Just Me, You, And This Box of Matches

Chapter 6: Boring

There's a sock hanging off their apartment door.

Louis stops, staring for a second. The straps of his bag are cutting into his palm, and after a moment he sets it down on the entry mat.

Zayn's brought people back to the flat before- of course he has, when you have a perfectly symmetrical face and a plethora of lickable tattoos it's pretty much unavoidable that you're going to get laid- but he usually saves the sock on the door thing for his room, or, when he was really being an ass, Louis' room. The sock on the door of their actual apartment means that he's on the coffee table or up against the fridge or something equally disgusting and unsanitary and that he needs the entire flat for his deranged sexcapades.

Louis tries the handle anyway (he's willing to participate in whatever kinky threesome will inexorably be the result of him, Louis Tomlinson, and his irresistibly luscious bum entering a room full of lust-filled young men, as long as it means he can get to his bed and wine cabinet afterwards.)

No luck. It's locked, which means Zayn thought ahead.

"Well, fuck you too," says Louis to the door.

"You kind of deserve it," says a voice from behind him, and Louis turns to see Niall, who's leaning against the door to the staircase, a strip of bubble tape dangling out of the corner of his mouth.

"Well, thanks for your support, Niall." Louis has the crappiest friends ever in the history of crappy friends.

Niall sucks in another foot of the tape and waggles his eyebrows. "Didn't you just set his kitchen on fire, like, a couple days ago?"

"Yes, and now he's getting me back by shagging in the ashes. I get it."

"Shagging in the ashes? That doesn't found very sanitary," says Niall, garbled around the huge wad of gum in his mouth. "What if it got in one of his holes?"

"One of his holes? How many do you think he has, anyway?" Louis casts a disparaging look to the string of drool dripping down his chin. "Not that it really matters. What really matters is that I'm homeless. Homeless and wineless. He could have at least put the liquor cabinet outside before he sexed all over it."

"I don't think sex is a verb," says Niall helpfully. He chokes a bit, then continues, one cheek bulging outwards. "And I dunno, four? No. Five. Seven."

"What?"

"Holes."

"Niall, I get that you're straight, but you really should have more knowledge about the male body than you do. Look in a mirror sometime."

"No, but really- like, the mouth, and then the butt-"

Louis is beyond done with having this conversation. "Why are you down here, anyway?"

Niall blows a huge bubble and somehow pops it without smearing it all over his face. "M'just leavin'. Off to ceramics."

"I'll come with." Louis grabs his bag and hikes it over his shoulder. "Watch you make pots or whatever. It's either that or go to the library."

"Oh yeah, the one you got Zayn banned from?"

"I think that was you, actually-"

"Hey, man, I wasn't the one who made the noises in the first place. I just recorded them."

"I'm pretty sure that's cyberbullying or something-"