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It started as just another day. Louis was working behind the counter pouring out pretentious coffee blend after pretentious coffee blend and handing them out one by one to the customers. Niall was lazing around against the counter, drawing dicks and writing profanities on one of the plain purple take away cups that were stacked beneath the till. The amount of times Louis had to swap one of those crudely drawn cups for a regular, plain one to prevent accidentally handing a customer a cup that said ‘fuck u prissy wankers’ on the side.
As the morning rush of customers died down, Louis stepped out from behind the counter and began wiping down the tables. He cleared away the stale, half-eaten croissants and lipstick stained coffee mugs with a heavy sigh. He hissed as he brushed his finger against the metal of a chair.
“Y’alright mate?” Niall called from where his head lolled from side to side on the edge of the counter.
“Yeah, fucking static again.” He growled as Niall let out a hearty laugh.
Louis was always irritated with static electricity. The amount of times he had mistaken static shocks for soulmate shocks were unbelievable. But every time he got excited about possibly having found his soulmate in the boy he shocked during trampolining class, his mother would remind him that soulmate shocks are a lot more powerful.
It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? You’re to be shocked when you meet your soulmate. Literally. Apparently, it would feel like sticking your hand in a plug socket. Not that he knew how that felt. Neither did he want to.
Anyway, he had more or less resigned himself - at the ripe age of 25 - to the fact that he was never going to find his soulmate. All of his friends were paired off. Hell, even his little sister Lottie had found her soulmate in the most shocking of places.
Ha. Ha. Ha. Shocking.
I need to find new puns, he thought.
As he wiped down the tables, swaying his ass to the tune of ‘Drive’ by Oh Wonder because what else would he be doing, the little bell above the door jingled.
Now, normally, Louis wouldn’t give a crap and would just keep wiping tables down, leaving Niall to take the order and only going back to making the coffee if Niall really couldn’t work the bloody machine - “it’s TWO buttons, you prick!” - but something compelled him to look up.
And thank god he did.
Walking through the door, shaking his lovely curly hair with one giant hand and holding the other against the glass of the door (so Louis could see the length of his goddamn beautiful fingers) was the most beautiful boy Louis had ever laid eyes on. And his face . Beautifully chiselled like it was made by the gods themselves with a razor sharp jawline and green eyes that looked like they could take you apart with one glance.
He turned away almost instantly, lest he keep staring for so long that his jaw genuinely dropped and he started drooling everywhere. His eyes locked with Niall’s almost instantly and he scowled at the grin the irish lad had slapped onto his face.
Don’t you dare! He mouthed up to the boy.
Niall just winked.
“Hello! What can I get you?” Niall chattered happily.
The boy stumbled to the counter with his long ass bambi legs that were suffocated by those goddamn skinny jeans that literally might have been stitched on this morning. There was silence for a second, presumably so the boy could pick his drink (Louis couldn’t actually see his face unfortunately), before a deep, silky voice rumbled out, “Can I please have a large Caramel Macchiato with skimmed milk and an extra shot to have here please?”
Louis stifled a laugh as Niall blinked helplessly, pulling out a little ‘drink in’ card to write the order down onto. He had no clue what any of that meant aside from the phrase ‘extra shot’. Although Niall’s experience with ‘extra shots’ came from more of a pub background.
The irish lad finally finished writing and tapped around on the screen of the till for a couple of moments before he let out another blinding grin, “That’ll be three pounds seventy then please, sir!”
The tall godlike boy patted down his pockets and pulled out a card which ended up dwarfed in his giant hands. Niall took it silently and slid it into the card machine, handing it back over for boy to enter his pin number before shouting - very loudly - “Louis! Why don’t you come make this hunky lad his drink, huh?”
NIALL YOU FUCKING WANKER.
Louis looked up slowly, his hand sliding the cloth over the table one last time as he glared at the irish lad, the few customers left in the store giggling at Niall’s antics. The glare, however, disappeared almost instantly as the beautiful boy looked over at him with a soft, apologetic smile. Louis smiled back of course. It was his face’s automatic response to something that beautiful.
He turned around and leaned across the table to grab the bucket of dirty mugs and swivelled back around to head towards the counter except…
Oh my god, he was so checking out my ass.
The boy looked away so very quickly. Too quickly. Louis was already completely smitten, possibly in love with the boy. Bless him, trying to cover up his attraction to Louis’ ass. No one can hide it; if that boy was carved by the Gods’, then so was Louis’ backside.
Louis sauntered up to the counter and started work on the drink. It was actually fairly easy so he had it done in under a minute.
Just as he was adding the pretty little leaf to the top of the drop with caramel sauce, he locked eyes with the boy again.
“Here you go, sir,” he smiled, passing the drink over the counter. He watched as the boy’s large hand reached up to take the cup from him when suddenly-
“AHHH! WHAT THE BLINDING EVER-LASTING FUCK WAS THAT OH MY GOD! MY SKIN IS ON FIRE!”
“GOOD FUCKING LORD! WHAT ON EARTH-OW HOT COFFEE. VERY HOT COFFEE! OW OW OW!”
Niall, the bastard, was stood cackling at the counter whilst the two boys screamed. Louis was flapping his hand around, blowing on his fingers directly where the boy had touched him. The boy was also flapping a hand around whilst the other held his shirt as far out from his body as it could possibly go. A broken mug lay on the counter between them with coffee spilling over the sides and onto the floor.
“What was that?!” Louis whined, cradling his hand against his chest. He looked up at the other boy and gasped, “Oh my god, are you okay?”
“I think so-ow!” The boy whined. He looks up at Louis and grins, “On the plus side, your coffee was definitely hot.”
Louis laughed and pulled a few tea towels out from under the counter before stepping round it and passing one to the taller boy who accepted it gracefully and stuck it under his shirt to wipe the coffee off his abs.
I could have done that, Louis grumbled bitterly to himself.
“Thanks,” the boy said, running a hand through his hair again, “What even happened? One minute I was reaching for the coffee and the next, my hand was on fire!”
“I don’t know,” Louis shrugged, “All I know is it hurt like fucking hell.”
“SOULMATES!” Niall screamed, “YOU’RE SOULMATES, YOU FUCKWITS!”
The two boys just stared at Niall, blinking.
“YOU ELECTROCUTED EACH OTHER! SOULMATE SHOCK. LOUIS, MATE, DON’T PLAY DUMB. YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT FOREVER!”
They turned to stare at each other before the realisation set in.
The boy reacted first, a slow smile spreading across his face and his eyes shining so bright they were nearing on blinding anyone who looked into them for too long.
I would willingly turn blind if those eyes were the last things I’d see.
“Well, hello soulmate!” The boy laughed, “M’Harry.” He stuck out the hand that wasn’t holding his shirt from his body. Louis reached out to take it into his own, flinching when another much lesser shock connected through their hands.
This time, however, they were both watched. And even though the pain wasn’t as immense as before they could still see the sparks that jumped from one fingertip to the other, uniting their hands.
“Louis,” he grinned, looking eyes with Harry, “M’Louis. C’mon, I have a clean shirt you can use round the back.”
And so their story begins. The two fell in love instantly. They spent every night telling each other the deepest of secrets and fears, hopes and dreams. And when the time came for them to fall into bed together, side by side, with trust and adoration. Well… You know the saying ‘sparks fly’? That.