Larry Stylinson - Turning From Praise (AU)

13.

Jealousy seeped into Liam’s voice. “Your best friend?”

In spite of himself, Louis couldn’t help but smile at the blatant tinge of envy in his friend’s tone. “Not myvery best friend,” he promised. “That position’s taken.”

He could practically hear Liam’s grin down the phone; it felt like he could feel the warmth emanating off his friend’s face, pouring out of his smile and stroking Louis’ face like a wash of soothing heat.

“Okay,” Liam said, “I can see you guys are close…I’ll help you out. After all, I don’t want to be demoted to second-best-friend, do I?” If they’d been sat together, he would have nudged Louis playfully, but there was still the faintest worried edge to his voice.

“Like I ever would,” Louis said softly.

“I just worry, Lou. I don’t know what this guy’s like…I believe you when you say he’s been good for you; you’ve been a lot happier since you started hanging out with him, I’m just kind of scared to lose you, y’know? We’ve been friends for so long…I don’t want you to change so much that I don’t know who my best mate is any more.”

“I’ll always be me,” promised Louis. “Harry’s just helping me to stop being afraid to be me.”

“That’s what you need, I think. Confidence, more than anything. But don’t leave me behind, okay? I’m not always as sure of myself as I need to be either.”

Louis wanted to hug him. “I won’t. Don’t worry about that. Maybe Harry can give you some lessons on how to be who you actually are, too,” he teased.

Liam laughed. “Yeah, if I can manage to talk to him without running away.”

“He’s not at all scary when you get to know him, you know.”

“Mm. Maybe at some point I’ll get to find out for myself…” Liam mused.

Louis wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by that, but Liam had a specific tone of voice for when he had said something he had no intention of explaining – Louis liked to call it his ‘mysterious’ voice – and the chances of getting him to reveal what he was thinking when he’d said that were extremely unlikely, so Louis sighed, flopped back onto his bed and allowed Liam to change the subject.

                                                                  ~*~

Louis and Harry had agreed to meet at the entrance to what appeared to be a perfectly innocuous little alleyway. (Of course, Liam attributed the ever-present little smile on Louis’ face to the fact that he was going to see his friend again and had absolutely no idea that Louis was happily remembering the first time he’d ever felt the icy clink of Harry’s lip-ring against his teeth, run his hands through Harry’s hair, kissed him until they were both breathless.)

Louis was a little nervous as to what would happen once Harry arrived; it would be both rude and quite unkind to tell Liam to go away, but the very thought of the two of them standing side by side made his stomach ache with tension. He was indescribably anxious about having the two of them come face to face, and had no idea how he was going to tactfully make sure it didn’t end badly for either of them – he hated the thought of Harry leaving with the impression that Liam was just another judgemental churchgoer with no intention of opening his mind, and equally he hated the prospect of Liam leaving with the idea that Harry was an angry, vicious and terrifying person when all his intentions ever really involved was defending himself and his actions from other people’s scrutiny.

Liam was standing calmly with his hands in his pockets, apparently completely at ease. Louis wished he shared the sentiment. At a loss for something to do, he checked his phone out of what had become an increasingly frequent habit and discovered that he’d missed a text from Harry.