Chapter Text
To say that Harry is nervous about starting school would be a colossal understatement. To say that he is fucking petrified would be more accurate, but Harry’s not saying that because for one thing, cursing is a sin. For another, if he admits his current off-the-charts, break-the-scale, piss-your-pants levels of anxiety, even to himself, then there might be tears. Which is quite possibly the worst thing he could do to himself in this extremely daunting situation. You know, besides actually pissing himself.
“Harry.”
Harry’s jolted from staring out the car window when he feels his mother’s hand close over his own—in what seems like a comforting gesture until Harry realizes it's just to still his fingers, which have been tapping out a familiar anxious pattern against his knee.
“Harry, are you feeling okay? You look a bit ill.”
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he says, squeezing her hand. “Just nervous.”
Fucking petrified.
“Well, that’s normal,” she says warmly, looking to Harry’s step-father in the driver’s seat, who just nods stoically, ever unhelpful in the face of emotional distress. “It’s a big change. Everyone’s a bit anxious going away to school for the first time.”
“Yeah,” Harry agrees, because even though he’s not convinced everyone feels like this starting college, there’s really not anything else to say.
Harry’s mother, sensing his lingering nerves, pulls the chain of prayer beads off her wrist and places it in his hand. Harry looks down at it: the small wooden cross, the train of knots and beads that composes one decade of the rosary. She always wears this one.
“Keep that with you,” she says softly, gaze reverently fixed on the beads. “As a reminder that someone’s always looking out for you, and that things always turn out for the best. I used it a lot, when—when you were away.” Harry’s mother lifts her eyes to his face and gives him a watery smile that says and now look at us.
Yup, everything turned out for the best. Everything is good now, just how it’s supposed to be.
Harry is just how he’s supposed to be.
“Thanks, Mom,” he says, and slips the chain of beads onto his wrist, tucking it under the cuff of his button-down along with his rubber band. Then goes back to tapping his knuckle against the window in the usual rhythm. Harry’s mother simply pats his knee and turns around to face the windshield, leaving Harry alone with silent neuroticism.
***
“So, Niall,” Louis says when Niall enters the kitchen, bleary-eyed and boxer-clad, and shoves a bowl of cereal into his friend’s hand before he can even finish yawning. “Want to be my best friend in the whole world and drive me to Target?” Louis has long since learned that Niall is most susceptible to granting favors when he’s got food in his mouth.
“Not a chance,” Niall refuses cheerfully, his words stretched out by another yawn as he accepts the breakfast and sinks onto the couch across from Liam. “The frosh move in today, right? That place is going to be packed.”
Louis’ not going to admit it aloud, but Niall has a point. The prospect of entering a throng of too-cool-for-school eighteen year olds and overly emotional parents is…less than enticing. But Louis will be working doubles at the student help desk for all of freshman orientation, so this is the last chance he’s got to catch one of his car-owning roommates for the next forty eight hours.
Of course, this would all be much easier if one of them would just loan Louis his car, but you take the bumper off one time and—
“Why don’t you take the bus, Lou?” Liam suggests from an armchair without emerging from behind his newspaper, such that Louis is left staring blandly at the giant photo of Vladimir Putin’s severe face on the front page.
“Because I prefer the seat of my pants without gum smeared on them, and my general person not smelling like ass, thanks.”
Liam shakes his head disapprovingly, like he can’t even believe Louis said that, like he understands Louis' plight as a frequenter of public transportation.
Louis reverts to his original appeal. “Please, Niall.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Please please please—“
“Shh, Lou,” Liam’s voice remonstrates from behind Putin’s frown, which is much more disturbing than anything at eleven in the morning has a right to be.
Louis ignores Liam’s reprimand in favor of pulling his most plaintive pout at Niall, who appears to waver for a moment. “I need to get some school supplies,” he reasons, in hopes that it will further weaken his friend’s resolve. It’s not really a lie. On the list of things he has to purchase, Louis’ pretty sure post-it notes are there somewhere. That counts, right?
Niall squints his eyes in a way that either means he’s deciding whether or not to believe Louis or whether or not to drive him to the store. Louis hopes it’s the latter.
