Larry Stylinson ~ Poor Little Rich Boy AU

11.

“Natural charm,” Niall scoffed, “you get drunk every weekend and you’re crap at golf; you have no natural charm. The great hair is a possible contender,” he allowed.

“Look, I don’t have any secret, and Hannah’s a law unto herself anyway; chances are if even if I didknow the secret of unlocking any man or woman’s heart, I still wouldn’t be able to worm my way into Hannah’s bed with a million pounds in my pocket and the most attractive head in the world on my shoulders.”

“You did it once before.”

“That was a long time ago. Anyway, I can’t see myself duplicating the feat any time soon, can you? Hannah’s not looking for anyone right now. She’s single, she’s happy. Let her be. Keep mooning after her and maybe one day she’ll get sick of the single life and go for you. She’ll appreciate you far more for waiting and being patient, believe me. Women love that, and that’s one piece of knowledge I am willing to impart. Patience is a quality everybody loves.”

They fell contemplatively quiet for a while, and the next few holes were taken in silence. Louis had no aptitude for golf whatsoever, but he was slowly clawing his way back up to the top, nowhere near Niall’s score but doing less badly than he had been so far, which was something at least. They’d been golfing undisturbed for about fifteen minutes before Niall spoke again.

“None of us have ever met the guy, you realize that? Not properly. Stan tried to speak to him in the hallway yesterday and he stared at him with such horror you’d think he was about to mug him, and scuttled off, pretending he hadn’t heard a word of what Stan had said. And he quickly goes in the opposite direction whenever he sees any one of us coming, like he recognizes us and he’s scared we’re going to speak to him. He’s totally unsociable and he’ll hardly speak a word to anyone, which is why we’re maybe not as insulted as we should be…from what anyone else can see, Lou, he’s just some silent little rich kid who reckons he’s above mundane things like conversations with us lowly mortals – and yet when you talk about him…I wish you could see yourself. Your face lights up and you go all soft, and you talk like…like he’s something special, like he means so much to you. And that’s insane, because you hardly know the guy! How can you care so much about someone who won’t speak a word to anyone?” Amazingly, Niall wasn’t frustrated; he was honestly curious, and that touched Louis to the core. He wanted so desperately to make Niall understand, to show him how Harry sparkled and how his quiet light lit up the whole room and how when he was with Louis, he wasn’t quiet at all. He wanted to show someone else the Harry that he saw when nobody else was around; the Harry who laughed and teased and flirted and was one of the most amazing people he’d ever known. Who was afraid to show people who he was, and yet that made no sense, because who he was, the real him, was truly incredible. And yet at the same time, Harry was his, his perfect shy little secret who he kept all to himself and truly came alive only in his company (from what he could see, anyway; perhaps it was vain of him to assume that he alone knew the real Harry, but he’d never seen Harry act so comfortably with anybody else.) and Louis wanted to keep him a secret that he held against his chest forever, and never told anybody else about.

But he owed it to Harry to show people how beautiful he really was, once you peeled away all the layers of social anxiety and insecurity and nervousness around strangers. Harry had so many different layers of undesirable qualities, like nerves and panic and uncertainty, and awkward unfriendliness, like an onion, and at first glance just as bitter. Yet if you took the time to delve deep, and peel them all away, you discovered one of the sweetest, most intelligent, most brilliant people in the world. Knowing that he had uncovered all of that…it was a nice feeling. And Louis wanted everyone else to know that Harry wasn’t surly and unsociable, a rude rich boy who felt he could ignore everyone who was ‘below’ him. He hated thinking that people thought of Harry that way.