One Direction fic | Same Old Shh But A Different Day | Louis/Zayn | PG-13 | ~3,000 words
Same Old Shh But A Different Day
Louis/Zayn | PG-13 | ~3,000 words
“Don’t fucking touch me,” Louis snaps. He curls his fists into his soft belly, like they’ll be safe there. “Bad daddy.”
Warnings for father issues, meanness, crying, and an inappropriate joke about sexual assault.
This came from several discussions with threeturn and randominity THANK YOU FOR HUMOURING ME. Big, big thanks to threeturn for help fixing it up afterwards.
June 9, 2014
Sarah, the rep from their PR team, pulls Louis back after the meeting, and makes casual small talk while the rest of the lads exit the conference room. They’ve got another meeting with the label after this - trying to cram in face time with everyone at head office while they’re still in London - but they’re breaking for lunch first.
“Would it do any good to ask your father to stop giving interviews or no?” Sarah asks.
“Mark gave an interview?” Louis asks. He feels like the whole room is filling up with water and then realizes, “Oh, you mean Troy?”
“Yeah,” Sarah says. “Sorry, love. We wanted to check with you before we said anything, because it’s family.”
“He’s not family,” Louis says. He feels like he’s speaking from the far end of a long tunnel. “Don’t, I mean, I can deal with it.”
“You could just leave it to us for now, how about?” Sarah says gently. That means a hone call from a lawyer or something, Louis isn’t exactly sure of the details but there are people who know what to say when the band doesn’t. Like when that bloke kept calling Zayn and saying that Zayn had got his girlfriend pregnant, or when Liam got too fucked up at a party and someone took pictures.
Louis opens his mouth, then closes it again and nods. Sarah’s paid to be nice about it, but still in the moment it feels alright to pretend that someone is looking after him.
By the time he’s with the rest of the lads again, he’s almost changed his mind. He should call Troy and tell him to sod off, because he has no right and just fuck off and die already. The bite of tuna sandwich turns to concrete in his mouth. They’re in some kind of executive kitchen at the office, the counter lined with catering and the fancy kind of plastic dishes that almost look like the real thing. Louis snatches a cup of juice away from Niall and spits out his food.
Niall’s eyes go wide and he gasps.
“It’s gone bad,” Louis says.
“There’s a rubbish bin,” Niall says, redundantly, given that he’s clearly tossing his cup into it.
“Fuck your bin,” Louis says and then throws the rest of the sandwich at the wall. He hoped that it would stick but it just bounces down to the floor. The room goes a bit quiet, because it’s a bunch of corporates and not their touring team, who are used to weekly food fights.
“Let’s just take the rest of the food back to the conference room,” George says. He’s one of the accountants and he looks nervous about his suit surviving a food fight.
Louis narrows his eyes, but Liam intercepts him before he can grab another sandwich.
“Let’s just go, okay?” Liam says. “They’re not going to listen to us if you make them mad.”
“They’ll listen if they want to get paid,” Louis says. He tries to elbow past Liam, but Liam’s too big to get around, and Niall’s closing in from the other side, with Harry lingering just behind him.
He looks over at Zayn, but Zayn just shakes his head and tilts his chin to the door, giving Louis big come on eyes.
Louis huffs, and stomps his heel into Liam’s foot as hard as he can.
“Come on, lads,” George says. “Play nice.”
“Hey, dad,” Louis says. He waits until George makes eye contact, smiles and says, “Fuck you.”
They go back to the meeting room and Louis amuses himself for the rest of the afternoon by tearing up the agenda into little pieces, rolling the bits of paper into balls, and flicking them across the table at George. He’s not got great aim, but he bares his teeth when one of the younger lackies tries unhappily to take the paper away.
“That was a waste of time,” Liam gripes when the meeting is done and they’re all crowded into the elevator on the way out to the car. “They just wanted us out of there as fast as possible.”
“It’s about picking the colour of the new flavor of toothpaste,” Louis says. His head bumps against the mirrored wall when he leans his head back, so he does it again, harder. The thunk is softened by the padding of his hair. “They only brought us in to tell us in case it comes up in an interview.”
“Okay, but I thought we were going to get on top of this stuff. It’s our faces, we should get a say.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Louis says, cracking his head back hard enough that he gets a quick burst of white before it spreads across his skull, throbs. “It’s not like they’re asking us anything. We never say no, just do it, do it, do it.”
He bangs his head back against the mirror again.
“Stop that, babes,” Zayn says from where he’s been standing quietly on the other side of Louis. “You’re going to hurt your head.”
“Liam’s hurting my head,” Louis says. “Make him stop.”
Liam rolls his eyes. “They’re not going to take us seriously if we don’t--”
“Yes, daddy direction, we know,” Louis says. “Why so serious?”
Niall starts humming Raise Your Glass, Why so serious? and it’s enough to break the tension. It feels like the energy in the elevator is ricocheting off the walls, but at least it’s not directed at Louis any more. Except for Zayn, who’s still watching him carefully. They make eye contact for a long moment before Louis looks away, closes his eyes, and smacks his head back against the mirror again.
