Larry Stylinson - Turning From Praise (AU)

9.

Their third date was a movie, and Niall and Zayn tagged along just like they had on the second. Louis didn’t care; he was still going to count it as a date. They went to see an eighteen certificate movie but Niall had dropped his ID in a puddle, and the woman on the counter took one look at his now smudgy photo and the new red streaks in his hair and refused to believe it was him, so they switched movies and watched a cartoon instead. The animation was jerky and the slapstick comedy was vaguely amusing at best (although Niall still laughed so hard that he almost choked on his popcorn and threw his food all over the floor by accident) and the colours were so garish that Louis found them offensive to the eyes, but Harry held his hand all the way through it and stroked the back of Louis’ hand with his thumb, and Louis accidentally started taking a sip from Harry’s drink, and they made eye contact and giggled like a pair of fifteen year olds.

Their fourth date was a meal: specifically pizza. Harry forgot his wallet so they both pretended it was Louis’ birthday and got a free Banana Birthday Bonanza pizza to share, and after they picked the bananas off and drowned it in ketchup it actually tasted alright.

Their fifth date was Louis taking Harry’s shift in the charity shop and volunteering for three and a half hours, and Harry showed him how to use the pricing machines and they had a tagging war so that by the end of the shift they were both covered in little luminous yellow stickers. The sticker dead in the centre of Louis’ forehead said ‘99p’, which Louis joked was all he was worth until Harry looked him in the eyes and told him he was priceless, and then they both blushed and Louis fell off his chair, and they both spent the next twenty minutes laughing and putting back all the books in the bargain basket that Louis had knocked over on his way down.

Their sixth date was more coffee, and halfway through it Zayn and Niall showed up and were oh-so-surprised to see them there, which made Louis and Harry suspect that they weren’t actually surprised at all, and they were following them around because they were bored. Niall gargled coffee and Zayn tried to juggle the wrinkly oranges in the fruit bowl and all four of them got thrown out and rudely told not to come back. Harry looked crestfallen, but Louis said “Thank God, now I can go back to crap coffee that may burn off my taste-buds but at least it only costs 99p!” and they all trailed off to Louis’ usual coffee shop and drank coffee that tasted like boiled water and nothing else, and unanimously agreed that it was vile.

Their seventh date was cancelled, because Niall got drunk and tried to get a tattoo of a Teletubby and it took the combined efforts of both Harry and Zayn to hold him back (“I’m sorry,” Harry said down the phone, which he was holding against his ear with his shoulder as he tried to haul Niall back into the house, “but if he gets that creepy green thing, Dipshit, or whatever it’s called” – “Dipsy!” screamed Niall – “tattooed onto his bicep, he’ll wake up in the morning and shoot someone”). Louis chuckled and invited Liam over, and they played Monopoly and Louis lost because he was too distracted by the way his phone kept lighting up with texts as Harry kept him posted with the latest developments of the tattoo-prevention crusade (He won’t stop screaming, I’m going to shove a sock in his mouth in a minute…He tried to punch Zayn and then fell over; he says he’s broken his toe so I think we might be all right…Oh Christ, now he’s trying to eat the curtains as a protest). Liam didn’t ask who was texting him, because he knew by now that Louis had a specific look for his mystery mate and there was no way he was going to reveal their identity (although Louis thought that judging by the look on Liam’s face, he had his suspicions).

Their eighth date involved ice cream that Harry tried to make from scratch, and then the cat came in and tried to eat some and was sick, and they had to clean it up in a mad rush before either of Harry’s parents got home. Louis made sure he left long before any of Harry’s family members got back; he didn’t much fancy coming face to face with Anne after all the things his mother had said about her.