Imprisoned In My Heart: A Larry Stylinson Fanfic

4.

Chapter Four

 When Louis walked through the doors on his second day, he was feeling a little bit apprehensive – but the first greeting he got was another friendly wave from Niall, and then a couple of people he recognised – but whose names, he guiltily realized, had slipped his mind – walked past and gave him a pat on the back, presumably in gratitude for him deciding to stick around, and things only got better from there. He mooched around for a while, saying hi to people, and stopped for a bit and had a pretty good conversation with Zayn Malik about hair wax, which the other boy admitted was a bit of a sore point.

“They won’t let me have any gel or anything – I can’t cope,” he announced, grabbing a strand of hair off his forehead in aggravation. “Look! It’s so limp. I can’t get it to stand up at all. It’s…it’s just unacceptable. My hair’s just flat. Ugh.”

“I think it looks okay,” Louis assured him.

“You would say that,” Zayn said gloomily, “your hair looks great.”

Louis started attempting to reassure him that his hair looked fine when he spotted a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. Turning to look, he saw Liam gesturing impatiently at him and realized with a twinge of embarrassment that he had been doing it for a while, and it looked like Louis had been deliberately ignoring him. Shrugging apologetically at Zayn, he hurried over to where Liam stood and gazed sheepishly at the floor.

“Sorry. Got distracted.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Liam said with a grin. “Talking to Zayn, huh?”

“Yeah,” Louis said almost defensively. “Problem?”

“No. It’s just weird, that’s all.” Liam shook his head in amusement. “Zayn doesn’t usually say much – even when he’s got visitors he keeps his head down. He values his privacy, I guess. What on earth did you find to talk to him about? If it were me, I would just have stood staring at him; I didn’t think he was capable of having a full conversation. You’ve really brought him out of his shell. One-word answers are usually his limit.”

“Really?”

“Well. He’s quite close to his cell-mate, I guess, but who isn’t? We make sure that people get along in this place, or else we move them around. Don’t want anyone getting aggressive. I get the impression Zayn can be quite chatty when he feels like it, but the point is that he doesn’t feel like it very often.”

“He was moaning about his hair,” Louis admitted.

Liam laughed. “Oh, now that doesn’t surprise me. I do remember we had a few arguments with him when he first came in about that kind of thing. High quality haircare products were something he was adamant about. Not that he got his way, of course.”

“Vain, is he?”

“Not…not exactly. I wouldn’t say vain; he’s not totally self-centred or anything. But he does take pride in his appearance, yes.”

“Liam,” one of the guards said warningly as he walked past, “we’ve got a job to do.”

“Right. Sorry!” Liam apologized with a meek smile. He rolled his eyes as the other guy walked past, then made a face behind his back.

Louis smiled sympathetically.

“I was meant to be showing you to your office,” Liam admitted, gesturing for Louis to follow him.

Excitement lit up Louis’ face as they started heading down the corridor. Doors opened, and Liam’s keys clinked as they navigated their way down endless twisting corridors, constantly stopping to unlock doors and then carefully lock them again once they’d gone through.