Larry Stylinson/Titanic!AU
Chapter Nine.
AN: The editing here is rather dodgy (read as: non-existent) so that’s a tragedy right there.
~thewhitetoymaker
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“And that’s it? Nobody thought to stop and ask you whether or not you were meant to be on board?”
Niall shrugged one shoulder, readjusting his arm where it was tucked beneath his head, just above the pillow. “Not yet,” he replied casually. “They might sometime in the next few days, but the way I see it; it’ll be a little too late by then. They’re hardly going to stop and tell us very politely to get off. And if they do ask, we can just say that we lost the papers.”
“There aren’t papers,” Zayn spoke up, from the bed on the other side of the room – although, given the dimensions of the room that they were in, it was hardly a grand statement to make. From where he was lying on the edge of the upper bed, Liam barely had to tilt his head to peer down at where the other boy was lying on his back just a bare meter away, eyes closed. The lighting was so dim that it was hard to make out his features, but his voice was quietly satisfied. “You wouldn’t be asked for papers; at most, they’d probably think that someone was trying to sneak you into the staff at lower pay, or that they were smuggling you in as cheap labour for the engines. Besides, I’d speak up for you.”
A grin flashed onto Niall’s face as he leant over Liam’s body to flick an amused glance over the edge of the bed. “Cheers, Zayn.”
“Since I’ve given half my shifts over to you lot, it seems the least I can do.”
“You’re right,” Niall agreed, laughing once, and leaned back into place where he was tucked against the wall opposite Liam. The other boy had offered to simply take the other bunk while they talked – only for concern about crowding him too much, rather than any real desire to put more distance between them – but Niall had explained that being pressed against the wall made the room look bigger, anyway, and that he’d rather have someone to distract him rather than having a bland room for company.
“It is one of the first times that Louis’ done actual work, to be honest,” Niall continued cheerfully. “Every other time he’s always slacked off at some point until the manager starts to notice and boots him out of there. He held down a job at the pub for about a day before he got fired, once.”
It was the pride seeping into the Irishman’s tone that prompted Liam to ask, “Did you have anything to do with that?”
Niall only snorted, unabashedly. “I might have,” he admitted, and his grin burst through again and brought an answering smile to Liam’s face within seconds. He had never heard someone laugh so much in his life; he didn’t often spend enough time around people that were willing to openly snigger and tip their heads back like that when they laughed, regardless of who they were talking to or what time of day it was. There was no one so unconcerned in his and Harry’s world.
“What, are you telling me you and Harry haven’t gotten each other into trouble before?” he asked suddenly, and Liam shrugged slightly.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “We’ve never gotten each other fired before, I know that much.”
“That’s because you’ve never worked in a pub, Liam.”
“That is a big part of it.”
“But that’ll change soon enough,” Niall muttered, with a worrying amount of glee in his tone as he straightened, fidgeting on the mattress to find a more comfortable position. His leg jostled Liam’s once or twice, but he seemed not to notice. “Once we’ve got our place over in America I am going to have you working behind that bar every night.” His grin widened. “You wait and see, you’ll be swearing at people and throwing them out the door within a week, I guarantee you.”
