Chapter Text
More than just a dream…more than just a dream..
Louis frowned and rolled over in bed, tugging a pillow over his head. He had been having the best dream. It started with him scoring the winning goal of the Doncaster Rover’s match against Manchester United and ended in a locker room with a sweaty and very naked David Beckham.
You were out of my league, got my heartbeat racing; if I die don’t wake me, cuz you are more than just a dream.
“Nghhh, fine fine I’m up,” he grumbled sleepily as his alarm began its final refrain of Fitz and the Tantrum’s Out of My League. Louis gave one last resigned groan, switched off the alarm, and rolled out of bed, cursing whoever in the registrar’s office had decided that 8am was an acceptable time for a class to start. Louis wasn’t even capable of coherent speech this early, let alone any kind of meaningful discussion in his History of Human Rights in Britain seminar.
Louis peered at the clock, debating whether to change for class or just go in the sweats he had worn to bed. “Shit,” he murmured when he saw the time. “Better just go in this.” He grabbed his notebooks and the book they were reading for class that week from his desk and stuffed both into his North Face backpack.
He slipped on his well-worn Adidas trainers and ran to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He spent a minute desperately trying to make his sandy brown hair look at least a little presentable to no avail. When he was done, it still looked like he’d spent the last hour in a windstorm.
“Not your best look, Tomlinson,” he said grimly to his reflection, taking in the dark circles under his electric blue eyes and the small stain on his black v-neck t-shirt.
“Talking to yourself again, Lou?” a sleepy voice asked from the other side of the bathroom door. “Not normal, that.”
“Shut up, Zayn,” he said to his roommate. Zayn came into the bathroom looking better than anyone had the right to look this early. He was shirtless, displaying the tattoos on his chest, and a pair of joggers hung low on his narrow hips.
He had clearly just rolled out of bed; he was rubbing his eyes and his hair was sticking in every direction. But somehow it worked. While Louis’ bedhead was a total disaster, Zayn carried it off effortlessly.
Basically, Zayn was sex on legs; it was a commonly acknowledged fact among most of the women and a fair share of the men on York’s campus.
Louis wasn't blind; he could appreciate that Zayn was ridiculously attractive. But he had also known Zayn since they were both five years old, and they’d never been more than friends.
Louis had always known that he was gay and Zayn had experimented with both guys and girls ever since Year 10. But Louis liked to say that any potential romance between them had died when Zayn peed the bed while they were sleeping at Louis’ house when they were about 7.
“Don’t you have, like, class or something, mate?” Zayn asked groggily, jolting Louis out of his thoughts. “Yeah, yeah. Gotta run,” he said, slipping past Zayn out of the bathroom.
He hurried to the kitchen and rifled through the cabinets, looking for a granola bar or piece of fruit to eat on his way to class. As he stared at a nearly-empty pantry, he realized that he’d forgotten to go on his weekly Tesco run. “Shit,” he groaned again.
“You know how that kind of language offends me, LouLou,” chirped a sunny voice. “Fuck you, Liam,” Louis replied, lobbing an almost empty bag of crisps at his other roommate’s head.
Liam laughed and caught the bag, opening it and stuffing a handful of crisps in his mouth, his brown eyes crinkling as he grinned at Louis.
“It’s not fair that you’re this fucking cheerful in the morning,” Louis informed Liam. “Not natural. Don’t know how I’ve lived with you for the past three years if I’m being honest.”
Liam shrugged. He was wearing his gym clothes and sweating from his usual early morning trip to the gym. “Early bird gets the worm and all that."
“You know I’d love to sit around and chat all morning,” said Liam with his mouth full, “but don’t you have a class to get to?”
"SHIT,” Louis exclaimed, checking his watch. “Double shit. Gonna be late. See you later!” he called over his shoulder.
“Oi! Be on time for practice today! Coach will flip a shit if you’re late again!” Liam shouted as Louis bolted toward the door and out of their apartment.
Five minutes later, Louis was in Vanbrugh—the building where he spent most of his time as a history student—taking the last of the stairs three at a time.
