Larry Smut

An Utter Cliché

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6250519

By: SugaDaddy97

Summary:

In which Harry is a teacher and Louis is a flamboyant teaching assistant who rubs Harry up the wrong way before rubbing him up the RIGHT way. Featuring Liam as the stern head teacher, Niall as the energetic nursery (kindergarten) practitioner, Zayn as the year 6 teacher with an attitude problem and Grimmy as the bitchy Meal Time Assistant who can't keep his mouth shut.

Work Text:

When Harry asked the head teacher of the primary school for a teaching assistant to help him cope, nobody could have predicted who would land up working with. A teacher with barely a year's experience under his belt, he knew how important it was to have someone supporting the teacher and the children in a classroom – two years of experience as an assistant had taught him that along with numerous other things such as how cake mid-week was a lifesaver, and that chocolate Friday was a necessity. He also learned that if you wanted to truly get along with the teacher and become liked by senior leadership, you needed to do four things: work hard; keep your head down and stay out of drama; don't start any arguments with other staff members; and most importantly: make sure the kids like you without being overly affectionate. Harry learned this the hard way; his first stint as a teaching assistant had consisted of him being a human climbing frame and cuddle machine for 30 over excited eight year olds, and he naively lapped up the affection, coddling and cuddling the children whenever they craved his attention, and this led to a disastrous few months. Colleagues would make snarky comments behind his back, saying how he pandered to the kids and upheld no discipline, only to completely contradict themselves once Harry corrected himself, telling him he was too harsh on the children. Most nights he would come home physically and mentally drained and, one day in March, Harry packed in his job after a member of senior management refused to take his claims of bullying seriously, talking down to him like he was an insolent child and forcing him to leave the office in floods of tears. So if anyone was to know how to fit into an educational environment, it would be Harry.

Which is why, on the third week of October, when Harry walked into his classroom, he was completely and utterly shocked to find a small man – or was it a boy? – with caramel hair and obscene curves prancing around his classroom with a staple gun in hand and making all of Harry's display boards pastel pink.

"What on earth do you think you're doing?!" He raged, clenching his trembling hands into fists in a desperate attempt to restrain himself from reaching up and tugging his hair out of its man bun, "I had those display boards arranged perfectly!" His inner control freak broke free as he glared at the pint sized stranger, his breathing heavy and ragged. "That board was black so the flames would show up on our Great Fire of London topic, the one next to my desk was red for English, the one by the door was blue for maths and for fuck sake why is everything fucking pink?"

"Don't you think it's cute?" The stranger turned, a heavy pout gracing his thin, pink lips. "I think it softens the classroom and I've definitely never seen a classroom with display boards like this! Oh my God, I'm so sorry!"

"For what, cocking up the display boards I spent 2 days clearing of staples and then re-covering?"

"Oh no, I couldn't be sorry for that!" The annoying stranger's cerulean eyes twinkled with delight, and that only angered Harry more – was this guy ignoring his frustration, or was he just stupid?! "The kids will definitely prefer what I've done. I was saying sorry because I haven't introduced myself! I'm Louis, Louis Tomlinson: I'm your new teaching assistant!"

***

"Liam, you can't fucking do this to me!" A stack of maths elicitations sat unmarked and neglected on Harry's desk as he spent his lunch pacing around the head teacher's office, begging and pleading for him to assign Harry a TA he would be more compatible with... To no avail. Liam Payne was the ideal head teacher; stern with the kids when he needed to be, but kind and sweet and loved all the same. He was kind and fair with the staff, and always took their worries and considerations into account; so why he flat out refused to remove Mr Tomlinson from Harry's class was beyond a mystery.