The Best Thing I Never Had [l.s]

•Chapter One•

"Cheers to me!" Louis slurs, raising a shot glass in each hand. Clear liquid sloshing over the edge and dripping down his hand.

Zayn and Oli cheer in tandem, raising their own glass to clink together. The three of them downing their shots with barely a wince. Their tolerance getting higher as the night wears on.

"Mate I can't believe you're leaving us!" Zayn smiles softly, a glint in his eye that always seems to appear after one too many drinks. He's always been an emotional man in the confines of their apartment, but his resolve to hide it crumbles completely after a few shots.

The trio were out enjoying their last weekend together before Louis ships off to Australia for a three year internship with the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

Their usual table at Marlo's pub was easy to snag since most of the students had either already graduated or were finishing off their finals for the year before summer break.

Louis feels a pang of sadness as he takes in the pub. He had been coming here most weekends with his friends since their first year.

Louis recalls his first year like it was yesterday, stumbling into Marlo's after attending his first uni dorm party. It was quiet for a Friday night and Louis found reprieve from the loud music and the crammed tiny room full of sweaty strangers that was the dorm party.

It's not that he didn't enjoy a good party or two. Loved it in fact. He'd just been feeling a little.. lost. His first week away from home had hit a lot harder than he thought it would. All his school friends were spreading out to various different universities across the country and for the first time in his entire life, he was alone.

No overbearing (but incredibly loving) parents, no hoard of sisters constantly in his business and touching his stuff. No cat to claw at his bare skin while he slept in his childhood bedroom, the only bedroom he's ever known.

Suddenly it had felt like he had no one and nothing.

When he had pushed open the heavy wooden door, green and red stained glass windows on either side— he had felt a nostalgia that had him choking up right there in the entry way. The familiar waft of stale beer would be enough to turn away some people. The lingering scent of fried food might make most feel ill. And the stickiness of the floors would probably put other patrons off, writing the place off as a dive.

But to Louis, it felt like home.

His grandads pub back in Doncaster, had all the very same traits as Marlo's, and for the first time since leaving the comfort of his mothers arms, and the safety of his family home— he felt like maybe he was going to be ok.

He had met Zayn and Oli the following weekend when he returned for a quiet drink one Sunday afternoon.

They were childhood friends who had both come up to start school together. They were rooming together in the same dorm building as Louis, he later found out that they were not only on the same floor of the same building, but were directly opposite from Louis.

Louis looks around the room as he realises not for the first time, just how much he is going to miss this. Friday night drinks with his mates. Coffee dates after class. Movie nights in his and Zayn's apartment.

He had found himself over the last three years. Learned who he was away from his hometown. He had made friends that felt more like a second family, worked hard at school and earned his degree in Biological Science which in turn, has gained him an extremely coveted internship with one of the worlds leading marine science institutes.

It was while he was deep in drunken thought about how far he had come, taking a leaf from Zayn's book on the benefit of emotional release, that he saw him.