Niall finishes his song and says, “Zayn, I got your invitation in the mail. You finally picked a date! That’s sick.”
Harry reaches over to give Zayn a complicated fist bump that he accidentally explodes too early.
Liam laughs, singsongs, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.”
Louis got his invitation yesterday. He lets his head loll against the pane of glass and says nothing.
--
He’s still not packed, so it’s a frantic rush when he gets home. He wants to talk to his mom but he doesn’t want to call her. She’ll get mad and he doesn’t want her mad. When she’s angry, the furious stone in the pit of his stomach goes quiet, and right now he likes the stone. It’s big enough that there’s not room for anything else.
--
June 11, 2014
Zayn sits beside him on the flight to Stockholm, falls asleep almost immediately with his cheek pressed to Louis’s shoulder. He’s so soft in his sleep, even the thin bones of his hands seem malleable, and Louis traces over the bumps of his knuckles, holds his hands. He only knows Zayn has woken again because he threads their fingers together properly, but leaves his head resting against Louis.
They talked about it after they first hooked up, just long enough for Zayn to say, “Perrie knows,” and Louis to say fine, that it was just a bit of fun and never mind anything else.
“You alright, babe?” Zayn asks with a sleep-rough voice.
“Go back to sleep,” Louis whispers. “We’re still hours away. I’m fine.” He squeezes Zayn’s hand and then closes his own eyes pointedly.
Zayn acts like his boyfriend sometimes, but he’s just the only person Louis has had sex with more than once since he’s been single.
--
June 12, 2014
Louis knows the bus has pulled into the venue, but he’s just found the interview Troy gave and he wants to finish reading it. It starts with the usual, We’ve always been close, bullshit, and Louis wishes he’d thought to ask Sarah how much newspapers pay liars these days.
“Phone away,” Paul says. “You’re late for the interview.”
“But, dad,” Louis whines. He means for it to sound joking but there’s a tight flatness to his voice.
“We’ve got to go,” Paul says.
“I’m in the middle of something, just give me a second.”
“Now,” Paul says, making like he’s going to grab the phone out of his hands.
Louis tucks it quickly into his pocket and then slaps Paul’s hand away.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” Louis snaps. He curls his fists into his soft belly, like they’ll be safe there. “Bad daddy.”
“I thank god every day that I’m not your father,” Paul says, calm as ever, his arms crossed over his chest. It’s the same tone of voice he uses when he says they’re pains in his arse, every single one of them. It’s meant to be a joke.
Before Mark left, he sat Louis down and tried to talk it out. Louis knew it was coming and had spent so much time screaming inside of his own head that by the time Mark was in front of him, all he could think to say was, “I’m keeping your last name.” He had tried to remember what it felt like going from Austin to Tomlinson, but he was too young.
“You’re still my son,” Mark said after his cheeks when from white to red. “Don’t joke about that.”
I was never your son, Louis thought, but he stayed silent.
“You know what?” Louis says, after staring at Paul for a long minute. “You can have the phone,” and then he takes it out of his pocket and whips it at the wall as hard as he possibly can. It makes impact and then skitters across the floor, still in one piece but cracked across the screen.
“Interview. Now,” Paul says, and walks off the bus without another glance.
Louis puts his phone back in his pocket and follows after him.
--
Louis doesn’t mean to make the interviewer cry, but it’s one of those things where the radio station has a fan asking them questions and she’s forgotten her cue cards and can’t stop staring at Harry. There was something in Louis’s tone when he said, “Get it together, love,” that made the girl go red across her cheeks and down her nose and then it spread to her eyes as she started blinking back tears.
Harry gave him a look and put his arms around the girl, but Louis just bit the inside of his cheek. She was wasting Harry’s time as much as she was wasting his, it’s just that Harry still thinks it matters what people think of them. Louis knows better.
“Did you give her a shag to make up for it then?” he asks Harry as they’re walking to their changing room at Friends Arena. He lost track of Harry sometime between the interview and their convoy of cars arriving at the arena but now they’ve all been been deposited again to be groomed and put on stage.
Harry gives him a carefully practiced confused smile, like pretending that he suddenly forgot how to speak English will be enough to get people to stop asking him questions.
“Was mean Louis rude?” Louis asks with a put-on baby voice. “Do you need daddy to kiss it better for you?”
“She was like sixteen,” Harry says after a moment of silence.
“That’s not stopped you before, has it?” Louis asks. It’s a bit mean, because Harry seemed genuinely freaked out last month when he found out he’d slept with a fifteen year old. Mean because it’s true.
Harry shoves past Louis without responding and lengthens his stride so that he makes it to the dressing room first, locking himself in the bathroom.
“We have to talk,” Zayn says from just behind Louis. Louis hadn’t realized that Zayn was close enough to hear.
The door to the changing room has closed behind them and for the moment it’s just the two of them in the room, the sound of Harry’s shower in the background.
Louis doesn’t say anything, just waits while Zayn rolls whatever he wants to say around in his head. It’s the thing Louis hates the most about him: how careful he is to think before he speaks. How much he seems like someone’s old man already. He comes over to rub his hand up Louis’s arm, curls his fingers around Louis’s elbow and shepherds him gently over to the couch.
