You're a whole new level of charm. (Larry One Shots - book 6)

Don't Unplug Me Or Shut Me Down

From: http://archiveofourown.org/works/781250

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so cute. u.u

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Rating: PG-13

Warnings/tags: alternative universe, nerd!louis, photographer!harry, lilo (friendship), fluff

Word count: 7868

Summary: Louis scowls. "He's a photography student. He works with gorgeous models and probably breaks hearts with his smile. I'm a nerd. I earn my money fixing broken crap, and for some stupid reason, I like it. He wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts, he's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers, et cetera, et cetera." Louis sighs. "I swear, the coolest thing I've ever done is wear contacts."

Basically, Louis is a self-proclaimed nerd who fixes things and Harry seems too perfect to keep breaking as many things as he does.

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Louis hates his job. 

Okay, so that's not exactly true. The pay's nice and the hours are flexible and his boss loves him and his apartment's just a five-minute bike ride away.

It makes some use of his electrical engineering degree, even if he's not exactly assembling circuits or computer chips like he'd envisioned himself doing straight out of college in some cushy job.

It doesn't bother him too much, though, because when there's no one in the store--which is most of the time, really--he gets to tinker around with the spare parts kept in the back. Hilariously enough, half the "broken" iPods and PSPs sitting on the shelves really only need to be reset or cleaned out, so Louis carefully replaces their screens and updates their software and sets them out for resale. Simon lets him keep 70% of the profits from everything he sells, and that's pretty much how Louis earns his Christmas spending money. 

He's this close to having a brand-new laptop, too, one he's spent months building in his spare time. All he really needs to find is a spare CD drive that's not too fucked up--he'll be damned if he's gonna walk around with a laptop without one, to be perfectly honest, because they're pretty much still a complete necessity, regardless of whatever those pretentious hipster dicks who're shelling out thousands for the new, lighter, sans-CD drive MacBook Pro believe. Louis seriously hopes their decision comes back to bite them in the ass. Hard. 

The store itself is also pretty beautiful. It's a subtle kind of beauty, sure, and not one everyone would really understand, but Louis absolutely adores the cramped aisles of the shop, how the shelves are spilling over with fixed-up secondhand items for resale and spare parts for cheap prices. 

The help desk sits at the back, so Louis has a clear view of everything, including the occasional dumbass shoplifter that he can literally take down with his BB gun--he's got a deathly aim, and Simon is all for it, police be damned. 

He has a nice little setup, and Zayn, the kid who works half-shifts once in a while, never messes with any of his stuff, so Louis appreciates that.

There's also the junkies, as Louis calls them, the guys--and occasional girl--who love the store just as much as Louis does and stop by every so often to look for a spare part for their own projects. 

Sometimes they'll stay and chat, and it's nice to be able to talk to someone without having to dumb down his diction. 

He's even gotten a few numbers, a couple guys who stop by and give him a wink every month as they rattle on about how they're augmenting their hard drives or building a battle bot and a really sweet girl named Eleanor who'd blushed as she'd handed him her number months ago. She insisted it was for tutoring, since she'd needed help with her circuits homework, but Louis had seen the way her eyes had shone and still hasn't found a way to let her down nicely whenever she decides to visit, which has been alarmingly more frequent recently, if Louis thinks about it--her circuits class finished a whole semester ago.