But then, “Sorry, Lou,” Niall sighs and shrugs. “Josh is coming over in ten to watch the game.”
Louis picks a soggy piece of cereal out of his bowl and throws it at Niall to express his disgruntlement. “Don’t bullshit me, Blondie. Since when do you care about sports?” In Louis' experience, Niall doesn’t really care about things that aren’t guitars, alcohol, food, or friends—except, apparently, when those friends need a lift to the store.
“Since he cares about getting into Josh’s pants,” Liam supplies as a hand reaches out from behind the paper to stir his mug of tea.
Niall picks the cereal out of his hair and pops it in his mouth without even bothering to deny it.
“Liam, then,” Louis redirects his attention, because Louis is many things, but he likes to think “cock block” is not one of them.
When Liam doesn’t so much as lower his newspaper, Louis resorts to chucking cereal at him. Liam doesn’t take it so well as Niall did, and lowers his newspaper just enough so that his eyes peer irately at Louis over Putin’s balding head. “Stop that.” And then promptly shifts his gaze away from Louis.
“Shan’t,” Louis promises, landing a piece of Chex in Liam’s hair. When that doesn’t work, he decides to just stare Liam down. Maybe the heat of an intent gaze will break him. “Please, Liam.”
Liam continues to stir his tea and not look at Louis, though Louis would bet he’s not getting any reading done, either. “Sorry,” Liam says in a tone utterly free of apology, “I can’t really be party to this ridiculousness on account of I’m an adult.”
Louis snorts. Adulthood.
“There’s more to being an adult than reading the paper, Father Time,” Louis informs him, now that he’s got Liam distracted. “Sex, for instance. And beer. And gambling. And sex. And driving your less fortunate friends to the store. Did I say sex?”
“You know, for someone who isn’t having a lot of sex, you sure do blab on about it an awful lot,” Liam critiques lightly as he turns the page of his paper and shakes it out. Niall cackles from his spot on the couch, dribbling milk down his chin.
Louis taps his spoon against his chin and contemplates using it to kill them both. Slowly. But because Louis has never been graced with that kind of patience, he says instead, “For your information, this is nothing more than a bit of a dry spell. And there’s a whole influx of innocent, horny freshmen ready to experiment with their sexuality flooding campus as we speak. I mean, come on.” Louis throws on his best smile when Liam finally glances up at him, wondering if it can get people into the driver’s seat of a car as well as it gets them into bed. For good measure, he tacks on, “Who could resist?”
Liam, apparently. Who goes back to reading.
“Fine,” Louis exhales. “I’ll take the bus. But know this: the next time you need me—“
“We won’t,” Niall puts in.
“—I will refer you to this moment as explanation for why I’ll kindly tell you to fuck off,” Louis concludes with dignity, tipping an imaginary hat to the both of them and sweeping the door shut behind him.
***
“Harry. It looks fine.”
Harry pauses in his organization of books on the desk hutch to glance abashedly at his mother. “Yeah. Sorry,” he says, rubbing his nose awkwardly and nudging one of the books into place. Not perfect, but he’ll fix it later when they’ve gone. Harry sweeps his hand over the desk and pushes the chair firmly back into place before turning to face his parents, who are standing close enough to the door to indicate their imminent departure.
Harry tries to ignore how his heart leaps into his throat at the thought of them leaving him—it’s perfectly reasonable for his parents to make their exit after helping get everything set up. They’re not abandoning him, that’s not what this is. He’s an adult now, right? Right.
Man up, Styles.
“So you guys probably need to head out soon,” Harry guesses, and lifts a hand lamely to the door in a way that he hopes says I’m completely fine with this development and not at all internally panicking.
He’s not sure it worked, though, because his mother’s brow pinches. “We don’t have to leave just yet, if you don’t want us to,” she says. “You don’t have any orientation activities scheduled until tomorrow, right?”
Harry nods. He would know. He’s read his orientation brochure upwards of a dozen times and knows it backwards and forwards.
“And when do you start work?”
“Not until next weekend,” Harry says.
