Larry Stylinson ~ Poor Little Rich Boy AU

12.

Chapter Twelve:

“A feast fit for a king!” Louis declared.

Harry laughed. “Oh, yes; sausage rolls, crisps, and a couple of bruised apples – what a veritable feast!” He sat down on the rug which Louis had spread out on the grass, crossed his long legs like a little child in primary school, and then grinned.

Louis huffed at him as he squatted down next to him on the ground. “Don’t turn your nose up, rich boy. Maybe your daddy could buy you solid gold sandwiches with one wave of his credit card, but I’m on limited funds, so a couple of measly sausage rolls and a battered apple are as close to a gourmet luncheon as we’re going to get.”

“I was teasing,” Harry promised, and his hand glided down Louis’ back, pausing on his spine and tracing a couple of light circles there. “I like sausage rolls. And he’s not my dad.” He leaned forward and shyly kissed Louis on the nose. “I think it’s dead sweet that you’ve done all of this, Lou, really.”

Not that he was about to let on, but Louis had been up since six scavenging the shelves of the local corner shop for affordable food so that he could manage some kind of a picnic for Harry – he couldn’t rustle up a picnic basket, so he’d had to settle for Sainsburys carrier bags, and instead of a blanket, they were sitting on the rug that he’d brought from his room so that they didn’t have to sit on the muddy grass. The crisps were crushed from where he’d sat on them, as Harry had tactlessly pointed out, the apples had been abused and were left with a smattering of little dark marks on their acid green outsides, and the sausage rolls were limp and flat – but he’d tried hard, and he was pleased that Harry wasn’t so up his own arse that he couldn’t appreciate Louis’ efforts, even if he had poked fun at them a little. Louis had to admit, he would have been tempted to laugh a little bit himself, had it been Harry who had provided the picnic.

Louis shrugged and picked up an apple. He examined it, checking for marks other than bruises, and then bit into it with a sharp crunch. “Well,” he said through his mouthful, “it was nothing, really. Just thought it was a nice day for a picnic.”

Biting back a laugh, Harry looked down and started fiddling with the tassels of the rug, keeping his eyes glued to the ground; he knew that if he looked at Louis properly, he was going to burst out laughing. “Nice day for it. Did you look out of the window with your eyes closed, by any chance?”

Admittedly, that wasn’t the cleverest excuse that Louis could have come up with. It had drizzled on and off all day, dismal grey clouds hung persistently overhead, watching them in silence and preparing to rain miserably down on them whenever it felt like it, and there was a bitter, cold breeze around which snatched at their hair, ruffling it wildly, and pinched viciously at their cheeks, leaving them pink. Harry’s green eyes sparkled with amusement. It was cold, damp and not at all picnic weather, and Louis would have cancelled if he hadn’t spent almost the entire night planning it and most of the morning toiling back and forth between the hotel and the corner shop, having already posted a note with the time and place for their meeting later underneath Harry’s door. Foolishly, the romantic in him had refused to let him leave the shop without recklessly spending three pounds on a single crimson rose, which he’d stupidly tried to squeeze underneath Harry’s door with the note. Obviously, it hadn’t worked, but he’d stubbornly kept trying and ended up half crushing the flower in his attempts to desperately cram through the tiny space, and despite losing rather a lot of petals and being horribly mangled, he’d managed to finally shove it underneath.

Harry was wearing it now, bless him, bedraggled and pathetic as it was – it was limp and sorry for itself, like the picnic, and like the weather – and yet without a trace of irony, he had it neatly tucked into the buttonhole of his blazer. In fact, he even reached up to touch it every now and then, a tender stroke of the limp petals, as if he had to reassure himself it was there. He kept doing the same to Louis; brushing fingers against his arm, tapping him lightly on the back, reaching out to thread their fingers together. It was almost as if he was afraid that if he didn’t constantly check that Louis hadn’t disappeared, the moment Harry turned his back, Louis was going to vanish. Weirdly, Louis found it kind of sweet, and so that Harry didn’t feel awkward to be the one who kept turning to touch Louis in reassurance, every so often he would sneak brushes of his own in, just little ones. Subtly nudging Harry’s thigh with his knee as he leaned over him to pick up a sausage roll. Tidying his unruly fringe for him. Leaning against him slightly while he ate, like he was tired and needed support, even though he was so full of energy that he was practically bouncing, jiggling his knee up and down  to expel some of the nerves. Harry seemed to pick up on what he was doing and smiled gratefully every now and then, and he repaid him by cuddling up to him, snuggling into his embraces – and when they had finished eating, Louis settled back and pulled Harry’s head onto his lap, where the younger boy set about purring like a little cat as Louis happily stroked his hair, and they both looked up at the grey sky.