Larry Stylinson - Turning From Praise (AU)

4.

“Louis, she said I was a pig!”

“I didn’t say you were a pig, I said you looked like a pig,” Daisy corrected with classic eight year old logic, then she stuck out her tongue and made several snorting noises right in her sister’s face.

Playing the long-suffering older brother role, Louis bit back a sigh and said wearily, “Now, Daze, that isn’t very nice, is it?”

She looked wounded, her little pink mouth pushing out in a pout, blue eyes shining as she gave him her best injured look, like she was the victim of the situation. Louis had seen Daisy’s pleading face enough times that it didn’t affect him any more; he glanced down the road instead, and, put out, she started tugging on his sleeve to try and commandeer his attention.

“But she said I was –”

It was at about that point that he stopped listening. When he’d offered to take the twins to the park to give his mum a break, he’d forgotten that when his little sisters weren’t being doe-eyed and adorable so that strangers would coo over them, or so uncannily alike that he wondered if they really could read each other’s thoughts, they were fighting. Forget cat and dog – this was cat and cat, and each sister gave as good as she got. Louis really wasn’t in the mood for it.

Since the charity shop fiasco, he’d honestly been feeling rather guilty, as if he’d done something absolutely awful. He couldn’t seem to forget Harry’s angry expression as he’d walked out, couldn’t help remembering that he’d hurled accusations with no provocation and got entirely the wrong end of the stick, and hadn’t even apologized. What must the boy think of him now?

Why do I care about that? Louis asked himself in utter bewilderment. Why did it matter what the local misfit thought of him? Was he so shallow that he couldn’t stand the thought of one person disliking him? The whole community liked Louis; he was well-known for being friendly, responsible, hard-working and yet always up for a laugh, attending church without fail, loving kids and doing anything he could to help people out. He lost count of the amount of friends he had, the amount of people who would just run up to him in the street and start a conversation like they’d been best friends for years, even if he barely knew them. So why was he so bothered about one lonely boy who everybody shunned? Why did it matter what that boy thought of him?

He had several theories (including that the boy was far more considerate and friendly than most of the people he knew, and he also had an incredible tendency to wander amongst Louis’ thoughts and poison them all with his easy smile, the clink of his bracelets, the twinkle in his eyes…) but Louis was too afraid to think of those. He didn’t want to think about the fact that the smooth white curve of Harry’s throat was far more attractive than any girl’s, far more tempting to layer kisses over. That the hard line of his jaw was at a ridiculously alluring angle, that Louis could have fastened his mouth to it without hesitation. That his large hands would have just the right amount of grip on Louis’ waist to make him feel safe and yet let him know that Harry was most definitely there, holding him hard enough to have bruises. The cute little grin that he kind of wanted to be the cause of.

He’d seen the way the parishioners of the church despised Harry, the nasty looks they would shoot him, their evident mistrust of him. The comments that most stuck with him were those of his own mother, who could often be heard complaining about the boy over their evening meal – not seeming to notice that Felicite wilted visibly with every mention of his name, shrinking into herself like a snail into its shell – and nine times out of ten, his sexuality and not his clothing was the source of her annoyance. If Louis admitted that he was attracted to any man, let alone one that his entire family hated, he didn’t like to think about how she’d react – but he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d be greeted by an angry mob on his way home from college the day after. She certainly wouldn’t allow him over the threshold of their home again.