The Brother I Never Wanted (Larry AU)

Chapter 11

Louis shoves his small hands under his thick thighs, feeling the sharp, cool sting of the metal beneath them even through his mittens. He planned to be sitting out today after his injury and everything. He even had everything packed in his bag in advance the night before - but it's just not enough for the chilly English weather. The only thing that could make it worse would be if it started to snow. His legs are numb and his nose feels, disgustingly, like it's frozen with snot. He envies the players who prance around in front of him as if mocking him. He really should've brought another jacket.

Distantly, he can hear the faint voices of his team at the other end of the field, but it's unintelligible and he struggles to maintain interest. It's so f*****g cold, he's frozen, he's tired, and his leg seems to be getting stiffer by the minute. The list just keeps getting longer. It does get him thinking about his bandage however, and he frowns, wondering if it'd be wise to change it or not.

Ah, what the hell? He's just sitting here wasting time and energy anyway. Louis attempts to pry the first mitten off using his other hand, but it seems to be near impossible with his frigid fingers, so he settles for using his teeth and it comes off hesitantly. He grumbles incoherently under his breath. What's the point of wearing mittens if they can't even keep your bloody hands warm?

Earlier, towards the beginning of practice, Louis had pulled his homework from his bag and spread it across the bench, pencil in hand and ready to tackle his learning. It didn't take him long to realize that wasn't going to happen. He had felt like a little kid, trying to hold the utensil in his mitten and shakily scratch out some words that turned out to be mostly squiggles. He had quickly dismissed the idea of getting anything productive done and crammed the papers back into his bag with a sigh. He doesn't understand why he can't just go home. Why does he have to stay after school and watch when he's injured? Is he learning anything from watching? No. Is he healing any faster? No, he's probably healing slower with the way his blood feels frozen. It just doesn't make sense to him.

Louis sucks in a sharp breath, wincing as he rolls up the leg of his sweatpants just above the bandage wrapped securely around his knee. He's immediately assaulted with a blast of cold air as soon as his skin is exposed, and he almost yanks it back down. He shudders violently, teeth clanking noisily. Using his hands, he frantically feels along the ground beneath the bench, running over the crispy, dry grass until they land on the first aid kit.

A whistle pierces through the air, and Louis looks up as he unclasps the case. The players all sprint gratefully towards the sideline where a bunch of plastic bottles are dumped carelessly on the turf, diving to take a quick drink and bouncing up and down on the balls of their feet. Ha, they think they're cold, he spits bitterly in his head. They should try spending five minutes on the bench with him. He's quick to find Niall hovering at the edge of the group, sending him concerned stares, but when he looks closely, Harry's tall frame isn't among the mingling bodies. Weird. He could've sworn he saw him earlier. He's probably just hiding under one of the many hats bobbing on the field. Louis waves at Niall to assure him he's fine.

The kit in front of him is laid out exactly like how he remembers it being yesterday, so it's not hard to find the roll of gauze that Niall used. He sets it beside his hip and gives a quick blow to his hands, scrubbing them before digging his fingers under the edge of the bandage and slowly peeling it off. It already looks kind of old and dirty - the white stained red, brown, and maybe a light yellow. The final length of wrap sticks almost painfully to his skin, and he grimaces. Just yank it off like a bandaid, Louis. Finally, it snaps off and he's left with a healing, but pretty gruesome, wound. After cleaning it out with some more of that spray that makes him want to cry and scream at the same time and some wipes, it doesn't look nearly as big, nor as bad, as he first gave it credit for, and he exhales in relief. It's actually healing rather nicely, leaving mostly just a scab to heal.

He prods it gently, deciding that he probably needs to rewrap it as it still feels tender to the touch. Repeating what he remembers Niall doing yesterday, he ends up with a bandage that looks remarkably like the one he was previously wearing - but cleaner. He makes sure to give himself some leeway this time around though, at his knee, so he can bend it if he absolutely has to. It's painful the first couple of times he flexes the joint, but eventually the soreness dissipates and he feels more liberated with the extra flexibility.

Once Louis' certain that it won't unravel, he jerks his sweatpants back down and shivers. He really, really wished he had thought to bring another jacket. Even with his oversized sweater covering his mitten-clad hands and his beanie tugged all the way over his ears, he still feels chilled to the bone. He frowns at the ground, bobbing his good leg up and down. Just thirty more minutes until practice is over; he can make it.

