Just another Cup of Tea // Larry au

Break The Rules

Harry's Mansion 5/9/14

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It had been six days since Louis and Harry last talked. Six.

No, nothing bad had happened since they talked, but nothing had happened at all. They parted ways with the promise of making arrangements soon but as mentioned earlier , it had been six days. Which one was meant to call first? Which one was meant to ask out the other? If something had happened a day or two earlier, maybe Harry wouldn't of overthought everything but he had so at the moment, calling Louis seemed like an incredibly daunting task.

Harry's brain worked in the way of business, considering each variable of the situation.

- Let's say Harry calls first ; this starts the relationship off on Harry being the so called 'dominant' one and is then christened to arrange every other date and is expected to be the one to propose moving in together and eventually propose marriage. Simplifyed, it is like saying that the ball is always in Harry's court.

Yet if Louis calls first, Harry ends up being the one to have to wait for everything. Then Harry is by default the 'submissive' one and is most likely expected to bottom (not that he would have too much of a problem with that).

Harry knew he had blown everything way out of proportion but there was no going back. Maybe in another world, he would call his mother in aid of advice, but it wasn't another world so he was well aware of the incessive talking he would recieve from a simple question.

"Sir?" A timid knock on the door was enough to jolt Harry into worldly consiousness. It was the maid, of course, but Harry still jumped at her presence.

"Your bath has been run." She quietly announced before backing out of the room and returning to her work.

Harry frowned at the thought of moving from his comfortable position, but complied. As soon as he entered the bathroom, the steaming aroma of scents hit him like a brick wall. He swiftly got in, hasty to get back out to stare at Louis' contact for another hour or so.

As he washed his hair, an idea struck him and he sat up straight, ignoring the chill of the air on his back. With slight annoyance at his own idea, he reached for some toilet paper and started ripping up the roll into individual squares, and then into even smaller strips. He then proceeded to pull the plug on his bath and drop the ball of paper maché style toilet roll into the narrow piping.

He winced as he heard a gurgle from the plug but ignored it, repeating a mantra to get himself through it. It's for Louis, It's for Louis, It's for Louis He told himself and dried himself off with a clear white towel.

The water that was previously draining started to slowly creep through the gaps in the toilet paper, causing Harry to curse then shove another role of toilet paper down the pipe. Only when the water was no longer draining was he happy, satisfied with a smirk.

With confidence in his briefly thought-through plan, he picked up his phone and typed '#2' into the dial.

His heart rate increased as the phone rang and his breathing got more rigid. For a second he tuned out and counted from one to ten in his head in an attempt to calm his nerves.

"Um Harry? I know it's you...what are you doing?" Louis asked over the phone, making Harry jump in horror.

Was his great comeback really him just heavily breathing down the speaker? Well that's mortifying to say the least Harry thought to himself before thinking of a hasty response.

"Oh um, Louis! I must've..pocket dialled you" Harry muttered feebly

"But now i've got you on the phone, would you mind coming over some time? My bath is all clogged up from God knows what"

"Sure, tomorrow alright?"

Harry smiled slightly to himself and pushed his fringe out of his eyes. In all honesty, he was proud of himself. What may seem like a bit of a shit excuse for an invitation was Harry's window for seeing Louis again and that's all he really wanted. 

He still had his reasons to hesitate, to withdraw from his feelings completely and never speak to the lower class again but for the first time in what seems like a century, He didn't want to. Louis challenged him on a level was those he met with in his office never could.

The thing is, it was all a bit scary. Before his first encounter with the plumber, he did not have the ability to make a cup of tea - a skill he would never need when he had his maid. Also, he had not been in a relationship properly in...well he had'nt been in one before. He was brought up in the security of his own home, getting home schooled and his nanny catering to every thing he needed from 'outside'.

By the time he went to university, his private room had already been paid for and all classes relatively empty with only a handful of students who were not there to make friends. From then on, it was all work. With top grades and a cold demeanor, most high class companies wanted him and he was soon sucked into the corporate world up until the point where he owned the most successful business of the current century.

Louis' story, unknown to Harry, was quite the opposite. He had lived in a middle class home on a busy street where a lot of his classmates lived who he hung out with regularly. He stumbled through school with a thriving social life, a list of boyfriends and an average of B grades until he attended a well known university.

From then on he learned about physics and chemistry, hoping to enter the science field of work and become somewhere along the lines of a doctor or a physicist. He had a great boyfriend and a love for his work until he had got a part time job as a plumber to earn money for his student loans and ended up loving it even more. His heart still yearned for the life he once had mapped out sometimes but he had become too set in his ways and anything else seemed daunting now.

Louis knew that he and Harry  were not so different, both being intelligent and capable of high things, the only difference was that Louis chose his heart over his brain.

It's just a shame that most of the time, he thinks that his brain was right.