Young & Beautiful

VIII
Chapter Summary
Zayn Malik hosts a picnic.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Louis awakens the next morning with a head that may have the potential to spontaneously
combust.
“Oh god,” he breathes, blindly reaching for water on his nightstand. But fuck, there is none—and
where exactly is Niall? Shouldn’t he be checking on him and fetching him things?
When Louis finally stumbled his way through the door last night, the boy was nowhere to be
found, only the remnants of some Irish stew lying in the sink indicating that he had been there at
all since Louis had last seen him.
It didn’t irritate him or anything. It’s not as if he had mentally planned out his tirade about the
party and Harry Styles on the way home or anything. He really did enjoy the peace of solitude. If
Niall HAD been there, he probably would have ended up playing the fucking piano or farting.
But now Louis is awake (only in the most generous sense of the word) and is weakly grasping at
air, pillow over his face as he quietly suffers through existence.
“Niall,” he calls weakly, voice burdened from sleep and dehydration.
Champagne is evil. It’s pretty and fun and it loves you and it’s evil.
“Niall,” he tries again, but his door is closed and he knows Niall is nowhere near doting enough to
be listening for Louis’ weak pleas.
Thankfully, this is the twenty-first century.
Feeling like he just crawled out of the devil’s ass crack, Louis fumbles for his phone, finding
Niall’s name (he’s not talking about the fact that he’s made it to his list of favorites—it was for
convenience and nothing else) and pressing it with all the passion his hungover and pitied state
can muster.
It rings once.
“Tommo!” Niall answers robustly as soon as he picks up. “Where are you? I was just about to
have Rory get us some food.”
“You sound very chipper for being awake so early,” Louis rasps.
“It’s nearly midday.”
“Midday is early. Anytime of the day involving the sun is early.”