Footsteps crunch on the ground in front of him, a pair of black and orange cleats entering his field of sight, and Louis looks up with enlarged eyes. The tall frame floats above him for a second, momentarily blocking the cool air, and he savors it. In the pale light of the afternoon sun, his eyes appear that greenish-gray color again.

Louis' reminded of the lunch they shared earlier that day. Harry did sit with them, as promised, but it wouldn't have really mattered if he didn't. He sat directly across from Louis, took one look at the food on his tray and shoved it away, whipping out his phone to text under the table instead. He couldn't exactly blame him for being repulsed by the school's food - it's pretty inedible - but he wonders why he even bothered to sit with them if he wasn't going to pay attention. Louis' not blind enough to not see the couple of girls eyeing him up - probably more than eager to give him a place to sit, but he seemed oblivious. Niall, in particular, seemed offended by his lack of interest, but Louis was used to it and he just shrugged when he tried to complain. He had tried to warn him that he couldn't be reasoned with. He really did. He wonders what happened to Zayn and Liam too. Maybe they don't have C lunch?

Suddenly a soft, gray lump collides with his lap, and he scrambles to keep it from slipping off his leg. It's blissfully warm and soft in his hands, startling him. Louis grabs the edges of the fabric and holds it up slightly to see. It's a sweatshirt with a logo for some London football club he's never heard of, and when he turns it to see the back, his last name is printed in thick, black lettering. STYLES. His mum wasn't lying about his football background then.

He looks up, catching Harry's narrowed gaze, and he opens his mouth to thank him. It's a little unexpected - a little strange coming from his stepbrother, but it's an appreciated gesture nonetheless, and he should really thank him. He had to have run all the way into the locker room to get it for him. But he cuts him off before he can utter a noise.

"Don't read into it."

With that last comment swirling around in Louis' brain, he twirls sharply and jogs back onto the pitch, his low voice vibrating in the frosty air.

*********

Louis knows that Harry has told him not to read into the favor he did for him out on the football field, but he really couldn't help it. He's a curious little s**t, and he always feels like he needs to know the deep-root causes of everything that people do. If he doesn't, and he cares enough, he'll spend hours rolling it over and over in his head until he either passes out from exhaustion or forgets about it altogether. That's really the only way to satisfy him because people are just so foreign to him.

So sitting on a nice leather booth at a warm, fancy restaurant and being stuck uncomfortably close to his attractive stepbrother doesn't really help his mind forget about it. He had liked to think that his dad was joking when he suggested that they all go out to eat, but the nightmare turns out to be all too real. So there he is, bum scooted all the way against the wall and his fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Harry doing the same thing, but he's dragging his nails lazily over his arm every few seconds instead.

Both of them were forced to dress up more than usual, and judging by the grating movement of Harry's jaw, he doesn't like it anymore than he does. His dad said that his black skinny jeans were fine as long as he didn't wear a ratty t-shirt to match, so he settled on a simple, light-blue button up that matched the color of his eyes quite closely. Harry's dressed similarly with black jeans and a white button up. The only difference is that Harry's skin resembles gold against the white, while Louis just feels dorky.

For the most part, Harry has been fairly respectable - only sending him a couple of harsh glares - and Louis wonders if his mum had that talk with him that she promised his dad. Or if that's what inspired him to find one sprinkle of compassion and give him his sweatshirt when he was shaking on a cold bench, but he owes her big time if it was.

The meal was quiet too, their parents the only ones doing the talking. They both had sat on the same side of the booth, leaving the two boys to sit and pick at their expensive food in silence. He's not even sure that their parents know just how awkward - how much tension lay thick between their shoulders - when they're talking so animatedly to each other about funny things that happened at work or sharing embarrassing stories of the two when they were kids. He's also not sure if it's the awkwardness or the fact that his dad just told the whole table how he used to run around the house naked, but either way, his face feels hot.

With their parents so easily distracted, Harry takes the time to lean into his ear. He doesn't even remember him getting this close. He must've slid over when he was stabbing his vegetables and wishing they were him instead.

