watch them run, although it's the minimum
it's not just physical | ao3
liam payne/louis tomlinson
14,627 (?!???!?), r, au - gymfic!
And maybe that’s why, when he picked up a discarded copy of The Evening Standard from the empty seat next to him, he felt compelled to take down the number for a personal trainer he found in the ads right before the sports section. Maybe that’s why.
The only person I have to thank/chastise for this is oneaccolade; without her, what we've been affectionately calling trainerfic would not exist. There are parts of this that she literally wrote. It wasn't done for your 1D-versary, but cue the Janet Jackson 'cause it's all for you, bb!
It really started when one of Zayn’s stupid friends beat him to the stupid ball during their stupid weekend five-a-side. The guy just turned on his heel and breezed by, slashing the ball into the net like nothing was there to stop him in the first place.
Louis wasn’t mad; he was disappointed. He had always prided himself on being agile and spritely-quick. Had he lost his touch? Because he doesn’t get beat to the fucking ball.
“I don’t get beat to the fucking ball, I’ll have you know,” he said out loud. Just to make sure everyone knew.
Harry picked up one of the water bottles from the grass to slosh on his face. “Funny, ‘cos I think you just did.”
“Zayn’s friends aren’t allowed at these things anymore.” Louis threw himself down at the touchline. “Or else I quit.”
Zayn shook his head slowly, slung his bag over his shoulder and turned the other way. “You’ve always been a sore loser.”
Louis hrmphed. Sore loser my arse, he thought. He rolled his eyes at Zayn’s back just to get it out of his system.
Louis was still feeling shitty when they hopped on their bus home, Zayn and Harry sitting a few rows ahead - basking in the glory of a win that didn’t even matter, who fucking cares - and maybe that’s why, when he picked up a discarded copy of The Evening Standard from the empty seat next to him, he felt compelled to take down the number for a personal trainer he found in the ads right before the sports section. Maybe that’s why.
Maybe.
Louis was expecting an older dude in a sweatband and too-short shorts. Richard Simmons, maybe. Yeah, he was expecting Richard Simmons. He was not expecting a guy about his age with thick arms stuffed into a grey t-shirt and a disarmingly happy smile. And an unironic almost-fauxhawk. And a handshake with a grip for the ages. This is not what Louis was expecting.
“I’m Liam,” the guy says. “I’m so glad to meet you.”
“Louis,” Louis manages. “I am Louis.”
Liam grins in a way that makes Louis wonder if he’s ever not smiling. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you and your body.”
Louis chokes on a laugh because who says things like that? Is that a normal thing for someone to say? Wait -- is that how people talk to each other at gyms? Louis can’t be sure. He didn’t think the learning curve would be this steep, especially when he hasn’t even gotten past the introductions.
“Yeah. I, uh,” Louis tells him. “I have a lot to learn.”
Liam looks totally unaware of Louis’s confusion. “We have a lot to learn about each other.”
Louis almost asks, Are you serious? but instead just smiles back.
Liam takes him into a very clean office and pulls out some paperwork, starts talking session-per-week minimums and diet plans and can Louis swim? Does he want to work in some swimming? Because Liam’s specialty is cross training and Louis says yes, yes, yes. He could have been agreeing to sell his internal organs to this gym because it doesn’t matter what Liam is saying - at this point, Louis will agree with all of it. He signs on a few dotted lines and when Liam suggests they take a walk through the facility, Louis has a little talk with himself - Pay attention! Stop staring at his mouth! Be a normal person! - and he manages to nod as Liam shows him a room full of stationary bikes that scare him shitless.
But when Louis starts paying attention, he realizes that he probably lucked out on a lot of levels - Liam is gorgeous, but it’s clear that he’s also some sort of fitness prodigy, a trainer and a teacher all wrapped up in one really awesome body. He makes stupid jokes - “There’s free tanning if you’re into looking like a carrot”; “This is where we keep all the free pens, but don’t tell anyone I told you” - and points out the machines that are almost broken and the rooms that are busiest during their scheduled appointments.
They get to the end of the tour and circle back to Liam’s office. “Here’s your Introductory Pack,” Liam says, handing him a folder. “It’s got our schedule in there, and also some of the scheduled classes we offer. I’d pick one to start going to on a weekly basis.”
“Gotcha.”
“And there’s some nutritional info in the back. For your shopping.”
Louis nods. “Gotta tell my flatmate to stop spending our whole budget on sweets.”
Liam laughs and Louis sees a few stars. “Yeah, I’d say.”
“See you on Wednesday, then?” Louis asks, pulling on his coat.
“Can’t wait!” Liam says, enthusiasm dripping out his ears. “And be sure to text me.”
“Wait -- ” Louis falters again. “What?”
“We confirm appointments via text to avoid last minute cancellations. My number’s in the Staff section of your New Member Guide.” It looks like Liam’s a bit flushed, but maybe it’s just hot in here. It is pretty hot in here, Louis reasons.
“Okay.” Fully recovered, he even remembers to shake Liam’s hand. “See you then.”
Liam’s face bursts into a smile. “See you then!”
“You what?” Harry shouts.
“I joined a gym.” The more Louis says it, the better he feels about it.
“What possessed you to do that? Not you Zayn -- no, hold on, Louis’s joined a gym. I know.” He pulls his headseat off and crawls out from between the couch cushions. “Zayn’s laughing.”
“You two are rude,” Louis tells him, flopping into the chair across from Harry. “Why can’t you just support my newest life-affirming endeavor?”
“Because it’s hilarious.” As Harry stands up, a waterfall of crumbs drop off his shirt and onto the carpet.
“Vacuum that up, you little shit.”
“Never.”
Louis sighs. “Whatever, Haz. I just wanna feel better. Fitter. In more ways than one.”
“Is this about Eleanor?” Harry throws himself back onto the couch, but his face shows that he’s genuinely concerned. “She didn’t drive you to the bottle, but she drove you to the treadmill? Not sure which is worse.”
“No,” Louis says, but it sounds unconvincing to his own ears. “That was months ago.”
It’s Harry’s turn to sigh. “She’s not worth this, Lou.”
“It’s worth it to me! Who cares what motivated me to do it?” He sits up a bit straighter; all the better to tell Harry off. “I’ve always wanted to be fitter. And I don’t wanna be keeling over at the half of all our football games anymore.”
“I guess that’d be a good thing.” Harry is placiated. All in a night’s work.
“Exactly. Thank you.” Louis can hear Zayn’s voice, tiny and far away, coming through the headseat. “Get back to your kiddie games. I’ve got a diet to get started on.”
Harry shoves the device back over his head, wiggling the microphone so it’s in front of his mouth again. “You’re going to be bloody insufferable, aren’t you?”
Louis heads off to the kitchen. “Absolutely!”
The last thing he hears Harry say is, “Zayn, help.”
Liam shakes his hand early Wednesday morning with far too much vigor. “Did you have a good breakfast?” he asks.
“Me and my flatmate ate some chocolate around four this morning,” Louis says before he can stop himself. “Shouldn’t’ve told you that, prolly.”
“No, that’s actually something I need to know.” For some mysterious reason, Liam is still smiling; Louis wonders if he could ever muster up a mad face, or even a mildly frustrated smirk. “For this relationship to work, we’re going to have to operate on a full disclosure policy.”
“Can do,” Louis tells him, except for the part where I want you to hold me down at the wrists with those giant arms. Won’t tell anyone that. “I ate a chocolate bar at four this morning.”
Liam claps his hands. “Then let’s get on the treadmill, Louis.”
They stretch a bit first - Louis doesn’t think it’s one hundred percent necessary, but he gets to snatch a look at Liam’s back as it pulls against his t-shirt, so what does he know? - but after ten minutes on the machine he pulls the safety cord and slumps against the display.
“Done?” he pants.
Liam hops off his own machine; he hasn’t even broken a sweat. “Not even close.”
“I quit,” Louis moans. “I want my money back. All of it.”
“None of this, Louis. Come on now.”
“I want it all back so I can buy chocolate bars,” Louis says, slipping into a sitting position on the giant belt. He flares his feet out and lets his head hang loose between his sweaty shoulders. He probably looks - and sounds - like a five year old.
“We’ll try something else, yeah?” Liam asks, forceful in his suggestion. “You can’t quit on me already.”
Louis flicks his hair out of his eyes to look up. His body is starting to feel cold; some sort of exercise-induced shock. “Not quitting,” he croaks. “Admitting defeat.” He’s going to die on this treadmill. Sitting down, no less. This is it.
“Come try one of these.” Liam’s only a few machines away - he chose an elliptical this time. “Similar workout, but with less total movement. Lower impact. We can focus on specific parts of your body.” He claps again, only once. “Let’s try it.”
“Aren’t these for bums?” Louis hovers in front of the elliptical skeptically. His legs feel like taffy, stretched and gooey and unprepared to do more exercise things. He’s not quite sure how he’s standing upright. “Don’t need to work on my bum.” He peers over his shoulder. “Do I?”
“Just -- ” Liam cuts himself off and Louis doesn’t catch the look on his face full on, but he can’t miss the snap of Liam’s eyes to his face when Louis slots him a weak glare. “Just hop on, then.”
This time it’s fifteen arduous minutes of -- Louis doesn’t even know what to call it; running? Running in circles? It seems like the machine isn’t really doing anything but making him pump his legs in a circle, but all of a sudden his calves are burning and when they cramp, he pulls on the bars of the machine like the reins of a horse.
“Okay, done,” he breathes, flopping down to sit on one of the giant pedals. “Done, yeah?”
Liam brings his machine to a slow halt. “Louis.”
Louis grips his dead leg with his hands and lifts it over the side of the machine. Liam’s looking over at him kind of sadly, Louis thinks. He isn’t the one dying. “Liam.”
“One more,” Liam tells him, jumping off his own elliptical. “This one -- you’ll like this one.” Liam’s in front of a bike this time. A bike.
Louis just stares. “If I wanted to go biking... I would’ve just gone outside and biked.”
“Can’t you humor me?”
“All my fringe is stuck to my face and I’m never going to be able to bend my knees again. Nothing about this is funny.”
“You -- okay.” Liam doesn’t clap this time; he wrings his hands together, cracks a few knuckles. “Last try. This one’ll do it.”
“I hate this,” Louis whines.