Somehow he was only two minutes late; maybe class hadn’t started yet. He rounded the corner at a sprint and—BAM—crashed headlong into someone. To be clear, Louis didn’t awkwardly brush them. He didn’t even kind of shove them. He full on ran into them.
Louis reeled backwards, his backpack falling off his shoulder and his phone slipping from his hand onto the floor.
He looked up at the person he had run into and got his first real look at him. And damn. This guy was...well, he was kind of extremely beautiful. He was taller than Louis, maybe 6 feet, and lanky, with long legs that were almost sinful in tight black jeans. Wide green eyes and amazing full lips were framed by long, chocolate brown curls that were carelessly pushed back from his face.
As he looked the man up and down, Louis noticed a large brownish stain on the man’s white t-shirt and an empty paper coffee cup in his hand.
Louis blinked and returned to reality. He looked back up to the man’s face and saw that it was twisted into an almost-comical expression of shock. And oh, God. Oh. God. Leave it to him to find one of the most beautiful people on this whole damn campus and spill coffee all over him. Typical.
“I—oh god, I’m so sorry. That coffee wasn’t hot, was it? It’s just you know, was in a bit of a rush and—” Louis faltered, fully aware of how jumbled words tumbling out of his mouth are.
“You know, you really might try being more careful,” snapped the beautiful stranger in a clipped and infuriatingly posh accent. And then more to himself, he murmured “Fuck! I’ll never get the stain out of this shirt…”
Louis looked around and remembered his phone and bag on the floor. As he bent down to pick them up, he saw it. His phone. His brand new phone.
“Fuck, my phone!” Louis exclaimed at a tone approaching a yell. He had bought his iPhone 6 just last week after saving up for more than six months.
He dropped to his knees and examined his phone. His heart sank; there was a long jagged crack that ran the length of the screen.
“Shit! Shit! Fuck!” He was shouting. The rational part of his brain (which at this point was not in the driver’s seat) realized that he was shouting at a total stranger, a stranger he had just spilled coffee on. And he knew that, aside from being extremely rude, this made him seem like a crazy person.
But at the moment, Louis couldn’t care less about that. Because all he could think about right now were all those extra shifts at the bookshop; all of the times that he went without his favorite, obscenely expensive granola; all of the sacrifices that he made to save up the money for that phone. Gone. Completely fucking wasted.
“It’s cracked,” he said in a shrill, accusatory tone that he knew was unfair. After all, he had been the one running through the corridor like a madman.
The man raised his eyebrows. “Listen, it sucks about your phone. But what part of this is my fault?” he asked. He sounded as though he was fighting a losing battle to stay calm, but he couldn’t hide the indignation on his face. “I mean, look at me, I’m covered in hot coffee.”
“Whatever,” Louis snapped, past the point of caring that he definitely owed this guy a proper apology. At that moment, he saw on his phone’s cracked screen that he was now almost five minutes late for class.
He gathered his belongings as quickly as he could and sped the rest of the way down the corridor and into the classroom, not even glancing behind him at the man he’d run into.
Unsurprisingly, class had already started. He kept his head down and slipped into the seat closest to the door. The other ten students in the seminar looked up at him as he sat. “So kind of you to join us, Mr. Tomlinson,” his professor said wryly.
“Sorry sir, it’s been kind of a shit morning,” Louis said without thinking. Everyone in the room stared at Louis. A few people giggled and one girl’s jaw actually dropped.
“I’m so sorry I did not mean to say that,” Louis said. His professor just chuckled and said “I think we can all relate.” He turned back to the class. “Now, as I was saying, a lot of the anti-Arab sentiment we see in Britain today can be traced back to the aftermath of the Balfour Agreement following the Second World War…”
Louis pulled his book out of his bag and opened his notebook and started scribbling, trying not to think about the cracked phone in his pocket and the beautiful stranger he'd left standing in the hallway.
An hour and 15 minutes later, Louis was shutting his laptop and sweeping his belongings into his bag. Today was his busiest day of the week, with two classes, an afternoon shift at the bookshop, and football practice in the evening. Thankfully, his second class, History of the Anti-Slavery Movement in Britain and the Americas, was his favorite.