“Well, we could grab some lunch together before we head out,” his mother suggests.
“Are you sure?” Harry asks, because his step-dad’s wearing a put-upon expression that clearly implies this was not part of his mental itinerary for the day.
“Of course. Your father and I don’t have to get home immediately. Might as well get some food in our stomachs for the drive back.”
“Anne, I am scheduled to bring up the gifts at two o’clock Mass,” Harry’s step-dad reminds her.
Harry’s mom hesitates. It’s clear she doesn’t want to rescind her offer to Harry, but people can’t really shirk their responsibilities to God Almighty for the sake of a sub sandwich.
“Don’t worry about it,” Harry assures her with an approximation of a smile. “I’ll grab something on campus. Who knows, maybe I’ll…meet a friend. Or something.”
His mother looks relieved at having the pressure of the decision removed from her shoulders. “If you’re sure,” she tells Harry, already sounding very sure of the decision herself. “We’ll leave you to get settled in. Perhaps you can go the common room? Meet some of your hallmates. Oh,” she says, clapping her hands together and fixing her son with the fondest of motherly looks, “maybe you’ll meet some other nice kids at Mass. You said there’s a service at nine tonight?”
“Yes,” Harry confirms. “I’ll be there.”
“Looking for friends after Mass,” his step-father puts in. “That’s the Lord’s time.”
Harry nods quickly. “I know.”
“Well, I’m sure they’ve got some student organization for the Catholic students on campus,” his mother says with certainty. “Regardless, Harry is such a lovely boy that I’m sure he’ll just make the loveliest of friends.”
“Mom…” Harry groans, rolling his eyes.
His step-father harrumphs, presumably at the word “lovely” being used to describe his very normal (thankyouverymuch) son, and Harry tries to ignore it, opting instead to hug his mother goodbye. Then shakes his step-father’s hand, nodding at his instructions to “be good, study hard.”
Of all the things about college that terrify Harry, academics are remarkably far down on the list. Whilst navigating the simplest social situation has felt like tiptoeing around a minefield since leaving camp, Harry at least knows he can’t mess up reading a book.
Before Harry even has time to emotionally register what’s happened, his parents are down the hall, getting on the elevator, leaving Harry standing in the doorway of his pristinely organized room with its white walls and crisp sheets. Numbly, Harry closes his door against the chaos of other freshmen bustling about with their parents up and down the halls, settling in to start the best four years of their lives.
Harry heads back to his desk hutch and tries for the dozenth time to get those books just so.
***
Harry can’t find his Swiffer anywhere. He’s sure he packed it; how could he not?
He’d toed off his shoes and socks and taken all of three steps before he lifted one foot to see a thick layer of dust on its sole. He shuddered, tiptoed to the bathroom and gave himself a good rinse before starting this futile search for his cleaning instrument of choice.
Where is it?
Maybe his mother saw it amongst the belongings he was collecting for college in the dining room and thought she’d left it there by mistake. But Good Lord, this place needs a thorough sweep if Harry’s ever going to fall asleep in here.
Harry weighs his options. There’s probably a communal broom somewhere on the hall, but would that really do anything? Probably only get the floor a good bit dirtier. He could go out and purchase a Swiffer, but he doesn’t have a car, so he’d have to take the university bus to the shopping center.
Public transportation is host to two of Harry’s least favorite things, crowds and germs, but in the end, the prospect of not being able to remove his shoes in his own room is enough to motivate Harry out to the bus stop. He takes his phone and one of the four university maps he picked up from the student center (just in case) before stepping out of his room, locking the door, and then checking twice to make sure it really locked.
Out in the hall, Harry slips between parents lugging trunks and students meeting their new roommates. It’s no accident that Harry’s the only freshman on the floor in a single; his parents are good about protecting him from temptation when they can, not that Harry’s complaining. For one thing, the very thought of accidentally walking in on his roommate changing or stepping out of the shower is enough to have Harry aggressively snapping the rubber band around his wrist. For another, he’s never been that great with people anyway, and college is anxiety-inducing enough as it is without sharing a room with a stranger, thanks.