Liam doesn’t look mad because Louis’s still pretty sure he can’t look mad, but Louis can tell that he’s frustrated by the way he mumbles through a sigh, not meeting Louis’s eyes. Louis climbs up onto his bike without another word.
Liam tries to talk him through the whole thing but Louis can’t answer, can’t waste air on talking when he needs it all to survive. Louis stops after a few minutes, lungs wrung of all breath, and it’s only another few seconds before Liam turns the resistance down on his bike and slows to a stop.
“Our time’s up.” Liam hits a button on his watch. “We’re done.” He hops off his bike, turns his back to Louis. Louis can tell this hasn’t been an ideal session for either of them, but feeling like he’s wasted Liam’s time makes him feel worse. There’s only so much that whining and bravado can do to help him perform physically; he just didn’t think it’d be this bad. His stomach bottoms out in a weird mix of shame, embarrassment, and dread.
“Jesus.” Louis thinks he’s going to have to get his legs amputated. They’re never going to work right again. “Yeah, I’m done.”
“Sorry?” Liam pulls his face out of his towel. His eyebrows are pulled down into a confused sort of pout.
Louis drops off the side of his bike and leans his hands on his thighs, curled in on himself, breathing hard. “This was a lot worse than I thought.”
The frustration Louis thought he was seeing is sapped from Liam’s face; suddenly he looks crestfallen. “Oh man, Louis. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Louis feels physically and mentally exhausted. And also like he might puke. “I just can’t do it.”
Now Liam looks vaguely terrified. “That’s absolutely not true, Louis, you can, and -- ”
“I really can’t.” The adrenaline is wearing off; now he just feels flushed and embarrassed. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
“Are you -- what? That’s not -- ”
“No, it’s enough. For both of us. I’ll -- I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
It’s not a pretty exit, but Louis doesn’t have the energy to put on a show.
hey louis its liam im really sorry abt today and i didnt mean to scare u off. im sory if i was unwellcoming or did not make u feel liek u could do it. that s my job you know? i wud realy love for u to come back so i can make it upto u. i think we can get past this nd really do great thing together
Louis frowns at his phone. Is Liam functionally illiterate?
just come bak 1 more time. i cna make it up t u promiseeeee
Holy extra e’s, Louis thinks. Regardless of Liam’s fondness for vowels, Louis figures he’s got to respond; this seems as good a time as ever to start weaning himself off Liam.
felt proper useless honestly. its just the start i know but its hard feeling like youre getting nowhere.
give me 1 mor chancee Liam responds. i rly did a poor job prepareing u for this process its not somthing thats easy nd we shouldve talked mor berfore we started. im so sorryyyy
His beautiful, big-hearted-and-chested personal trainer is begging him to come back to the gym. Louis feels like he physically cannot type the word no.
liam... m not sure
i cant let this be abad experience for us both i need us to try again pleeasse?
It feels more like he and Liam are reconciling after a breakup than agreeing to run on a treadmill again. Maybe they skipped a few steps, but Liam sounds so earnest that Louis wants to give him another shot. He does. He’s just not sure if his body - or ego - can handle it.
if i come back, Louis types, promise you wont try to kill me again
wanst trying to kill u!!!!!! Liam tells him. buttt yes promise proisme promisseeeee
And just as fast as he tried to end this relationship, Louis has an appointment for the next morning. So much for breaking up.
It’s by some act of god that Louis shows up ten minutes early the next day; he chalks it up to nerves and catching the right bus. When he makes it to the locker room, he isn’t sure if he regrets the whole triumphant-return thing or if he needs to thank his lucky stars.
It’s only ten minutes, but it’s enough time to catch Liam off guard. Louis’s shoving his bag into a locker when he hears someone behind him, a quiet, “Oh!” and when Louis turns around, he’s faced with Liam wrapped in a towel.
“You came back!” Liam says. “And you’re early!”
Louis can feel his mouth falling open, his jaw going heavy and unhinged, and he can’t find a single impulse within himself to stop it. “Um,” he manages. His eyes take in the red of Liam’s shoulders, probably still warm from the hot water, and the thick lines of his chest. Louis feels like he’s melting.
“I’m really glad,” Liam tells him. “I wanna talk you in a sec, but. Uh.” He scoots over to his own bag and pulls out a shirt. When he straightens up he holds it against his wet chest, covering his naked torso in what might be the most hysterical act of modesty Louis has ever witnessed. “Lemme -- I’ll get dressed.”
Louis pulls his eyes away from the line of muscle down Liam’s side and tries to make a more appropriate face. A happy face, even. Anything but the dazed face he knows he’s still wearing. “Yup. Yeah.”
When Liam returns a minute later, it’s with a look of both pride and unspoken apology painted across his face. He’s fully clothed with his hair fluffed up, and when he starts over to Louis with his arms open wide, Louis thinks that Liam might actually hug him. He sees the moment when Liam decides against it; he blinks a few times, lets his arms fall and his hands come together in one of those loud, jolting claps. The gooey-eyed apology has given way to only pride. “You really came back.”
Louis can only muster up half a grin. He refuses to let how he really feels - nervous and spastic and maybe an eighth of the way turned on - show on his face. “Told you I would.”
“C’mere.” Liam motions him over to a bench. Louis feels small next to him, weak and twig-like. Even his thigh seated next to Liam’s looks like it belongs to a twelve-year-old. Squats, he thinks. Need to start doing squats.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about the other day,” Liam starts, and Louis cuts in with, “Please -- ”
“No, no no. Just -- listen. You need to trust me. To make this work, you really need to trust me.” He pauses. “And we started off on the wrong foot. I didn’t earn your trust.”
“It’s -- ”
“Just --” Liam interrupts. “A little more, just -- I’ll finish.” His smile turns rueful, flushing as he embarrasses himself.
“I need to tell you that this isn’t going to happen overnight. And I need to tell you never to make yourself feel bad about failing, or falling down, or taking a break. Or even getting mad at me.” Liam looks up at him. “I was rude, the other day. I didn’t tell you any of this, and I didn’t think you were taking me seriously. But we’re going to do this together and you’re going to have to trust me when I say that I’m in this as long as you are. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Louis tells him. “I’m really -- I’m willing to try again, with you.” He can’t help but feel a bit validated; he didn’t really do anything wrong. People probably fight bouts of self-loathing at the gym all the time. And if Liam’s telling him he wants them to start over... if Liam’s really believes in him, Louis -- he can’t say no. “I’ll try again.
“I’m really happy about this, Louis,” Liam says. Louis thinks Liam is actually going in for the hug, but instead he slings an arm around Louis, shakes him by the shoulder in what Louis can only assume is some type of physical manifestation of Liam’s support in his quest for physical fitness. Louis still isn’t sure about gym etiquette, but Liam’s warm pressed up against his side, fingers dangling halfway down Louis’s bicep, and Louis wonders if Liam could wrap his arms around him and still reach his ribs, how easily Liam could probably lift him off the ground, how --
“I’m glad you’re back, is what it is,” Liam says as he leans away, straightening up. “I’m glad I didn’t turn you off completely.”
Louis pushes his hair around, lets his blush dissipate before he looks back up at Liam. Like anything about you could turn me off, he thinks stupidly. “Let’s get started then, hm?”
“I’ve got something really great planned.” Liam pulls the sweatshirt he just put on over his head as he stands up. “I’ll get set up. Get excited.”
Liam leaves the locker room and Louis waits for a second, feeling kind of nervous and kind of confused, because Liam’s arm wound all the way around his back Louis still isn’t sure if he can last more than ten minutes on the treadmill without vomiting. He might be able to, he thinks, if it means Liam will hug him again. But: vomit.
After another minute Louis decides it’s in his best interest to see what Liam’s gotten up to. He takes the exit Liam went through and finds Liam in a big open room with light wood floors that isn’t unlike the gymnasium at Louis’s old primary school. Liam’s got a football resting on the top of his foot, jerking his leg up and down to keep it perched there, balanced and steady.
“Here,” he says, and he flings the ball off his foot in Louis’s direction. It hits the floor too close; Louis has to hop so the rebound smacks him high in the chest.
Liam’s turned around, walking away, so Louis only catches his words in an echo. “Bring it over here.”
There’s colored cones strewn about the floor, propped up in all four corners of the room and a bunch of random intervals in between. Louis rests his foot up on top of the ball and takes it all in. He slants a skeptical look at Liam.
“I checked out your forms from the other day,” Liam says, “and on one of them you wrote that you play football.”
“I do do that,” Louis answers, rolling his toe over the top of the ball. “Yeah.”
“So we’re going to play football. Sort of.” Liam points out across the gym. “Purple to green and back,” he says, gesturing to the purple cone at his feet and the green one halfway across the room. “Go.”
Louis furrows his brow, but trots around the purple cone and onto the green nonetheless. He dribbles the ball between his feet with ease and gets back to Liam feeling pretty good: he kept the ball in his control and managed to follow Liam’s directions without doing something embarrassing, like falling flat on his face or having an asthma attack. Good start.
Liam nods. “Again. Twice.”
This time when he gets back, Louis pumps his foot against the top of the ball to bounce it off the ground a bit. He pops it up with his toe and grabs it out of the air.
“Purple to green to blue and back.” Liam doesn’t look impressed. Isn’t it Liam’s job to look impressed? Louis kind of expected as much.
But Liam starts calling out more colors - “Purple to green to blue to green to yellow!” - and Louis barely has time to look up at his face, nonetheless worry about Liam’s judgements of his physical prowess. He’s got to remember the colors and get around the cones before Liam calls out another list - “Green blue yellow blue purple red blue yellow!” - and Louis takes off, envisions his feet pulling the ball around the cone before he forgets what color comes next and messes up. If there’s anything Louis hates, it’s messing up.
It’s only when Liam starts adding stuff to the patterns - “Ten jumping jacks after yellow!” - that Louis realizes what Liam’s done - he’s made Louis forget he was at the gym.
Liam ends up stopping him after Louis manages to remember a list of twenty-six colors, finally looking properly impressed. Louis stops and props his hands on his knees to suck in a heavy breath, but Liam grabs him by the bicep.
“Let’s cool down,” he says, and gives Louis’s arm a tight little squeeze. “Walk.”
Weight training, Louis thinks quickly. Gonna need fitter arms.
“Do you realize that you just did that for forty minutes?” Liam asks. He’s still steering Louis by the bicep. “You keeled over on the treadmill after ten.”