It was the one class where he found himself jumping into the discussion at every possible opportunity. All of the readings were so fascinating, the professor always kept the class engaged, and the course material still felt so relevant.
He slid into a seat next to his friend Perrie. They had met at first year orientation three years ago and gotten along at once, bonding over their shared love of shit-talking the other people in their orientation group.
“Hey, Pez!” he greeted her jovially. “Lou, quick, tell me what the reading was about,” she hissed.
“Really? Again?” She grinned. “I know, I'm the worst. But, you know that older guy I’ve been seeing? Well, we’ve finally started sleeping together and now he’s taking up all my time. His apartment is huge! And he’s honestly got the most amazing dick I’ve ever seen.”
“TMI!” Louis squawked. “Oh, come on! You’re my gay best friend; you’re supposed to love this stuff!” Louis shook his head and mumbled something about offensive stereotypes, but he was grinning. He secretly did love this stuff.
They chatted for a few more minutes before the professor entered the classroom and brought the class to order.
“Quiet, you lot!” he raised his voice above the din of chatting students. Louis liked Professor Coleman because his teaching style was what you might call non-traditional. He was always encouraging his students to challenge his ideas.
His lectures were passionate, even emotional, like the time that he had gotten so angry that he called the British Parliament of the early 19th century “a bunch of cowardly, narcissistic tossers.”
On another memorable occasion, he had performed his own version of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” which he had rewritten to describe the Abolition Act of 1833.
“Just a couple of announcements before we start today, guys,” Coleman was saying. The class fell silent. “First of all, your papers are due two weeks from today, so if you need me to look over anything, ask soon. Speaking of which, Tomlinson, I got your email and have some notes for you if you’ll stay a bit after class.”
Perrie rolled her eyes and snorted. “Show off,” she muttered under her breath. Louis shrugged. He had spent much of the last weekend in York's archives researching for his essay and if that made him a show-off, he wasn't fussed.
“Second of all,” Coleman continued, “starting next week, we’ll be having a special guest in class. He’s one of York’s history PhD students, and he’s currently doing research on the abolition of slavery in Britain and so I’ve asked him to join our class as my teaching assistant. He is one of the brightest scholars in his program. He was published for the first time when he was just a sophomore at Oxford. After he finished his undergraduate degree, he spent two years traveling around the world doing research. He’s going to be a great resource for all of us, so I expect all of you to bring your A game to class from now on.”
Louis listened with interest. This guy sounded brilliant and Louis was pretty excited to meet him and see if he lived up to the hype.
“I wonder what he was researching,” Louis mused. “I wonder if he’s hot,” Perrie replied. Louis snorted. “Only you would say that,” he said, shaking his head. She shrugged. "What? Might make class more interesting," she said with a wink.
“Bet he’s got big thick glasses and an overbite,” Louis whispered. Perrie looked unconvinced. “Nerds can be hot,” she whispered. “I mean, look at you."
Louis bit back a laugh and shushed her so that he could listen to Coleman talk about the impact that Uncle Tom’s Cabin had on the American antislavery movement.
After class, Louis had half an hour to run home and change clothes for his shift at the bookshop. “Li, you working this afternoon?” he called when he got back to the apartment.
“Yeah, man! You ready to go?” Liam asked, poking his head out of the door to his room. He scrunched his nose when he saw what Louis was wearing. “You’re still not changed?”, he asked. “Our shift starts in like, 20 minutes.”
Louis rolled his eyes. “Gimme a second. I promise I won’t ruin your perfect punctuality record.”
It was Liam’s turn to roll his eyes. “Y’know, being on time isn’t a bad thing, Lou,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, whatever you say,” Louis muttered, tugging his t-shirt over his head as he headed to his room to change. He pulled off his York football sweatpants and shrugged into an unfortunate pair of khakis and navy blue polo emblazoned with the words “Blackwell’s Bookshop” and a small picture of an open book.