To his dismay, the bus is pretty full when Harry steps on. There is one open seat, but it’s next to a boy who’s wearing a pink tank top that gives sight to several tattoos on his arms and chest, so Harry opts to stand near the front and hold onto the railing.
Harry is acutely aware of the fact that not everyone he encounters at college is going to be God-fearing, but he just has to keep his distance. And not be curious about the tendrils of ink peeking out from behind that pink fabric (what little there is). And keep snapping his wrist. Ouch. Harry looks determinedly out the window for the rest of the trip and drenches his palms with Purell when he gets off.
Target is packed. Has Harry mentioned he’s not good with people? He’s really not good with people. Especially people that are already in tetchy moods because they too are stuck in this florescence-saturated box with hundreds of people they don’t know. He worms his way through aggressive, cart wielding shoppers and makes as straight a course as he can towards the cleaning supplies aisle. He’s just laid eyes on the tool he wants hanging from the top hook, and is stepping on the lowest shelf to reach up and unhook it, when the nose of a cart catches him sharply in the hip. Harry goes down, pulling the Swiffer and several other undesired items with him, and lands awkwardly on his elbow.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” The woman who took Harry out pulls her cart back and looks down at him with embarrassed concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” It’s not fine, though; Harry’s elbow hurts and everything is all askew. The woman reaches down to put the items back but Harry waves her off. She’d probably just push them all onto a random shelf for a clerk to deal with or something. She’d do it all wrong. “It’s fine,” Harry says.
The woman, obviously mortified by the whole situation, doesn’t linger, and Harry is left to repair the wreckage in the aisle.
“She wasn’t too helpful, was she?”
Harry looks up and nearly lurches back at the sight of the boy standing over him. The boy from the bus, as it happens. From this close, Harry can see that he’s got these blue blue eyes that make Harry’s heart turn over and a stag emblazoned over the bicep of an arm wrapped in a wiry layer of muscle. Harry wrenches his eyes away from the boy’s friendly smirk but only gets one line into his mental Our Father before he feels the boy kneel down beside him.
“Alright, which shit do you actually want and what goes back?” The boy holds up a sponge in one hand and a toilet brush in the other, and Harry knows it’s rude not to make eye contact with someone who’s talking to you but he really just needs this boy out of his space. Like, right now.
“I got it,” Harry bites out, taking the cleaning supplies from the boy gruffly and standing up.
“Are you sure? Because—”
“I’m fine, thank you.” Harry feels guilt clawing at him for being so rude, but he’s just relieved when the stranger raises out of his crouch and takes a step away. Harry can hear heavy kathumps of blood in his ears. He sneaks a glance at the boy, who’s got one eyebrow raised in an elegant arch and his arms crossed.
“Fine. Just trying to be helpful,” he says, and with that, the stranger saunters off.
Harry releases a quivering breath and sets about putting everything back together. Focusing on his reorganization of the shelf relieves some of the tension in Harry’s shoulders, and distracts him from the desire to rip his own hair out. When he makes it back to the bus stop after checking out, he does a quick search to make sure the boy with the pink shirt is nowhere in sight before clambering on.
***
Louis doesn’t even know why he bothers being nice to people, sometimes.
Okay, well in this case he knows. It’s mostly the fact that the kid looked like fucking Bambi with those long legs and big eyes that Louis only got a glimpse of when they were on the bus, and maybe Louis wanted to see him a bit closer up. Sue him. So maybe admiring the view of Bambi Boy in his jeans from a comfortable ten paces back as he strolled through Target was a bit creepy. It’s lucky Louis was paying attention to him, when some sale-crazed soccer mom rammed into the poor kid like a bumper car. Or at least, that’s what Louis thought, until that asshole made it quite clear that he didn’t want Lou’s help. Wouldn’t even look at him, really. What the hell was up with that?
People are, Louis decides, the absolute worst.