Louis lets himself be led, mostly because Zayn’s holding him so lightly that it wouldn’t take anything to push him away. For a moment it feels good to be touched by Zayn - his warm hands, the easy way he rubs over Louis’s shoulder.
Then his phone goes off. The ringer’s on loud so they both jerk at the noise. Zayn pulls away, and answers, “Hey, Perrie? Hi, babe. Listen, can I call you back, okay? I’m going to call you back.”
But Louis’s already gone. Off the couch and across the room, sweeping the entire fruit plate onto the floor with one swift chop of his hand as he walks by. Out the door and down the hall until he’s far enough away that he can’t hear Zayn calling after him.
--
They do the show. It’s routine enough by now that Louis doesn’t have to think. He steps onto the stage and it’s just do it, do it, do it.
--
June 13, 2014
Zayn’s the only one on Bus 1 with Louis, because everyone else is a bunch of cowards.
Louis thinks that Zayn will fuck off to his bunk to leave Louis to stew, but instead he asks, “What are you upset about?”
“The bad man touched me,” Louis says. He gestures, “Down here.”
“That’s not funny,” Zayn says, sharp and serious.
“Right,” Louis says, slapping himself on the forehead. “That was you.”
Zayn takes a slow breath. “Lou, I love you, but you need to take a time out.”
“A time out?” Louis gasps. “No fair, daddy, I hate you.”
“Cut it out,” Zayn says. “You’re not being funny.”
“Well, you’re being hilarious,” Louis says.
Zayn exhales audibly.
“You love me? That’s the best joke I’ve heard in my life. You’re fucking me. Fucking your fiancée. You don’t know how to love anyone.”
Zayn’s brow furls, but his voice is still careful when he says, “No, I love all of you.”
“You’re a fucking slag,” Louis says. “We just let you get away with it because you’re so fit.”
Zayn takes a slow breath. Then another one.
“Look, just go already,” Louis says. “Just get off this fucking bus and leave me alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Zayn says.
“You’re just so funny today,” Louis says. “One joke after another.”
“Where do you think I’m going? We’re on a moving bus.”
“Fuck you,” Louis says. He’s so angry he’s dizzy with it and there’s a pressure behind his eyes that’s threatening to burst. He clenches his hands into fists and storms to the front of the bus, pulling back the curtain so he can tell the driver, “Pull over. Zayn’s going on the other bus. Radio them and say that Zayn’s switching buses.”
“Lou, stop it,” Zayn says, coming up behind Louis. “No, ignore him, I’m not switching buses. I’m not, Louis, leave him alone.”
Zayn grabs Louis’s elbow and pulls at him. It’s gentle enough that Louis could shake him off but instead he shoves Zayn away with both hands. Zayn’s strong when he wants to be, but his balance is off from the moving vehicle and he stumbles backwards.
“I’m not leaving,” Zayn says. His face is as intense as Louis has ever seen it, but his voice is quiet.
“You’re such an arsehole,” Louis says. He realizes in horror that his eyes are filling with tears, this sudden swell that he can’t blink away. He turns his face but there’s nothing he can do, and when he finally blinks, the tears spill over.
He wants to kick something, but the stone in his stomach has turned to lava and he thinks he might be sick, so he sits down instead.
Zayn walks over to sit beside him but leaves enough space that their bodies don’t touch.
“Are you mad at me?” Zayn asks. “Is that what this is about?”
“No,” Louis says. His voice is shredded and trying to talk has brought a fresh prickle of tears. He swipes at his cheeks furiously.
“Can you come here?” Zayn says. He opens his arms but waits until Louis shuffles forward before he pulls him in. Louis’s cheek is crushed into Zayn’s chest and his neck is at an awkward angle, but Zayn’s holding him so tightly and Louis doesn’t want to do anything that might make him let go.
“Is it because it’s Father’s Day tomorrow?” Zayn asks and immediately holds Louis even closer like he can preemptively stop him from getting away.
“No,” Louis says, but his voice cracks halfway through and Zayn’s definitely going to be able to feel the way his back heaves, even if Louis manages to keep quiet by biting down on the inside of his mouth.
“Sweetheart,” Zayn says. He drops his head to press his cheek into Louis’s hair, loosening one hand so that he can stroke up and down Louis’s back while Louis tries to cry silently. Eventually his nose gets so clogged that he has to pull away. He lifts his hand to hide his face in his wrist.
“You alright, babe?” Zayn says in his silly baby voice, scuffing his knuckles up Louis’s thigh.
“Yeah,” Louis says. “Sorry.”
“I’ll get you a tissue, okay?” Zayn says and waits for Louis to nod before he stands up.
He comes back with a whole box of tissues. Louis scrubs at his face, blows his nose and stuffs the dirty tissues into his pocket on top of the cracked phone.
Zayn wraps his arm around Louis’s shoulders and they settle back into the sofa.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Zayn says.
Louis thinks, Yet. Says, “I know.”