“It was that long?” Louis feels winded, but pleasantly so; his legs are warm and loose, and his chest feels stretched and full as his breathes.
“It was.” Liam’s finally let his face go. If Louis didn’t know any better, he’d think Liam had just won a Nobel Prize; his eyes are shining and giddy-happy. “I knew you could do it.”
“Wow.” Louis feels a smile creeping across his own face. “I’d like to thank my mom, all my sisters, and everyone back home for -- ”
“Next time I’m adding hurdles,” Liam interrupts, “because you didn’t thank me first.”
Louis’s face burns hotter than his thighs.
“I’m Superman!” Louis shouts. He kicks off his shoes with a bit too much force; one thumps against the wall and the other lands in a pile of newspaper next to the door. “I’m invincible!”
“Did you really get rid of all my cereal?” Harry’s head is thrown back over the arm of the couch. Louis can see from the hall that he’s got his mean mug on.
“Are you referring to the six half-eaten boxes of Coco Puffs I found under the sink?” Louis heads into the kitchen to make himself something to eat. It’s still early afternoon; he’s surprised Harry’s even awake.
Harry appears at his side, wrinkly, too-big t-shirt billowing away from his chest as he jabs a finger at Louis. Judging by the state of his hair, he was probably asleep up until a few minutes ago. “That’s exactly what I’m referring to.”
“Why did you have them there? They got all mixed up with our cleaners.” Louis checks the meal plan magnet he slapped on the fridge last week. Liam had pointed to each column and described how Louis had to jump headfirst into it - the sooner he starts following the rules, the sooner his body will thank him.
Louis runs his finger down to the “late morning/early afternoon” box; he’s supposed to have fruit for a snack. Eh. He can live with that.
“I was hiding them from this stupid idiot I know who’s on a stupid idiotic diet and throws away other people’s food,” Harry says sharply.
“I had a really good time at the gym this morning,” Louis tells him. “Please don’t ruin it.”
Harry rolls his eyes. “Did you do, like, ten pushups in a row or something? Get a gold star?”
“I ran. A lot. I’m actually not half bad, I think.”
“Wowee, Louis!” Harry starts, eyes open comically wide. “You might as well sign up for the Olympic trials. Throw away your Oyster, run everywhere. Start doing parkour, run up walls. Run run run.”
“Do you really miss your cereal that much? It’s all sugar.”
“Most of my diet is sugar. Don’t touch my cereal. There’s nothing wrong with cereal.” Harry pulls three packages of Pop-Tarts out of the closet and heads for the living room. “And stop talking about the gym.”
“You’re an awful sport.” Harry just grunts, and Louis pulls a banana off the bunch on the counter. There are three massive bags of cheese puffs sat out next to the toaster; Harry must have picked up new junk food when he realized Louis purged the cabinets of most of the old shit. He looks at the bags for a second and then to the banana in his hand. Bags, banana; bags banana. Bags, banana.
He thinks of Liam, screaming at cones and clapping his hands and squeezing Louis’s arm.
He pinches the bottom end of the banana, slips the peel off in one go, and takes a huge bite before he loses the will. Baby steps.
Louis uses up his monthly allotment of appointments in two weeks.
Liam greets him in the mornings by throwing the football at his chest, dropping the cones down on the floor, and running him ragged. Louis runs and runs and Liam beams and beams and Louis feels himself turning into a machine fueled by the sharp, approving light cast by Liam’s smile.
“How’re you feeling?” Liam asks early on a Friday morning. It’s Louis’s third week back at the gym and Liam’s got some sort of rough, handsome dawn-o’clock-shadow going on. Louis is having a hard time paying attention to the cones. “You set a personal best today on the line-to-line.”
I’m paying you out of pocket because I don’t want to go a day without seeing your dumb stupid happy face, Louis wants to say. My gym bag smells worse than a public toilet but I can’t wash it because I have to come here every single morning. That’s what he wants to say.
“I feel good,” he tells Liam.
Because he does feel good, honestly; there’s a new, tightly-wound power in his legs when he takes off to swing around the cones. His breath doesn’t drag anymore, doesn’t come in those harsh, strained puffs. He hasn’t been weighing himself because Liam told him not to, and he’s quickly realizing those were never the results he was after - it’s about the feeling, not the number. It’s been two weeks of almost daily sessions and three weeks since he first quit and he already feels better about himself.
“Great.” Liam beams; Louis tries to keep his footing. “Something new, then.”
He leaves the room and comes back a few minutes later with a person. For a second Louis thinks he’s ditched the ball, but then he realizes the new person is holding it, spinning it between his hands.
“This is Niall,” Liam says. “He sits at a desk in the lobby all day, so sometimes we let him come back here to get all his energy out.”
“I’m no animal, y’know,” Niall retorts. “Makes it sound like you’re letting me out of my cage.”
Liam shrugs. “Kind of am.” Niall shrugs back; he must not be as offended as he sounds.
“Niall here’s your opponent.” Liam gestures to the gym floor again as Niall smiles. Just another pawn in Liam’s game, Louis thinks. “You’ll have to start getting around him to get from one cone to another. Understood?”
“Copy that.”
Niall throws the ball up into the air and lets it bounce off his head. When it slaps back down to the ground, he steps on it with his foot.
“Gonna come get this from me, Louis?” he says, and then he’s turning to run.
And Louis has to chase him, just like Louis has to hold his chin ups longer than Harry or wallop Zayn at every game on the Xbox or beat strangers to the ball in the park during weekend five-a-sides. Niall’s clear across the room before Louis catches up to him, and when he does Niall spins around to put his body between Louis and the ball, keeping the frantic bend and kick of Louis’s legs at bay.
“Bring it back, you two!” Liam calls. “Whole length of the gym.”
Niall tries to edge him out, runs his foot over the ball and changes direction a few times, but Louis sticks to him, keeps his mark. Niall bends his knees and uses his upper body to get some space between him and Louis, but Louis doesn’t pull off; he lets Niall back him up a step or two and then he dives in, ducks to the side when Niall takes too big of a step and slides the ball off the side of Niall’s foot.
“Ha!” Louis crows. He runs on the diagonal at first to keep Niall from catching up too quickly, but after a few strides he heads back toward Liam. He flips the ball up with his toe and it bounces at Liam’s waist.
“I don’t want this,” Liam laughs, bouncing the ball back at Louis. “Do it again. The whole length again.”
Louis drops the ball at his own feet and takes off, trainers squeaking against the wood floor. He can hear Niall half a step behind him, feels his elbow smash into his back when Louis turns on a dime and heads back in the other direction. But Niall catches him, wedges a leg between Louis’s and sends the ball skittering across the floor and into the far wall.
Louis manages to shift his momentum and catch up with the ball, pulling it back toward the center of the gym. Niall’s on top of him all at once and for a second Louis entertains the idea of laying him out, watching him sprawl onto the floor while Louis speeds off triumphantly, but he knows Liam wouldn’t stand for it; that would probably get him banished from the gym no matter how badly Liam wanted him to succeed, and then he’d have a reason for never coming back.
But after another minute of struggling, foot-to-foot clashes and a few forearms to the chest, Liam shouts, “Someone’s gotta score!” and Louis didn’t realize Liam had kicked two cones a few feet apart to make a goal, but that’s it. Louis spins, manages to circle around Niall so fast that he isn’t even facing the makeshift goal when Louis smashes the ball between the cones.
“Yeah!” Louis crows. He’s high on the adrenaline of it, of the spin move he pulled and the swooshing of the ball into the pretend goal and he clamors into Liam, punching not-so-lightly at his chest. “Check me out!”
Liam laughs all full and heavy. “Check you out!” he repeats. “Nice move.”
“Yeah.” Louis thumps Liam on the chest again. Because he’s close enough. And he can. “Check me out.”
Louis raises his eyebrows quick because Liam’s staring at him and Louis’s default response to that kind of gaze is flirt flirt flirt and Liam is fit fit fit and just as Louis is taking stock of the crinkles around Liam’s eyes as he smirks and the way his palm rubs against the short hair along his skull when he looks down at his feet - bashfully? Is that what the color on Liam’s cheeks means? Louis is starting to know it well - there’s a thud against the back of Louis’s head and he has to take a big step forward, knocked all out of sorts and off balance.
“Cocksucker!” Niall’s yelling. He’s not really mad, Louis doesn’t think. Or maybe he is. The ball he flung is rolling away, and Niall kicks it clear across the room with one big swoop of his leg.
“Fucking hell, Liam,” Niall spits. “Didn’t tell me he was so fast.”
Liam shrugs. “I didn’t know.”
Louis wipes his brow, catches Liam looking at him with fondness still in his eyes. He elbows Niall one last time and starts toward the locker room at a slow jog. “There are a lot of things you don’t know, Liam Payne!” he shouts over his shoulder, and now he’s won not once, but twice.
It’s barely half four when Harry and Zayn accost him in his own kitchen.
“Come out with us tonight,” Zayn starts.
“Don’t say no don’t say no don’t say no,” Harry chants. “Don’t say no don’t say no.”
Louis shakes his head slowly. “I’ve gotta be up early tomorrow, boys. Gym at 10:30.”
Seeing Zayn so dejected might not be worth it, honestly; his face crumples into a look of disappointment and disgust. “Really?”
“Really.”
“No use,” Harry adds.
“I haven’t been in three days,” Louis says, as if an explanation will help his case. “I had that optometrist appointment yesterday and then Stan needed me for that thing, and today he needed me for a different thing -- ”
“Why are you still at this?” Zayn interrupts. “I don’t get it.”
“Hopeless, this is,” Harry spits, wandering into the other room.
“Okay, Yoda.” Louis fills a glass of water at the sink and drops his vitamins in, watches them fizz and dissolve. “What’s there to ‘get’?”
“What’s keeping you going?” Zayn asks.
“I like it.”
“No way.” Zayn doesn’t look convinced. “Something else.”
“He wants to be ‘fit,’” Harry calls. “He wants girl legs.”
“I don’t want girl legs,” Louis clarifies. “I want nice legs. Shapely legs. Maybe a bit more muscley. So the opposite of girl legs, in a sense.”
“Is there someone you’re trying to impress?” Zayn asks, and this is why Louis hates Zayn: too perceptive. “Is there a girl? Or a boy?”
