too. It's like a sixth sense. So that prey can be on alert for a predator."

"Are you saying that you're the predator and he's the prey?" he counters smugly, smirking when Louis whiffs the ball slightly. "Because that's actually kind of hot and kinky, Lou. Didn't expect that from you."

Heat crawls up the back of his neck and lights up his cheeks. The coil of heat that tightens the pit of his stomach gives him the impression that, yes, he'd very much like that. But Louis wouldn't be the predator. No, he's much too timid for that. He'd definitely be the prey. And remembering the way Harry has addressed him from minute one, he thinks he might already be the prey in his eyes.

"You're sick," Louis states, snagging the ball off the turf to chuck at his shoulder. It bounces back with a thud, so that Louis bring it down with the inside of his knee to rest at his feet again.

Niall yelps. "Oi! I'm just saying, Lou . . . It's not illegal to date, kiss, fuck, or whatever your stepbrother." Louis turns to him with wide eyes, squishing the ball to the ground with his cleats so tightly, he thinks it might just pop. "You remember my cousin, Steven? Of course you do . . . . Anyway, he had an affair with his stepsister for over a year, and no one even knew about it. They could've gotten married if they were motivated to."

Louis picks up the ball again, this time hurling it at his stomach. His face was bright red, he's sure, and the fact that Niall keeps insisting that he fuck his stepbrother when he's only fifty feet away really doesn't help. It hits his best mate straight in the gullet, and his eyebrows scrunch in annoyance, arms wrapping around his stomach.

"Oi, mate!" He scoops it up where it lands and throws it right back, but this one hits him in a very bad place. A place where the birds don't chirp and the sun doesn't shine. Even Niall's face instantly turns guilty, cringing when Louis wheezes breathily and sinks to his knees. He's wearing a protective cup, but, man, when it hits you, it hits you. "Oops . . . sorry."

He glances up at Niall's bashful smile through squinted eyes before squeezing them closed in agony and flopping over to curl into a ball on the ground, hand cradling his privates. "Fuck you," he breathes, voice coming out a raspy whisper.

"Hey, Lou . . . I'm sorry. I really am." A coy little smile spreads across his face, as he reaches down, pulling him in by his collar so their faces are inches apart. His warm breath feels nice on his face, allowing a small bit of blood to flow back into his rosy cheeks. "Want me to kiss it better?"