“Louis. Lou, wake up.”
“WAKE UP YOU MASSIVE TWAT!”
“For fucks sake, Zayn. Honestly?”
Louis can vaguely hear the voices of his annoying friends as he’s pulled from sleep. He drags his eyes open to look at his clock. 5:52 a.m. Fucking wankers.
“Lou, come on. Everyone’s waiting downstairs so get your arse up.”
“Mmmrph.” He flips them off, turning his face so he can bury it in his pillow.
“Same to you, fuck stick.”
“Zayn. Not helping.”
“Liam, relax. Let’s just leave him. Queen Louise obviously needs his beauty rest.”
“Fuck you, Malik.” Louis spits, sitting up from his bed, suddenly more awake.
“There's a good lad! Let’s go, get your kit on. We’ve got fresh meat to round up.”
A grin breaks across Louis’ face despite himself. Initiation night. He remembers it well.
In five minutes he’s bounding down the stairwell excitedly with Liam, Zayn and Niall in tow. Standing at the base of the stairs are Sully and Brewer amongst a few more of his teammates. He easily catches the black scrap of cloth that Brewer throws in his direction.
“Do we know who’s staying where?” Louis takes a quick inventory of the complex the football team shares. He hadn’t thought to get the information beforehand but he’s not exactly in charge of this operation, so whatever.
“Does it matter? All I’ve got is the flat numbers. I say we just split up and have at it, yeah?”
A rumble of agreement rolls through the group and then Niall’s tugging on his arm, leading him to the flat number that’s scribbled on the scrap of paper given to him when Louis wasn’t looking.
A10, it reads.
When they finally reach the flat, Niall pushes the front door open without preamble. Louis’ silently hoping they didn’t get dickhead complainers as they knock loudly on the first bedroom door, which is rather pointless since they’re just going to bust through it anyway.
“Oi! Mornin’, sunshine,” Niall crows as he yanks the comforter off of a sleeping boy that Louis doesn’t quite recognize. He thinks he probably should have been paying a little bit more attention to the other new recruits.
Oh fuck, he thinks. What’s he going to do when he sees Harry again? He honestly hadn’t prepared for it since the locker room incident yesterday. Well maybe I won’t have to see him at all, he reasons. After all, all the boys would be blindfolded for most of the time, and Louis could just conveniently disappear when they weren’t, right? Yeah, okay, that’s a plan.
He watches Niall blindfold the boy after first allowing him to slip into a pair of trainers.
“Up you go.” He drags the kid up by the shirt collar and maneuvers him out of the room, Louis following behind as they move as a group to the closed door on the other side of the flat.
When Niall opens the second door Louis’ heart flips violently in his chest. From his spot behind Niall, he can make out a sleepy-eyed, but smiling Harry. He's sitting up in his bed, fully dressed with his trainers already laced up. He must have been tipped off by all the commotion.
“Well, someone’s eager.” Niall laughs and Harry gives a small smile in return, shrugging.
Louis tries not to notice when Harry’s smile drops completely off his face as soon as he becomes aware of Louis in the doorway.