Louis tries to look disbelieving when he says, “Nope,” but Zayn starts to smirk.
“Gotcha.”
“I said no,” Louis tries.
“Harry!” Zayn calls. “There’s a gym boy.”
“Are you kidding?” Harry sounds as if he might die of shock. “A girl drove you to the gym and now you’re staying because of a boy?”
“Cut it out, you two.” This is the last thing Louis wanted.
“Does he get your blood pumping?” Zayn raises his eyebrows. “Does he make your heart race?”
Louis pretends his face isn’t heating up. “This is why I don’t tell you anything.”
“Have you gotten him to pop his shirt off yet?” Harry asks, all liquidy and insinuative. “Do you stare at his bum when he’s running?”
“We’re done here.” Louis’s version of storming out is sitting with his back to the kitchen and tying up his shoes. “I’m going out.”
“To where?” Zayn shouts. “The health food store?”
Louis barks out a loud laugh. “As a matter of fact -- ”
He slips back into the kitchen and rips a piece of paper off the fridge; it’s one of the sheets Liam gave him, with nutrition information and recipes and the address for Liam’s favorite healthy place to shop. Perfect. This’ll show them how serious I am.
“I am!” he shouts, and ignores the peals of laughter that chase him out of the house.
He actually does go to the health food store. He nabs the last Boris bike outside his flat and takes a second to stretch his hamstrings before he hops on, memorizing the directions while he has his ankle bent into the crook of his elbow. The ride turns out to be nowhere near as awful as he expected; he can’t wait to brag to Liam about his Good Decision. The stupid, proud little smirk he knows he’ll see on Liam’s face will be more than enough.
The place is small, tucked between a hair salon and an Oddbins. It smells like a barn but he can already tell the selection is expansive. He’s glad he came. He should go new places out of spite more often.
He grabs a tote bag from the rack near the door - he isn’t sure if that means this place is taking itself too seriously or just seriously enough, but he’s willing to find out - and starts perusing the aisles. He takes his time to read the labels on things, checking out the ingredients and chemicals and fat content, and he drops a few things into his bag at a time: organically-grown grapes, natural peanut butter, low-fat mayonnaise. Shopping without Harry is nice because he can really take his time without worrying about someone hiding fruit snacks and biscuits and sweets under all the other stuff in the cart. He loves spending time with Harry - he spends all his time with Harry - but the shopping’s easier this way.
He’s in front of the cooler that has all the juice with apple-mango in one hand and orange-mango-passionfruit in the other when someone taps on the left-hand carton - apple-mango.
“This one,” the person attached to the hand says, and Louis looks up to find Liam.
“Hey!” Louis says excitedly. “You’re a real person!” Which is dumb. But Liam, unfailingly in good spirits, smiles anyway.
“I’m a real person,” he agrees, holding up his bag. “Didn’t I tell you I’m here a lot?”
Of course he did. “Maybe. Don’t quite remember.”
Liam nods. “Well I’m glad you made it,” he tells Louis. “It’s my favorite place to shop.”
Gotta keep this up. “What’re you in for today?” Louis asks.
“A ton of stuff, actually.” Liam clicks his phone on and opens something up. “Wanna see my list? To help you get an idea of where to start?”
I want to see anything you’re willing to show me. “That’d be great, thanks.”
“Or, I mean -- ” Liam interrupts himself. “Unless you’ve been here before. Do you have a list? I’m -- it’s stupid to assume, sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Louis says. And then, because he wants to see the look on Liam’s face: “I’m a virgin.”
Liam’s eyebrows go through the roof. “Oh?” He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth; Louis’s pretty sure he’s trying his best not to engage with the joke. “Yeah?”
Louis slips the orange-mango-passionfruit into his bag and shoves the other carton back on the shelf. “Absolutely.”
“Well,” Liam says, “look here,” and he starts reading the label on a jar of farm-fresh watermelon salsa out loud.
Louis has to pick up another bag before they’re finally done. Liam pulls things off shelves and Louis barely hears him, too busy watching his mouth move as he lists the merit of this spread or that grain, and agrees to buy it, anything, without a second glance. The triple digit total Louis is faced with at the till makes him wince, but Liam’s already out on the sidewalk and Louis can’t balk now.
Liam looks vaguely uncomfortable again. “Alright, so -- ”
“Liam,” Louis interrupts, crumpling his receipt into a little ball and dropping it into his bag. He’s feeling bold after defying Harry and Zayn, feels like he’s accomplished something, and he’s going to ride out the feeling until the inevitable crash. “How do you feel about this Costa next door?”
“What do you mean how do I feel?” Liam asks, looking up at the sign. “I feel fine, I think.”
“Do the sugary drinks distress you? Do the ham and cheese toasties make you squirm?”
Liam looks even shiftier. “I actually...” he repositions his shopping bags higher up on his arms, shaking out his wrists. “I shouldn’t tell you this, probably.” He looks over at Louis, sheepish. “I end most of my days at the gym with a mocha flake with extra cream.”
“Liam!” Louis doesn’t even have to feign incredulousness; he’s genuinely shocked that his buff, health-crazed personal trainer just gave up such a dirty little secret.
Liam starts to walk, like he can’t bear his admission of guilt. “I know it’s like fifty-three percent of my daily sugars and a ton of fat, but...” he trails off. “Sometimes I get it without the flakes or the extra cream, I promise. Most times actually, I -- I do that. I do.”
“Unbelievable!”
“But you should never ever do it,” Liam says, shaking his head. “You should do as I say and definitely not as I do. In just this case.” There’s a sly smile pulling at his lips, small compared to the way he usually grins. “Most times you should do what I say and what I do. But not now. Really not now.”
“I feel like everything’s been a lie.” Louis makes his eyes go wide. “This changes everything.”
“I know, I know,” Liam tells him, “but I’m still not the one who fucked off the treadmill after ten minutes.”
That one stings a bit, but Louis -- Louis can’t help but feel a bit of stupid, silly fondness bubble up in his stomach, something having to do with the way Liam is raising his eyebrows at him, like, I’ve got jokes too.
“Liam,” Louis says, throwing a hand over his heart. “You have cut to the core of me.”
“You’ve come so far,” Liam backtracks quickly, safely. “But you were in bad shape that first day.”
Louis makes an small indignant noise. “I don’t want to talk about it, Payne.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, you know I -- ”
“I know you’re a big softy, Liam, it’s fine. I knew I was a mess when you took me in.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Liam tells him. “I’ve done my job, eh?”
Louis shrugs, lifting his arms a bit. “My arms are about to fall off, but otherwise I feel fit as a fiddle.”
“Maybe we should -- ” Liam starts, looking up at Louis carefully. “I mean, I taught you how to eat healthy, so maybe I should teach you to eat some shit?”
Louis squints a little, leaning in just a bit to bump Liam’s tangle of shopping bags with his own. “I guess I could go for fifty-three percent of my daily sugars.”
“Please don’t tell Niall,” Liam says. “He’d never shut up about it.”
Louis winks, because his personal trainer is buying him coffee and he’s barely even had to try. “Our secret.”
Later that night, he sends Zayn and Harry on their merry way with the promise of 3AM brunch upon their return - “Not your shit turkey bacon! The real stuff!” Harry barks, and Louis rolls his eyes but agrees - and drags his duvet out into the living room to settle into the couch with the remote and a cup of tea.
Nothing’s on because the people who schedule television programming know that everyone’s out drinking at this time of night; he catches the end of an informercial he’s seen a few times, then switches over to a late night talk show he knows his mum watches when she manages to stay up past 10. It’s nothing exciting, but it’ll do.
He’s half asleep, tapping lazily at a game on his phone when a text appears at the top of the screen. He opens his messages expecting it to be Harry letting him know when to start the food prep or Zayn whining, but it’s neither.
where th fuck r ye
It’s Liam. And Louis can tell Liam isn’t texting him on purpose; Liam is drunk. But he doesn’t want to ignore it... maybe Liam’s lost.
sorry? Louis responds. Doesn’t want to be rude or anything. Especially after the good-maybe-great-possibly-perfect day they accidentally spent together.
where re yae
Time to break the bad news.
liam... you definitly have the wrong number haha
oh shiiiiiitttttt loouis
ur name is lik m m8 i got it wrooooooong misattke lol lol
1:14AM. Louis kind of wants to see where this goes. No harm no foul.
lol yeah? that’s okay, hope ya find him ;)
funny lol he was n xt to me?? lol
wat re u up to
Bit late for small talk, Louis thinks, but still harmless.
drinking tea under my duvet if were being honest
????????
in mayfar celebratiiiin cmeree
hahaha liam
cmere wananana see u
:) :)
Louis feels something pull in his stomach, something heavy and warm. He’s no daft; he knows what things like this lead to.
thats a 40 min bus ride lol
no but u shoud comeeeee
u do so godo at th gym iwanna see u dancccee
And wow, Liam is doing the difficult part for him. Louis feels a twinge of discomfort because Liam must be absolutely pissed, but that doesn’t mean this can’t be fun for them both.
werent you just telling me how awful i was haha
And before Louis can think any better of it --
and what makes you think id be a good dancer?
ou just move so goooood
wwaannna see ru hips mvoe
yiur so os epretty
Louis’s eyes go so wide he thinks they might fall out of his skull. He feels somewhere between wildly turned on and achingly embarrassed, because Liam is saying these things but he doesn’t actually mean them. He can’t actually mean them.
hahahahah liam you absolutely flatter me
ssrious louuis cooome out heree
As good as it makes Louis feel, he doesn’t want to embarrass Liam. He’d never have answered if he had known there was potential for that; Louis doesn’t like to play dirty.
its quite late liam haha. and ill see you tomorrow yeah?
louiiiiiissssssisssssssss
another time Louis tells him. another time i prmise
Liam takes a minute in responding and Louis’s heart creeps up into his throat, but suddenly he gets four messages in a row: all variations of his name with letters added here and there. looooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuiz the last one says. He’s tapping out take it easy liam hahaha just as Harry and Zayn bust through the door.
“C’mon Lou!” Harry shouts, zipping around the corner and into the kitchen. “Time for eats!”
Louis looks back down at his phone and sees that Liam is still typing. If he keeps entertaining Liam’s drunk advances, he’s definitely going to have to hide a boner while trying to fry bacon. Unadvisable, he thinks, so he heads to the kitchen and drops his phone onto the counter while he collects the things Harry’s thrown onto the stove. At least he didn’t light the burner yet.