"They want a happy, bullshit family? Let's give them that." His long fingers thieve a chip off his plate, and he nibbles on it, still a little too close for comfort and breathing hotly into his ear. He gets a whiff of shampoo. "Just go with it."

Harry scoots back over, and his eyes dart across the table. Louis follows his gaze to see their parents smiling hopefully and then back to see his thick eyebrows raise in question. Oh, he sees.

Louis licks his lips and pouts his brow into a mildly irritated tilt, reaching out to grab a chip off Harry's plate in return. "Oi. Don't touch my chips."

A smile forms across his pink lips, and Louis' heart freezes for a second until he realizes it's fake. Pretend, right. They're just pretending. He hates how he has to remind himself of that when Harry doesn't look even the least bit affected about lying to their parents. "I hardly think it'll matter. You've got plenty."

There's a challenging twinkle to his vibrant eyes, and Louis nearly huffs at it. He's playing this as a game now. He's basically asking Louis to make a move, do better than that. He'd like to think that he can, so he squints at Harry's plate, taking in the half-gone, juicy slab of meat in the middle.

"How's the steak?"

The corner of his mouth twitches up into a quick smirk, and he thinks he might've fallen into a trap. "It's really good. You want some?"

Louis starts to grab his fork. "Uh, yeah. Sure."

Harry cuts him off a small chunk, and then the meat is being forced against his lips; he drops his fork. His lips part on instinct, awed at the sudden advance, and he knows there's a light color to his cheeks. Louis knows it's all supposed to be an act and everything, but this seems excessive. He bites it, nose scrunching as he tries not to drag his lips over the metal. His bottom lip nudges the tip of the fork, but apparently Harry doesn't notice because he doesn't wipe it off. He just goes back to eating quietly.

He can see the pleased smile gracing his dad's face, and Harry lifts his eyebrows smugly. He wants to say that it was an amateur move at best, but he can't do that. It was brilliant, and he can't argue that. Even if it was foreign and weird to them, they sold it.

A white envelope slides across the table and slows in front of Louis, drawing his attention. He picks it up carefully, running his fingers over the crisp paper. Frowning, he glances up at his dad, who's positively beaming. It almost hurts, like he's looking directly into the sun. "What's this?"

"Well, seeing as both of you boys have been on your best behavior and that you're actually trying to get along, I want to reward you with this. It's nothing really. I've been planning it for a while, but I thought I'd hold onto it until I knew that you absolutely deserved it."

His heart thumps quickly and heavily against his ribcage as he tears across the top of the envelope. A certain heat hovers above his right shoulder, telling him that Harry's just as intrigued by the mysterious proposition, and he almost shoos him away for how nervous he's making him. His fingers quake slightly as he pulls out glossy tickets. He freezes.

"Holy f**k," he whispers.

"What?" Harry questions urgently, leaning in even closer to touch his chest to his shoulder in an attempt to see. "What is it?"

He faintly hears his dad scold him. "Louis, language."

Louis' face breaks out in a s**t-eating grin, and he practically dives across the table to hug his dad, probably whacking Harry in the face with his elbow. He plops back down in his seat like a coil repressing, and he practically bounces with energy. This has been his dream ever since he was a little kid - to see a professional football game - and now he finally gets to. "You got Manchester United tickets! You've got to be joking! This is insane! Thank you!"

Louis suddenly freezes, smile dropping slightly. "Wait, but this game is in two weeks. What about finals?" He assumes that they'll just leave right after the semifinal next Friday, but if they win, they'll have to be back before the Friday after that for the final.

"Don't you worry about that, Lou. I worked it all out with your coach, and he said that it will be perfectly fine as long as you follow his instructions. He said that he'll send a simple exercise plan to help keep you boys in shape." His dad leans forward, folding his hands as if he can barely contain his excitement himself just by announcing the decision. "Not only do you have the game to look forward to, but he also agreed to let us stay another four days in Manchester! We're going to be staying in a cabin, as a family! Isn't that great?"

Louis' eyes immediately fall to Harry. He's staring intently at the side of his face already, but he looks away when he's caught. He thinks about how they'll be stuck in the same cabin, that will no doubt be much smaller than their house, for five days, but he brushes it off as soon as the thought comes. Not even Harry could ruin this moment for him.