He doesn’t head back to the apartment right away even though he’s got about twenty minutes before his shift starts, because Liam’s probably gone to the pool so only Josh and Niall will be home. Louis doesn’t want to interrupt what may or may not be happening in his living room right now, for their sake and for his. Concern for the integrity of his living room upholstery notwithstanding, Louis likes the idea of Niall and Josh together. They’re both the most laid back, generally-delighted-with-life people he’s ever met. Also, Louis takes pride in having been the one to introduce them when he finally got Josh to attend a Spectrum meeting last spring. Louis’ been president of the campus’s LGBTQIA organization since fall of sophomore year, and if this whole NiallandJosh deal works out, he’ll have successfully set up his first gay pair of friends (he’s currently zero for one, after the disaster that was his attempt to get Liam and Nick together last winter—they’d all prefer to forget that ever happened).
When Louis arrives at the front desk, Michael is playing League of Legends on the computer. “You’re early,” Michael accuses without looking away from the screen. To be fair, Louis is rarely punctual, let alone ahead of schedule.
“I am,” Louis confirms and toes off the Adidas sandals he borrowed (stole) from Liam to sit cross-legged in the seat beside Michael. “How long you been here for?”
“Since nine. If I have to tell one more confused frosh what building they’re in, I’m gonna throw a stapler at someone.”
Louis scans the immediate vicinity, finds no evidence of a stapler, and breathes a quiet sigh of relief. He’s known Michael long enough to be sure that professional etiquette is not a sufficient reason to restrain him from heaving office supplies at strangers. Michael is antisocial at best, misanthropic at worst, and Louis will never in a million years understand how or why he keeps his job at the student help desk. Sure, Louis can be a loud, annoying twat—or so he has been informed by Niall and Liam—but he can also charm the nickers off crotchety old grannies if he needs to.
Then again, he thought he was putting on the charm for Bambi Boy this morning, so maybe Lou’s having an off day. He decides he’d probably rather sulk about that alone than listen to Michael’s frustrated mutters at his online teammates. “You can head out if you want to,” he tells Michael. “I’m gonna be here till my shift starts anyway.”
Michael grunts his approval and sticks around just long enough to finish his level or power up or something (Louis doesn’t really understand this game, okay? He only knows the title because when Liam’s in a funk he plays it non-stop). A few minutes later, when Louis’ alone save the constant passing traffic of students, he pulls out his laptop and starts jotting down ideas for the first few Spectrum meetings of the year.
No one was more surprised than Louis, with the possible exception of Liam, that he was nominated and elected for president at the end of his freshman year. Sure, he’d attended the weekly meetings, but Louis, in charge of things? After he’d been convinced that Louis’ name on the ballot was not, in fact, a joke, Liam immediately started to fret about the (literal?) fires he’d have to put out in Louis’ wake. Not an entirely unfounded concern, given that Louis had almost set their dorm room ablaze only a few weeks prior by leaving the tinfoil on his baked potato in the microwave. Louis' not sure why Liam agreed to live with him again as a sophomore, let alone this year. Maybe he worries that Louis might harm himself if left unsupervised.
Despite all that, Spectrum under Louis jurisdiction has not been total anarchy. See, Louis might be a bit scatterbrained sometimes, and he might be kind of selective in the things he cares about, but the group of people that meets in McDuke 203 on Tuesday nights is definitely one of those things. And Louis does not half-ass the things he cares about.
He shoots off an email with his list of ideas and the tagline “thoughts?” to Perrie, who will undoubtedly come back with a million suggestions of her own and want to start planning right away. Even on his best, most caffeinated days, Perrie makes Louis—and most people—look about as productive as a stump.
Louis doesn’t have any other work to do, seeing as how classes haven’t started yet, so he spends the remainder of his shift noodling around on the internet and watching the latest videos Niall’s posted to YouTube. The kid’s impressive, even for a music major, and Louis would hate him for jealousy’s sake if Niall wasn’t the fucking embodiment of sunshine. Louis marvels at the deft shifts of Niall’s fingers on the instrument’s neck and, not for the first time, wishes he could play. Niall tried, for a brief period of time, to teach him, placing Louis’ stiff fingers on the frets with a patience Louis couldn’t match. Which led to a lot of Louis whining and strumming angry, ugly chords and Niall face palming. The first sign that it wasn’t working out was that Liam would flee a room at the sight of Louis holding a guitar. Ultimately, Niall made the executive decision that their friendship would be better served if Louis looked up some “how to” videos online instead.