“How was your night, boys?” he asks. He tries to camouflage the knocking sound of his phone vibrating with the pans he’s moving on the stove, but Harry hears the message come in anyway.
“Who’sat texting you so laaaaaaaate?” he asks in a whine.
“Yeah.” Zayn’s propped himself up against the fridge, eyes half closed and head lolling back against the door. Looking like he’s asleep while standing up is Zayn’s specialty. “All the people you ever talk to are in this room already.”
“It’s not a room, it’s the kitchen,” Harry tells him.
“The kitchen is a room.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Oh, okay Haz.”
“So you agree.”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
“You’re a fuck, fucking with me -- ”
Louis hopes the sizzling of the food and the room-versus-kitchen shoving match will distract his friends from his phone for the duration of their ill-advised meal, but Zayn remains frighteningly observant in his inebriated state. Louis’s phone vibrates against the counter again and before he manages to grab it, Zayn’s hand slaps down on top.
“Who is it?” he asks, trying to slip the phone off the edge so he can look at the screen.
“Stop, it’s no one.” Louis reaches over and gets his hands on top of Zayn’s. “Stop, Zayn.”
“The bacon,” Harry whines.
“Who!” Zayn shouts, eyes going all wide and sparkly. Louis wishes he was mostly asleep like he looked a minute ago.
“Zayn, stop it,” Louis says through gritted teeth. “Can’t you just -- ”
“But who’s watching my food?” Harry asks, collapsing down into a chair at the table, a safe distance away from the new fight that’s about to break out.
Louis’s phone pulses again under the pile of hands and Zayn lets out a frightening laugh. An evil laugh. “It’s the boy!”
“Ugh.”
“It’s the boy!” Zayn crows. “Is he sendin’ you pictures of his dick?”
Louis throws his head back, indignant. “Zayn, ew.”
“’s what people do at 3AM, Lou. You would know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Lou.” Harry’s made his way across the room and come up behind Louis, wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him in close. His head hangs over Louis’s shoulder, and after surveying the scene he drops his chin into the crease of Louis’s neck. “You can text Gym Boy. Even if it’s late and he should be sleeping. But can you also watch the bacon?”
“You two are so awful,” Louis tells them. With Harry against his back and Zayn pinning his arms down, he’s afraid he might not win this one.
“Lemme just tell him how bad you wanna suck his dick and then we can all definitely go to sleep.” Zayn tries to pull the phone out again. “Then it’s definitely bedtime.”
“We’ve got to eat,” Harry informs him.
“Don’t upset Harry, Zayn. Please.”
Zayn makes a face that Louis has seen on fourteen-year-old girls. “Fuckin’ hell.”
“You’re going to have to hold Mr. Malik responsible for the burnt bacon, Harry. This is out of my control.”
Zayn’s body goes slack again as he extricates his hands to lean back against the fridge. “‘m only givin’ in ‘cause I’ve already seen Harry cry this week. And I’m bloody tired.”
“Thank you.” Louis pockets his phone before he misses the chance. He returns to the stove and jacks the heat back up; he’s got to put his friends to bed sooner than later.
His phone vibrates again as he’s laying a paper towel down to soak up the grease. He thought Zayn might have actually fallen asleep this time, but he hums out a little laugh when he hears the buzz.
“I ‘aven’t cried this week,” Harry announces, pulling a piece of bacon off the plate even before Louis’s managed to get it on the table.
“Just eat so we can sleep, yeah,” Zayn mumbles, flopping into a chair.
Louis turns the water on and stands at the counter to pretend to do the washing up. When he pulls out his phone and sees that his last three texts messages are just a series of smiley faces, he kind of wants to stick his face into the pan of bacon fat. That would probably be easier to deal with than this.
1 of 2 →
liam payne/louis tomlinson
14,627 (?!???!?), r, au - gymfic!
And maybe that’s why, when he picked up a discarded copy of The Evening Standard from the empty seat next to him, he felt compelled to take down the number for a personal trainer he found in the ads right before the sports section. Maybe that’s why.
The only person I have to thank/chastise for this is oneaccolade; without her, what we've been affectionately calling trainerfic would not exist. There are parts of this that she literally wrote. It wasn't done for your 1D-versary, but cue the Janet Jackson 'cause it's all for you, bb!
It really started when one of Zayn’s stupid friends beat him to the stupid ball during their stupid weekend five-a-side. The guy just turned on his heel and breezed by, slashing the ball into the net like nothing was there to stop him in the first place.
Louis wasn’t mad; he was disappointed. He had always prided himself on being agile and spritely-quick. Had he lost his touch? Because he doesn’t get beat to the fucking ball.
“I don’t get beat to the fucking ball, I’ll have you know,” he said out loud. Just to make sure everyone knew.
Harry picked up one of the water bottles from the grass to slosh on his face. “Funny, ‘cos I think you just did.”
“Zayn’s friends aren’t allowed at these things anymore.” Louis threw himself down at the touchline. “Or else I quit.”
Zayn shook his head slowly, slung his bag over his shoulder and turned the other way. “You’ve always been a sore loser.”
Louis hrmphed. Sore loser my arse, he thought. He rolled his eyes at Zayn’s back just to get it out of his system.
Louis was still feeling shitty when they hopped on their bus home, Zayn and Harry sitting a few rows ahead - basking in the glory of a win that didn’t even matter, who fucking cares - and maybe that’s why, when he picked up a discarded copy of The Evening Standard from the empty seat next to him, he felt compelled to take down the number for a personal trainer he found in the ads right before the sports section. Maybe that’s why.
Maybe.
Louis was expecting an older dude in a sweatband and too-short shorts. Richard Simmons, maybe. Yeah, he was expecting Richard Simmons. He was not expecting a guy about his age with thick arms stuffed into a grey t-shirt and a disarmingly happy smile. And an unironic almost-fauxhawk. And a handshake with a grip for the ages. This is not what Louis was expecting.
“I’m Liam,” the guy says. “I’m so glad to meet you.”
“Louis,” Louis manages. “I am Louis.”
Liam grins in a way that makes Louis wonder if he’s ever not smiling. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you and your body.”
Louis chokes on a laugh because who says things like that? Is that a normal thing for someone to say? Wait -- is that how people talk to each other at gyms? Louis can’t be sure. He didn’t think the learning curve would be this steep, especially when he hasn’t even gotten past the introductions.
“Yeah. I, uh,” Louis tells him. “I have a lot to learn.”
Liam looks totally unaware of Louis’s confusion. “We have a lot to learn about each other.”
Louis almost asks, Are you serious? but instead just smiles back.
Liam takes him into a very clean office and pulls out some paperwork, starts talking session-per-week minimums and diet plans and can Louis swim? Does he want to work in some swimming? Because Liam’s specialty is cross training and Louis says yes, yes, yes. He could have been agreeing to sell his internal organs to this gym because it doesn’t matter what Liam is saying - at this point, Louis will agree with all of it. He signs on a few dotted lines and when Liam suggests they take a walk through the facility, Louis has a little talk with himself - Pay attention! Stop staring at his mouth! Be a normal person! - and he manages to nod as Liam shows him a room full of stationary bikes that scare him shitless.
But when Louis starts paying attention, he realizes that he probably lucked out on a lot of levels - Liam is gorgeous, but it’s clear that he’s also some sort of fitness prodigy, a trainer and a teacher all wrapped up in one really awesome body. He makes stupid jokes - “There’s free tanning if you’re into looking like a carrot”; “This is where we keep all the free pens, but don’t tell anyone I told you” - and points out the machines that are almost broken and the rooms that are busiest during their scheduled appointments.
They get to the end of the tour and circle back to Liam’s office. “Here’s your Introductory Pack,” Liam says, handing him a folder. “It’s got our schedule in there, and also some of the scheduled classes we offer. I’d pick one to start going to on a weekly basis.”
“Gotcha.”
“And there’s some nutritional info in the back. For your shopping.”
Louis nods. “Gotta tell my flatmate to stop spending our whole budget on sweets.”
Liam laughs and Louis sees a few stars. “Yeah, I’d say.”
“See you on Wednesday, then?” Louis asks, pulling on his coat.
“Can’t wait!” Liam says, enthusiasm dripping out his ears. “And be sure to text me.”
“Wait -- ” Louis falters again. “What?”
“We confirm appointments via text to avoid last minute cancellations. My number’s in the Staff section of your New Member Guide.” It looks like Liam’s a bit flushed, but maybe it’s just hot in here. It is pretty hot in here, Louis reasons.
“Okay.” Fully recovered, he even remembers to shake Liam’s hand. “See you then.”
Liam’s face bursts into a smile. “See you then!”
“You what?” Harry shouts.
“I joined a gym.” The more Louis says it, the better he feels about it.
“What possessed you to do that? Not you Zayn -- no, hold on, Louis’s joined a gym. I know.” He pulls his headseat off and crawls out from between the couch cushions. “Zayn’s laughing.”
“You two are rude,” Louis tells him, flopping into the chair across from Harry. “Why can’t you just support my newest life-affirming endeavor?”
“Because it’s hilarious.” As Harry stands up, a waterfall of crumbs drop off his shirt and onto the carpet.
“Vacuum that up, you little shit.”
“Never.”
Louis sighs. “Whatever, Haz. I just wanna feel better. Fitter. In more ways than one.”
“Is this about Eleanor?” Harry throws himself back onto the couch, but his face shows that he’s genuinely concerned. “She didn’t drive you to the bottle, but she drove you to the treadmill? Not sure which is worse.”
“No,” Louis says, but it sounds unconvincing to his own ears. “That was months ago.”
It’s Harry’s turn to sigh. “She’s not worth this, Lou.”
“It’s worth it to me! Who cares what motivated me to do it?” He sits up a bit straighter; all the better to tell Harry off. “I’ve always wanted to be fitter. And I don’t wanna be keeling over at the half of all our football games anymore.”
“I guess that’d be a good thing.” Harry is placiated. All in a night’s work.
“Exactly. Thank you.” Louis can hear Zayn’s voice, tiny and far away, coming through the headseat. “Get back to your kiddie games. I’ve got a diet to get started on.”
Harry shoves the device back over his head, wiggling the microphone so it’s in front of his mouth again. “You’re going to be bloody insufferable, aren’t you?”
