Larry Stylinson ~ Poor Little Rich Boy AU

8.

Shaking his wet hair like a dog, Louis submerged himself in water once again and emerged after a few seconds, grinning massively at the visible delight on Harry’s face and quickly swimming over to the edge. Leaning over the side of the pool with his arms folded, he called, “Care to join me?”

The look of abject horror on Harry’s face said it all. Throwing his head back and laughing, Louis pushed off from the side and spent the next couple of minutes messing around. Mainly for the purpose of Harry’s entertainment, he did a couple of handstands, demonstrated several different forms of swimming strokes (including the doggy paddle, much to Harry’s amusement) and then had Harry measure his lung capacity by seeing how long he could hold his breath for. After that, he headed for the deepest end of the pool and started doing dives off the side, while Harry applauded and rated each one a ten, even the one where Louis slipped and fell in sideways, displacing what looked like half the water in the pool with the enormous splash he created. (Suffice to say that Harry rated that one a ten simply because it sent him into convulsions of uncontrollable laughter, which Louis counted as a personal victory.)

He was having a great time, in fact, when he came up for air after having done a rather dramatic impression of a whale solely for Harry’s amusement, only to almost end up vanishing back underneath the surface and choking on chlorine-filled water when he spotted Stan and Zayn swanning in wearing swimming trunks and nothing else, and Stan’s eyes homed in on him almost instantly.

They both took several rather harsh intakes of breath as they set eyes on each other, but the moment Louis had sucked that breath inwards he found it being snatched away from him again in shock. Staring across the waters at each other, he found himself struggling not to feel unnerved by the intensity of his best friend’s gaze. Louis forgot to keep treading water and suddenly found himself under it, with water over his head and all around him, pouring inside his mouth and burning his lungs with the harsh, icy, bitter chemical taste of it. Frantically splashing and kicking, he struggled to right himself, and felt his body tipping sideways. Around that moment, he lost track of which way was up, and started flailing desperately in an attempt to find the surface. His chest was beginning to ache, and water stung his eyes, his vision blurred.

One of his hands broke the surface of the water, and he thankfully kicked up for the surface, his head bursting through the waves as he coughed and spluttered, spitting out what felt like half of the pool and trying not to choke on it.

“Are you all right, Lou?”

Harry was leaning so far over the edge that it was surprising he didn’t topple in, his knuckles white as he clung to the poolside, eyes wide as he stared at Louis, who hastily shoved his hair out of his eyes and forced a very wobbly, watery-eyed smile. Sneaking a glance at Stan, who was staring wide-eyed at them, Louis was suddenly very aware of the rather minimal distance between his and Harry’s faces; their noses were about an inch away from touching, if that.

The word ‘slut!’ washed across Louis like a slap in the face. Cheeks burning, he ducked his head, wondering whether Stan was stood watching him and thinking exactly that. Determined not to give Stan the wrong idea, maybe even to prove his innocence, he moved back a little, further away from Harry, and nodded.

“I’m okay. I just drunk half the pool, that’s all. It wasn’t very nice, but I’ll live.” He grinned.

Leaning over even further so that he wobbled even more precariously on the edge, Harry anxiously asked, “Are you sure? You don’t look so good.”

“Nah, I’m fine. You can go and sit back down if you want –”

“Louis!”

Stan was waving frantically at him from where he and Zayn stood, and as Louis watched, he leapt manically up and down and his waving intensified. As Louis blinked at him, Stan started hurrying over towards him with Zayn hot on his heels, and Harry instantly shrank back, visibly daunted by the appearance of Louis’ friends.