Larry Stylinson ~ Poor Little Rich Boy AU

8.

Horrified, Harry gawped at the seven children who were suddenly having a screaming fight over his beanie. “Louis! I can’t believe you just did that! That’s my hat!” he cried indignantly.

Slyly, Louis regarded him with faint amusement, one eyebrow raised. “Well, I’m sure they’d give it back to you, if you want to go over and tell them that.” The enormous grin on his face clearly stated that he thought the exact opposite, and sadly, he was completely right.

“I can’t go over there!” Even the thought made him feel almost faint with horror; if there was one thing that terrified him more than people in general, it was little kids. Especially loud, noisy ones who appeared ready to start bashing each other in order to win the prize of Harry’s rather soggy, mutilated hat.

“Well, if you really want your hat back that badly, I suppose you’ll have to take the risk, won’t you? Otherwise, might I suggest that you hurry up? There’s not going to be any sun loungers yet if we hang about mourning your beanie all day. Come on!” Grabbing Harry’s baggy sleeve, Louis gave him a tug and started pulling him towards the sun lounger with a huge grin on his face.

“Louuuu,” whined Harry as he was dragged unceremoniously along the poolside, stumbling and struggling to keep up, “this is a really bad idea. I don’t think I should have come; you won’t want me hanging around anyway. In fact, I really don’t think I should be here, I should go –”

“Nonsense,” Louis cried briskly as they came to a stop beside a single free sun-lounger that had been crammed into a shaded corner away from all the others (one which, unbeknown to Harry, he had relocated earlier in the afternoon so that the other boy would have somewhere to sit) “we had a deal and I refuse to let you go back on it. Anyway, it most definitely is not a bad idea. My ideas are never bad. Ever.” He plonked Harry down on the sun lounger and was able to enjoy a few moments of Harry’s unrestrained shock before the younger boy managed to wrest some form of control over his expression.

Staring up at him, Harry stammered, “I’m not sure about this, Lou, I really don’t –” he paused. “Hang on, why are we sat over here? Nobody else is over here.”

Louis smiled patiently. “That was sort of the idea.” More to the point; when did you start calling me ‘Lou’?He would never admit to anyone how much he enjoyed the sound of the endearment falling so naturally from Harry’s perfect pink lips. “You don’t like people, remember? I figured I’d shift us out of the way.”

Harry flushed with pleasure that Louis had remembered and been so considerate as to accommodate for his social anxiety. “Oh. Thank you.” There was a pause, and then he frowned slightly and said, “there’s only one sun-lounger.”

Already beginning to shrug out of his tight blue shirt, Louis raised an eyebrow at him as he hurled the garment to the floor, ignoring the blush that exploded across Harry’s pale cheeks. “Lazing around in the sun all day isn’t my idea of fun, thank you very much. You can lurk under your sun umbrella and try not to get a tan to your heart’s content; I’m going to be enjoying the pool.” Kicking off his shorts and leaving them in a heap on the floor, along with his shirt, Louis revealed himself to be wearing nothing more than a pair of swimming trunks, and he was visibly amused by Harry’s evident shock.

“We were supposed to be hanging out,” Harry reminded him almost accusingly, looking a little sulky. His sinfully attractive lips were pushed out into a pout. “That was the deal.”

“We are hanging out. I get to mess about in the pool. You get to sulk in the shade and play out the whole angsty vampire role you’ve got going on. Everybody’s happy.” Grinning, Louis waved coyly at him, a flutter of his fingers, and then turned, gave a little run up, and dive-bombed into the pool, splashing water everywhere so that a little gaggle of teenage girls (the same little gaggle of girls, as a matter of fact, who had been stalking him for days) screeched and got rather soaked, and began wailing over their suddenly rather damp hair and dramatically streaked make-up that Louis had utterly destroyed by showering them in water, when previously they had been standing around waist-deep in the shallow end, showing off their bikini-clad bodies and doing no swimming whatsoever. He felt a little stab of vindictive pleasure at the jibe, and got to enjoy the sound of Harry’s gorgeous laugh rippling across the pool in response to their screams.