Louis heads off to the kitchen. “Absolutely!”
The last thing he hears Harry say is, “Zayn, help.”
Liam shakes his hand early Wednesday morning with far too much vigor. “Did you have a good breakfast?” he asks.
“Me and my flatmate ate some chocolate around four this morning,” Louis says before he can stop himself. “Shouldn’t’ve told you that, prolly.”
“No, that’s actually something I need to know.” For some mysterious reason, Liam is still smiling; Louis wonders if he could ever muster up a mad face, or even a mildly frustrated smirk. “For this relationship to work, we’re going to have to operate on a full disclosure policy.”
“Can do,” Louis tells him, except for the part where I want you to hold me down at the wrists with those giant arms. Won’t tell anyone that. “I ate a chocolate bar at four this morning.”
Liam claps his hands. “Then let’s get on the treadmill, Louis.”
They stretch a bit first - Louis doesn’t think it’s one hundred percent necessary, but he gets to snatch a look at Liam’s back as it pulls against his t-shirt, so what does he know? - but after ten minutes on the machine he pulls the safety cord and slumps against the display.
“Done?” he pants.
Liam hops off his own machine; he hasn’t even broken a sweat. “Not even close.”
“I quit,” Louis moans. “I want my money back. All of it.”
“None of this, Louis. Come on now.”
“I want it all back so I can buy chocolate bars,” Louis says, slipping into a sitting position on the giant belt. He flares his feet out and lets his head hang loose between his sweaty shoulders. He probably looks - and sounds - like a five year old.
“We’ll try something else, yeah?” Liam asks, forceful in his suggestion. “You can’t quit on me already.”
Louis flicks his hair out of his eyes to look up. His body is starting to feel cold; some sort of exercise-induced shock. “Not quitting,” he croaks. “Admitting defeat.” He’s going to die on this treadmill. Sitting down, no less. This is it.
“Come try one of these.” Liam’s only a few machines away - he chose an elliptical this time. “Similar workout, but with less total movement. Lower impact. We can focus on specific parts of your body.” He claps again, only once. “Let’s try it.”
“Aren’t these for bums?” Louis hovers in front of the elliptical skeptically. His legs feel like taffy, stretched and gooey and unprepared to do more exercise things. He’s not quite sure how he’s standing upright. “Don’t need to work on my bum.” He peers over his shoulder. “Do I?”
“Just -- ” Liam cuts himself off and Louis doesn’t catch the look on his face full on, but he can’t miss the snap of Liam’s eyes to his face when Louis slots him a weak glare. “Just hop on, then.”
This time it’s fifteen arduous minutes of -- Louis doesn’t even know what to call it; running? Running in circles? It seems like the machine isn’t really doing anything but making him pump his legs in a circle, but all of a sudden his calves are burning and when they cramp, he pulls on the bars of the machine like the reins of a horse.
“Okay, done,” he breathes, flopping down to sit on one of the giant pedals. “Done, yeah?”
Liam brings his machine to a slow halt. “Louis.”
Louis grips his dead leg with his hands and lifts it over the side of the machine. Liam’s looking over at him kind of sadly, Louis thinks. He isn’t the one dying. “Liam.”
“One more,” Liam tells him, jumping off his own elliptical. “This one -- you’ll like this one.” Liam’s in front of a bike this time. A bike.
Louis just stares. “If I wanted to go biking... I would’ve just gone outside and biked.”
“Can’t you humor me?”
“All my fringe is stuck to my face and I’m never going to be able to bend my knees again. Nothing about this is funny.”
“You -- okay.” Liam doesn’t clap this time; he wrings his hands together, cracks a few knuckles. “Last try. This one’ll do it.”
“I hate this,” Louis whines.
Liam doesn’t look mad because Louis’s still pretty sure he can’t look mad, but Louis can tell that he’s frustrated by the way he mumbles through a sigh, not meeting Louis’s eyes. Louis climbs up onto his bike without another word.
Liam tries to talk him through the whole thing but Louis can’t answer, can’t waste air on talking when he needs it all to survive. Louis stops after a few minutes, lungs wrung of all breath, and it’s only another few seconds before Liam turns the resistance down on his bike and slows to a stop.
“Our time’s up.” Liam hits a button on his watch. “We’re done.” He hops off his bike, turns his back to Louis. Louis can tell this hasn’t been an ideal session for either of them, but feeling like he’s wasted Liam’s time makes him feel worse. There’s only so much that whining and bravado can do to help him perform physically; he just didn’t think it’d be this bad. His stomach bottoms out in a weird mix of shame, embarrassment, and dread.
“Jesus.” Louis thinks he’s going to have to get his legs amputated. They’re never going to work right again. “Yeah, I’m done.”
“Sorry?” Liam pulls his face out of his towel. His eyebrows are pulled down into a confused sort of pout.
Louis drops off the side of his bike and leans his hands on his thighs, curled in on himself, breathing hard. “This was a lot worse than I thought.”
The frustration Louis thought he was seeing is sapped from Liam’s face; suddenly he looks crestfallen. “Oh man, Louis. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Louis feels physically and mentally exhausted. And also like he might puke. “I just can’t do it.”
Now Liam looks vaguely terrified. “That’s absolutely not true, Louis, you can, and -- ”
“I really can’t.” The adrenaline is wearing off; now he just feels flushed and embarrassed. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
“Are you -- what? That’s not -- ”
“No, it’s enough. For both of us. I’ll -- I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
It’s not a pretty exit, but Louis doesn’t have the energy to put on a show.
hey louis its liam im really sorry abt today and i didnt mean to scare u off. im sory if i was unwellcoming or did not make u feel liek u could do it. that s my job you know? i wud realy love for u to come back so i can make it upto u. i think we can get past this nd really do great thing together
Louis frowns at his phone. Is Liam functionally illiterate?
just come bak 1 more time. i cna make it up t u promiseeeee
Holy extra e’s, Louis thinks. Regardless of Liam’s fondness for vowels, Louis figures he’s got to respond; this seems as good a time as ever to start weaning himself off Liam.
felt proper useless honestly. its just the start i know but its hard feeling like youre getting nowhere.
give me 1 mor chancee Liam responds. i rly did a poor job prepareing u for this process its not somthing thats easy nd we shouldve talked mor berfore we started. im so sorryyyy
His beautiful, big-hearted-and-chested personal trainer is begging him to come back to the gym. Louis feels like he physically cannot type the word no.
liam... m not sure
i cant let this be abad experience for us both i need us to try again pleeasse?
It feels more like he and Liam are reconciling after a breakup than agreeing to run on a treadmill again. Maybe they skipped a few steps, but Liam sounds so earnest that Louis wants to give him another shot. He does. He’s just not sure if his body - or ego - can handle it.
if i come back, Louis types, promise you wont try to kill me again
wanst trying to kill u!!!!!! Liam tells him. buttt yes promise proisme promisseeeee
And just as fast as he tried to end this relationship, Louis has an appointment for the next morning. So much for breaking up.
It’s by some act of god that Louis shows up ten minutes early the next day; he chalks it up to nerves and catching the right bus. When he makes it to the locker room, he isn’t sure if he regrets the whole triumphant-return thing or if he needs to thank his lucky stars.
It’s only ten minutes, but it’s enough time to catch Liam off guard. Louis’s shoving his bag into a locker when he hears someone behind him, a quiet, “Oh!” and when Louis turns around, he’s faced with Liam wrapped in a towel.
“You came back!” Liam says. “And you’re early!”
Louis can feel his mouth falling open, his jaw going heavy and unhinged, and he can’t find a single impulse within himself to stop it. “Um,” he manages. His eyes take in the red of Liam’s shoulders, probably still warm from the hot water, and the thick lines of his chest. Louis feels like he’s melting.
“I’m really glad,” Liam tells him. “I wanna talk you in a sec, but. Uh.” He scoots over to his own bag and pulls out a shirt. When he straightens up he holds it against his wet chest, covering his naked torso in what might be the most hysterical act of modesty Louis has ever witnessed. “Lemme -- I’ll get dressed.”
Louis pulls his eyes away from the line of muscle down Liam’s side and tries to make a more appropriate face. A happy face, even. Anything but the dazed face he knows he’s still wearing. “Yup. Yeah.”
When Liam returns a minute later, it’s with a look of both pride and unspoken apology painted across his face. He’s fully clothed with his hair fluffed up, and when he starts over to Louis with his arms open wide, Louis thinks that Liam might actually hug him. He sees the moment when Liam decides against it; he blinks a few times, lets his arms fall and his hands come together in one of those loud, jolting claps. The gooey-eyed apology has given way to only pride. “You really came back.”
Louis can only muster up half a grin. He refuses to let how he really feels - nervous and spastic and maybe an eighth of the way turned on - show on his face. “Told you I would.”
“C’mere.” Liam motions him over to a bench. Louis feels small next to him, weak and twig-like. Even his thigh seated next to Liam’s looks like it belongs to a twelve-year-old. Squats, he thinks. Need to start doing squats.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about the other day,” Liam starts, and Louis cuts in with, “Please -- ”
“No, no no. Just -- listen. You need to trust me. To make this work, you really need to trust me.” He pauses. “And we started off on the wrong foot. I didn’t earn your trust.”
“It’s -- ”
“Just --” Liam interrupts. “A little more, just -- I’ll finish.” His smile turns rueful, flushing as he embarrasses himself.
“I need to tell you that this isn’t going to happen overnight. And I need to tell you never to make yourself feel bad about failing, or falling down, or taking a break. Or even getting mad at me.” Liam looks up at him. “I was rude, the other day. I didn’t tell you any of this, and I didn’t think you were taking me seriously. But we’re going to do this together and you’re going to have to trust me when I say that I’m in this as long as you are. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Louis tells him. “I’m really -- I’m willing to try again, with you.” He can’t help but feel a bit validated; he didn’t really do anything wrong. People probably fight bouts of self-loathing at the gym all the time. And if Liam’s telling him he wants them to start over... if Liam’s really believes in him, Louis -- he can’t say no. “I’ll try again.