Around five o’clock, Louis' boss stops by. Mr. Cowell is a surly gentlemen but not, Louis has found, impossible to get along with. Louis' working hypothesis is that the Grumpy Cat demeanor Cowell puts on around most students is to keep them from treating the student center like an indoor playground.
“Hey, Mr. Cowell,” Louis greets, minimizing a website that might, by someone like Mr. Cowell, be considered unprofessional. On principle, Louis tries not to irritate the people who sign his paychecks.
“Louis.” Mr. Cowell shakes out a ring of keys and fits one into the lock of his office. “Sorry you’re stuck on the graveyard shift solo tonight, but by next Sunday you should have someone scheduled with you.”
“New kid from Work Study?”
Mr. Cowell nods. “Against school policy to let freshmen work during orientation or the first week of classes.” Mr. Cowell’s following humph lets Louis know precisely what he thinks of that. “I’d put Michael on with you, but…”
“He works better alone,” Louis agrees.
Louis doesn’t mind taking the late shifts by himself. When he’s not working doubles, he doesn’t have to show up until eight p.m., which is fine by Louis because he usually can’t be expected to be reasonably alert until at least seven. It starts to get pretty quiet in the student center by ten or eleven, since the people in the lounges are studying. It’s essentially the only time Louis can focus enough to get work done.
Mr. Cowell’s just locked himself into his office when someone says, “Excuse me?”
Louis swivels around and tries not to slide out of his chair when he sees who it is. Zayn Malik. Louis has never had a class with him, but you don’t just see eyelashes like that and forget about it. Louis is in and out of the fine arts building with Niall often enough to have seen Zayn’s thumbnail photo at the corner of some of the best still life sketches hanging up.
There’s also the minor detail that Liam is ass-over-teakettle for the guy. If Louis' memory serves him, they had the same literature class freshman year, but who knows? Louis can’t really remember a time that Liam wasn’t moony for Zayn—who, Louis has reminded him upwards of eight dozen times, Liam has yet to exchange a single word with. Still, they can’t pass Zayn in the quad or even his artwork in the halls without Liam getting this look in his puppy dog eyes like a lovestruck prepubescent girl. Louis would find the whole thing irritating if it wasn’t so amusing and endearing.
“Hello,” Louis greets, aiming for nonchalance but he thinks he might have been staring at Zayn for too long. “What can I help you with?”
“I was just wondering whether you knew if campus rec employs any personal trainers. Or like.” Zayn looks much more uncertain than the picture of silent brooding Louis has come to associate with him through photographs. “I just. I need to learn how to swim and didn’t know if there was anyone who could teach me. I went over to the gym to ask but I guess it doesn’t open until tomorrow?”
Louis tries to contain the Cheshire Cat smile that’s threatening to spread over his face, because he doesn’t want to look like (any more of) a creep, but this is too perfect. “I don’t think campus rec employs any swim instructors,” Louis tells Zayn, whose face falls. “But as it happens, my friend Liam is on the swim team and works at the pool as a lifeguard, and sometimes he gives private lessons. I could give you his contact info if you’d like.”
Zayn looks relieved. “Oh, really? That’d be great. Please, yeah.”
Louis does grin now, and whips out a pencil and one of his new post-it pads. “Here’s his email address if you want to send him a message, but sometimes he forgets to check, especially with start of classes stuff, you know? Busy busy. So I’ll give you his phone number too, in case you want to text him instead.” Louis peels off the note and hands it to a still slightly nervous Zayn. “Liam’s the nicest,” Louis says to reassure him, and also because Liam is the nicest.
Zayn puts on a hesitant smile and folds up the note neatly before putting it in the pocket of his leather jacket. “Thanks. Appreciate it.” And hurries away.
Louis props his feet up on the counter. No matter what else happens for the rest of his shift, he is wholeheartedly satisfied with his work today.