Louis looked in the mirror and winced. He spent at least 20 minutes a week bitching about his uniform. The khakis were loose and lumpy and Louis liked to say that navy just wasn’t his color. Liam liked to say that Louis was full of shit.
Liam and Louis had worked at Blackwell’s together since they had both moved to York for uni three years ago. It was actually where they had met and become friends.
Within 5 minutes of meeting each other, they had discovered their mutual football obsession; before long, Louis had invited Liam to the dorm room that he and Zayn shared for a round or five of FIFA.
Louis still gave Zayn shit for how jealous he had been at first. After Liam left that night, Louis had eagerly asked Zayn what he thought of his new friend.
“He’s very…friendly,” Zayn mumbled. Louis knew Zayn well enough to know that this was not a compliment.
Fortunately, Zayn had warmed up to Liam after the three of them had been snowed into Zayn and Louis’ place for three days straight right after their first winter holiday.
The rest had been history. The next year, they had decided to go in together for an apartment and had been living together ever since.
On their walk to the shop, Louis showed Liam his newly-cracked phone and went on a lengthy rant about the sexy mystery man.
“Please tell me you didn’t yell at this poor bloke right after you spilled his coffee all over him,” Liam sighed.
“I can’t believe you’re taking his side!” Louis exclaimed. At this, Liam snorted in disbelief. “No, hear me out! My phone was cracked! Of course I was pissed off!”
“Just get your screen replaced. It’s no big deal. Costs like 40 pounds.”
Louis lit up. “Shit, why didn’t I think of that? You’re a genius!”
“You know, you should also think about trying to find this guy and offering him a sincere apology,” Liam insisted.
If it had been Liam, he wouldn’t rest until he’d found this guy, apologized profusely, bought him a new shirt, and probably baked him muffins or something.
Liam’s lecture was cut short when they arrived at Blackwell’s and were ushered into the shop by their boss Kathy.
“Boys, thank goodness you’re here. I’ve got to run; the boys have both caught the chicken pox so apparently they’re highly contagious and have to be quarantined from other kids at school.”
Liam crowed sympathetically. “Oh, no! my younger sister had that a few years back. Put them in a cold bath with half a box of baking soda. It should bring down the redness."
Louis had to resist rolling his eyes. Liam was such a mother hen. Louis would never admit that he found Liam’s worrying both endearing and dead useful when he or Zayn got sick.
Kathy thanked him, gave the boys instructions to restock the nonfiction section of the store, and swept out of the shop, muttering to herself. “Chicken pox! God help me!”
By the time Louis jogged onto the football pitch that evening (with five minutes to spare, thank you very much), he was exhausted. He had sprinted from Blackwell’s to the phone repair shop he had googled from his cracked phone.
He had arrived at the shop five minutes before it closed and had left his phone with a kindly older man who had assured Louis that his phone would be as good as new by the next afternoon.
When Louis' coach gave him a pointed look and said, "Cutting it close, aren't we Tomlinson?" Louis found himself cursing the man he’d run into that morning.
This time, though, his irritation was accompanied by a surge of guilt as Liam’s voice rang through his head: “You ran into him, Lou.”
Thinking about how he had shouted at an unsuspecting stranger made him cringe a little. But he didn’t have too much time to get worked up over it because Coach had already started running drills.
Practice that night was brutal. They had lost their first match of the season the previous week and their coach was working hard to make sure that they didn’t have a repeat performance against Sussex this coming Saturday.
After a seven lap jog around the field, Coach informed them that the real practice was starting. Liam and Louis exchanged a mutinous glance with their other friend on the team, Ed. This was going to be a long night.
Two hours of endless drills and scrimmaging later, Louis was finally free. Free to shower, change, and start on a long problem set for his Fundamentals of Economics class.
At around 1am, Louis finally gave up on his p-set and slammed the textbook shut. He drug himself into bed, smiling at the thought that his first class tomorrow didn’t start until noon. He pledged that he would leave himself plenty of time to get there, avoiding a repeat of this morning’s debacle. He really should find that guy and apologize…