“I’m really happy about this, Louis,” Liam says. Louis thinks Liam is actually going in for the hug, but instead he slings an arm around Louis, shakes him by the shoulder in what Louis can only assume is some type of physical manifestation of Liam’s support in his quest for physical fitness. Louis still isn’t sure about gym etiquette, but Liam’s warm pressed up against his side, fingers dangling halfway down Louis’s bicep, and Louis wonders if Liam could wrap his arms around him and still reach his ribs, how easily Liam could probably lift him off the ground, how --
“I’m glad you’re back, is what it is,” Liam says as he leans away, straightening up. “I’m glad I didn’t turn you off completely.”
Louis pushes his hair around, lets his blush dissipate before he looks back up at Liam. Like anything about you could turn me off, he thinks stupidly. “Let’s get started then, hm?”
“I’ve got something really great planned.” Liam pulls the sweatshirt he just put on over his head as he stands up. “I’ll get set up. Get excited.”
Liam leaves the locker room and Louis waits for a second, feeling kind of nervous and kind of confused, because Liam’s arm wound all the way around his back Louis still isn’t sure if he can last more than ten minutes on the treadmill without vomiting. He might be able to, he thinks, if it means Liam will hug him again. But: vomit.
After another minute Louis decides it’s in his best interest to see what Liam’s gotten up to. He takes the exit Liam went through and finds Liam in a big open room with light wood floors that isn’t unlike the gymnasium at Louis’s old primary school. Liam’s got a football resting on the top of his foot, jerking his leg up and down to keep it perched there, balanced and steady.
“Here,” he says, and he flings the ball off his foot in Louis’s direction. It hits the floor too close; Louis has to hop so the rebound smacks him high in the chest.
Liam’s turned around, walking away, so Louis only catches his words in an echo. “Bring it over here.”
There’s colored cones strewn about the floor, propped up in all four corners of the room and a bunch of random intervals in between. Louis rests his foot up on top of the ball and takes it all in. He slants a skeptical look at Liam.
“I checked out your forms from the other day,” Liam says, “and on one of them you wrote that you play football.”
“I do do that,” Louis answers, rolling his toe over the top of the ball. “Yeah.”
“So we’re going to play football. Sort of.” Liam points out across the gym. “Purple to green and back,” he says, gesturing to the purple cone at his feet and the green one halfway across the room. “Go.”
Louis furrows his brow, but trots around the purple cone and onto the green nonetheless. He dribbles the ball between his feet with ease and gets back to Liam feeling pretty good: he kept the ball in his control and managed to follow Liam’s directions without doing something embarrassing, like falling flat on his face or having an asthma attack. Good start.
Liam nods. “Again. Twice.”
This time when he gets back, Louis pumps his foot against the top of the ball to bounce it off the ground a bit. He pops it up with his toe and grabs it out of the air.
“Purple to green to blue and back.” Liam doesn’t look impressed. Isn’t it Liam’s job to look impressed? Louis kind of expected as much.
But Liam starts calling out more colors - “Purple to green to blue to green to yellow!” - and Louis barely has time to look up at his face, nonetheless worry about Liam’s judgements of his physical prowess. He’s got to remember the colors and get around the cones before Liam calls out another list - “Green blue yellow blue purple red blue yellow!” - and Louis takes off, envisions his feet pulling the ball around the cone before he forgets what color comes next and messes up. If there’s anything Louis hates, it’s messing up.
It’s only when Liam starts adding stuff to the patterns - “Ten jumping jacks after yellow!” - that Louis realizes what Liam’s done - he’s made Louis forget he was at the gym.
Liam ends up stopping him after Louis manages to remember a list of twenty-six colors, finally looking properly impressed. Louis stops and props his hands on his knees to suck in a heavy breath, but Liam grabs him by the bicep.
“Let’s cool down,” he says, and gives Louis’s arm a tight little squeeze. “Walk.”
Weight training, Louis thinks quickly. Gonna need fitter arms.
“Do you realize that you just did that for forty minutes?” Liam asks. He’s still steering Louis by the bicep. “You keeled over on the treadmill after ten.”
“It was that long?” Louis feels winded, but pleasantly so; his legs are warm and loose, and his chest feels stretched and full as his breathes.
“It was.” Liam’s finally let his face go. If Louis didn’t know any better, he’d think Liam had just won a Nobel Prize; his eyes are shining and giddy-happy. “I knew you could do it.”
“Wow.” Louis feels a smile creeping across his own face. “I’d like to thank my mom, all my sisters, and everyone back home for -- ”
“Next time I’m adding hurdles,” Liam interrupts, “because you didn’t thank me first.”
Louis’s face burns hotter than his thighs.
“I’m Superman!” Louis shouts. He kicks off his shoes with a bit too much force; one thumps against the wall and the other lands in a pile of newspaper next to the door. “I’m invincible!”
“Did you really get rid of all my cereal?” Harry’s head is thrown back over the arm of the couch. Louis can see from the hall that he’s got his mean mug on.
“Are you referring to the six half-eaten boxes of Coco Puffs I found under the sink?” Louis heads into the kitchen to make himself something to eat. It’s still early afternoon; he’s surprised Harry’s even awake.
Harry appears at his side, wrinkly, too-big t-shirt billowing away from his chest as he jabs a finger at Louis. Judging by the state of his hair, he was probably asleep up until a few minutes ago. “That’s exactly what I’m referring to.”
“Why did you have them there? They got all mixed up with our cleaners.” Louis checks the meal plan magnet he slapped on the fridge last week. Liam had pointed to each column and described how Louis had to jump headfirst into it - the sooner he starts following the rules, the sooner his body will thank him.
Louis runs his finger down to the “late morning/early afternoon” box; he’s supposed to have fruit for a snack. Eh. He can live with that.
“I was hiding them from this stupid idiot I know who’s on a stupid idiotic diet and throws away other people’s food,” Harry says sharply.
“I had a really good time at the gym this morning,” Louis tells him. “Please don’t ruin it.”
Harry rolls his eyes. “Did you do, like, ten pushups in a row or something? Get a gold star?”
“I ran. A lot. I’m actually not half bad, I think.”
“Wowee, Louis!” Harry starts, eyes open comically wide. “You might as well sign up for the Olympic trials. Throw away your Oyster, run everywhere. Start doing parkour, run up walls. Run run run.”
“Do you really miss your cereal that much? It’s all sugar.”
“Most of my diet is sugar. Don’t touch my cereal. There’s nothing wrong with cereal.” Harry pulls three packages of Pop-Tarts out of the closet and heads for the living room. “And stop talking about the gym.”
“You’re an awful sport.” Harry just grunts, and Louis pulls a banana off the bunch on the counter. There are three massive bags of cheese puffs sat out next to the toaster; Harry must have picked up new junk food when he realized Louis purged the cabinets of most of the old shit. He looks at the bags for a second and then to the banana in his hand. Bags, banana; bags banana. Bags, banana.
He thinks of Liam, screaming at cones and clapping his hands and squeezing Louis’s arm.
He pinches the bottom end of the banana, slips the peel off in one go, and takes a huge bite before he loses the will. Baby steps.
Louis uses up his monthly allotment of appointments in two weeks.
Liam greets him in the mornings by throwing the football at his chest, dropping the cones down on the floor, and running him ragged. Louis runs and runs and Liam beams and beams and Louis feels himself turning into a machine fueled by the sharp, approving light cast by Liam’s smile.
“How’re you feeling?” Liam asks early on a Friday morning. It’s Louis’s third week back at the gym and Liam’s got some sort of rough, handsome dawn-o’clock-shadow going on. Louis is having a hard time paying attention to the cones. “You set a personal best today on the line-to-line.”
I’m paying you out of pocket because I don’t want to go a day without seeing your dumb stupid happy face, Louis wants to say. My gym bag smells worse than a public toilet but I can’t wash it because I have to come here every single morning. That’s what he wants to say.
“I feel good,” he tells Liam.
Because he does feel good, honestly; there’s a new, tightly-wound power in his legs when he takes off to swing around the cones. His breath doesn’t drag anymore, doesn’t come in those harsh, strained puffs. He hasn’t been weighing himself because Liam told him not to, and he’s quickly realizing those were never the results he was after - it’s about the feeling, not the number. It’s been two weeks of almost daily sessions and three weeks since he first quit and he already feels better about himself.
“Great.” Liam beams; Louis tries to keep his footing. “Something new, then.”
He leaves the room and comes back a few minutes later with a person. For a second Louis thinks he’s ditched the ball, but then he realizes the new person is holding it, spinning it between his hands.
“This is Niall,” Liam says. “He sits at a desk in the lobby all day, so sometimes we let him come back here to get all his energy out.”
“I’m no animal, y’know,” Niall retorts. “Makes it sound like you’re letting me out of my cage.”
Liam shrugs. “Kind of am.” Niall shrugs back; he must not be as offended as he sounds.
“Niall here’s your opponent.” Liam gestures to the gym floor again as Niall smiles. Just another pawn in Liam’s game, Louis thinks. “You’ll have to start getting around him to get from one cone to another. Understood?”
“Copy that.”
Niall throws the ball up into the air and lets it bounce off his head. When it slaps back down to the ground, he steps on it with his foot.
“Gonna come get this from me, Louis?” he says, and then he’s turning to run.
And Louis has to chase him, just like Louis has to hold his chin ups longer than Harry or wallop Zayn at every game on the Xbox or beat strangers to the ball in the park during weekend five-a-sides. Niall’s clear across the room before Louis catches up to him, and when he does Niall spins around to put his body between Louis and the ball, keeping the frantic bend and kick of Louis’s legs at bay.
“Bring it back, you two!” Liam calls. “Whole length of the gym.”
Niall tries to edge him out, runs his foot over the ball and changes direction a few times, but Louis sticks to him, keeps his mark. Niall bends his knees and uses his upper body to get some space between him and Louis, but Louis doesn’t pull off; he lets Niall back him up a step or two and then he dives in, ducks to the side when Niall takes too big of a step and slides the ball off the side of Niall’s foot.
“Ha!” Louis crows. He runs on the diagonal at first to keep Niall from catching up too quickly, but after a few strides he heads back toward Liam. He flips the ball up with his toe and it bounces at Liam’s waist.
“I don’t want this,” Liam laughs, bouncing the ball back at Louis. “Do it again. The whole length again.”
Louis drops the ball at his own feet and takes off, trainers squeaking against the wood floor. He can hear Niall half a step behind him, feels his elbow smash into his back when Louis turns on a dime and heads back in the other direction. But Niall catches him, wedges a leg between Louis’s and sends the ball skittering across the floor and into the far wall.
Louis manages to shift his momentum and catch up with the ball, pulling it back toward the center of the gym. Niall’s on top of him all at once and for a second Louis entertains the idea of laying him out, watching him sprawl onto the floor while Louis speeds off triumphantly, but he knows Liam wouldn’t stand for it; that would probably get him banished from the gym no matter how badly Liam wanted him to succeed, and then he’d have a reason for never coming back.
But after another minute of struggling, foot-to-foot clashes and a few forearms to the chest, Liam shouts, “Someone’s gotta score!” and Louis didn’t realize Liam had kicked two cones a few feet apart to make a goal, but that’s it. Louis spins, manages to circle around Niall so fast that he isn’t even facing the makeshift goal when Louis smashes the ball between the cones.
“Yeah!” Louis crows. He’s high on the adrenaline of it, of the spin move he pulled and the swooshing of the ball into the pretend goal and he clamors into Liam, punching not-so-lightly at his chest. “Check me out!”
Liam laughs all full and heavy. “Check you out!” he repeats. “Nice move.”
“Yeah.” Louis thumps Liam on the chest again. Because he’s close enough. And he can. “Check me out.”
Louis raises his eyebrows quick because Liam’s staring at him and Louis’s default response to that kind of gaze is flirt flirt flirt and Liam is fit fit fit and just as Louis is taking stock of the crinkles around Liam’s eyes as he smirks and the way his palm rubs against the short hair along his skull when he looks down at his feet - bashfully? Is that what the color on Liam’s cheeks means? Louis is starting to know it well - there’s a thud against the back of Louis’s head and he has to take a big step forward, knocked all out of sorts and off balance.
“Cocksucker!” Niall’s yelling. He’s not really mad, Louis doesn’t think. Or maybe he is. The ball he flung is rolling away, and Niall kicks it clear across the room with one big swoop of his leg.
“Fucking hell, Liam,” Niall spits. “Didn’t tell me he was so fast.”
Liam shrugs. “I didn’t know.”
Louis wipes his brow, catches Liam looking at him with fondness still in his eyes. He elbows Niall one last time and starts toward the locker room at a slow jog. “There are a lot of things you don’t know, Liam Payne!” he shouts over his shoulder, and now he’s won not once, but twice.
It’s barely half four when Harry and Zayn accost him in his own kitchen.
“Come out with us tonight,” Zayn starts.
“Don’t say no don’t say no don’t say no,” Harry chants. “Don’t say no don’t say no.”
Louis shakes his head slowly. “I’ve gotta be up early tomorrow, boys. Gym at 10:30.”
Seeing Zayn so dejected might not be worth it, honestly; his face crumples into a look of disappointment and disgust. “Really?”
“Really.”
“No use,” Harry adds.
“I haven’t been in three days,” Louis says, as if an explanation will help his case. “I had that optometrist appointment yesterday and then Stan needed me for that thing, and today he needed me for a different thing -- ”
“Why are you still at this?” Zayn interrupts. “I don’t get it.”
“Hopeless, this is,” Harry spits, wandering into the other room.
“Okay, Yoda.” Louis fills a glass of water at the sink and drops his vitamins in, watches them fizz and dissolve. “What’s there to ‘get’?”
“What’s keeping you going?” Zayn asks.
“I like it.”
“No way.” Zayn doesn’t look convinced. “Something else.”
“He wants to be ‘fit,’” Harry calls. “He wants girl legs.”
“I don’t want girl legs,” Louis clarifies. “I want nice legs. Shapely legs. Maybe a bit more muscley. So the opposite of girl legs, in a sense.”
“Is there someone you’re trying to impress?” Zayn asks, and this is why Louis hates Zayn: too perceptive. “Is there a girl? Or a boy?”
Louis tries to look disbelieving when he says, “Nope,” but Zayn starts to smirk.
“Gotcha.”
“I said no,” Louis tries.
“Harry!” Zayn calls. “There’s a gym boy.”
“Are you kidding?” Harry sounds as if he might die of shock. “A girl drove you to the gym and now you’re staying because of a boy?”
“Cut it out, you two.” This is the last thing Louis wanted.
“Does he get your blood pumping?” Zayn raises his eyebrows. “Does he make your heart race?”
Louis pretends his face isn’t heating up. “This is why I don’t tell you anything.”
“Have you gotten him to pop his shirt off yet?” Harry asks, all liquidy and insinuative. “Do you stare at his bum when he’s running?”
“We’re done here.” Louis’s version of storming out is sitting with his back to the kitchen and tying up his shoes. “I’m going out.”
“To where?” Zayn shouts. “The health food store?”
Louis barks out a loud laugh. “As a matter of fact -- ”
He slips back into the kitchen and rips a piece of paper off the fridge; it’s one of the sheets Liam gave him, with nutrition information and recipes and the address for Liam’s favorite healthy place to shop. Perfect. This’ll show them how serious I am.
“I am!” he shouts, and ignores the peals of laughter that chase him out of the house.
He actually does go to the health food store. He nabs the last Boris bike outside his flat and takes a second to stretch his hamstrings before he hops on, memorizing the directions while he has his ankle bent into the crook of his elbow. The ride turns out to be nowhere near as awful as he expected; he can’t wait to brag to Liam about his Good Decision. The stupid, proud little smirk he knows he’ll see on Liam’s face will be more than enough.
The place is small, tucked between a hair salon and an Oddbins. It smells like a barn but he can already tell the selection is expansive. He’s glad he came. He should go new places out of spite more often.
He grabs a tote bag from the rack near the door - he isn’t sure if that means this place is taking itself too seriously or just seriously enough, but he’s willing to find out - and starts perusing the aisles. He takes his time to read the labels on things, checking out the ingredients and chemicals and fat content, and he drops a few things into his bag at a time: organically-grown grapes, natural peanut butter, low-fat mayonnaise. Shopping without Harry is nice because he can really take his time without worrying about someone hiding fruit snacks and biscuits and sweets under all the other stuff in the cart. He loves spending time with Harry - he spends all his time with Harry - but the shopping’s easier this way.
He’s in front of the cooler that has all the juice with apple-mango in one hand and orange-mango-passionfruit in the other when someone taps on the left-hand carton - apple-mango.
“This one,” the person attached to the hand says, and Louis looks up to find Liam.
“Hey!” Louis says excitedly. “You’re a real person!” Which is dumb. But Liam, unfailingly in good spirits, smiles anyway.
“I’m a real person,” he agrees, holding up his bag. “Didn’t I tell you I’m here a lot?”
Of course he did. “Maybe. Don’t quite remember.”
Liam nods. “Well I’m glad you made it,” he tells Louis. “It’s my favorite place to shop.”
Gotta keep this up. “What’re you in for today?” Louis asks.
“A ton of stuff, actually.” Liam clicks his phone on and opens something up. “Wanna see my list? To help you get an idea of where to start?”
I want to see anything you’re willing to show me. “That’d be great, thanks.”
“Or, I mean -- ” Liam interrupts himself. “Unless you’ve been here before. Do you have a list? I’m -- it’s stupid to assume, sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Louis says. And then, because he wants to see the look on Liam’s face: “I’m a virgin.”
Liam’s eyebrows go through the roof. “Oh?” He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth; Louis’s pretty sure he’s trying his best not to engage with the joke. “Yeah?”
Louis slips the orange-mango-passionfruit into his bag and shoves the other carton back on the shelf. “Absolutely.”
“Well,” Liam says, “look here,” and he starts reading the label on a jar of farm-fresh watermelon salsa out loud.
Louis has to pick up another bag before they’re finally done. Liam pulls things off shelves and Louis barely hears him, too busy watching his mouth move as he lists the merit of this spread or that grain, and agrees to buy it, anything, without a second glance. The triple digit total Louis is faced with at the till makes him wince, but Liam’s already out on the sidewalk and Louis can’t balk now.
Liam looks vaguely uncomfortable again. “Alright, so -- ”
“Liam,” Louis interrupts, crumpling his receipt into a little ball and dropping it into his bag. He’s feeling bold after defying Harry and Zayn, feels like he’s accomplished something, and he’s going to ride out the feeling until the inevitable crash. “How do you feel about this Costa next door?”
“What do you mean how do I feel?” Liam asks, looking up at the sign. “I feel fine, I think.”
“Do the sugary drinks distress you? Do the ham and cheese toasties make you squirm?”
Liam looks even shiftier. “I actually...” he repositions his shopping bags higher up on his arms, shaking out his wrists. “I shouldn’t tell you this, probably.” He looks over at Louis, sheepish. “I end most of my days at the gym with a mocha flake with extra cream.”
“Liam!” Louis doesn’t even have to feign incredulousness; he’s genuinely shocked that his buff, health-crazed personal trainer just gave up such a dirty little secret.
Liam starts to walk, like he can’t bear his admission of guilt. “I know it’s like fifty-three percent of my daily sugars and a ton of fat, but...” he trails off. “Sometimes I get it without the flakes or the extra cream, I promise. Most times actually, I -- I do that. I do.”
“Unbelievable!”
“But you should never ever do it,” Liam says, shaking his head. “You should do as I say and definitely not as I do. In just this case.” There’s a sly smile pulling at his lips, small compared to the way he usually grins. “Most times you should do what I say and what I do. But not now. Really not now.”
“I feel like everything’s been a lie.” Louis makes his eyes go wide. “This changes everything.”
“I know, I know,” Liam tells him, “but I’m still not the one who fucked off the treadmill after ten minutes.”
That one stings a bit, but Louis -- Louis can’t help but feel a bit of stupid, silly fondness bubble up in his stomach, something having to do with the way Liam is raising his eyebrows at him, like, I’ve got jokes too.
“Liam,” Louis says, throwing a hand over his heart. “You have cut to the core of me.”
“You’ve come so far,” Liam backtracks quickly, safely. “But you were in bad shape that first day.”
Louis makes an small indignant noise. “I don’t want to talk about it, Payne.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, you know I -- ”
“I know you’re a big softy, Liam, it’s fine. I knew I was a mess when you took me in.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Liam tells him. “I’ve done my job, eh?”
Louis shrugs, lifting his arms a bit. “My arms are about to fall off, but otherwise I feel fit as a fiddle.”
“Maybe we should -- ” Liam starts, looking up at Louis carefully. “I mean, I taught you how to eat healthy, so maybe I should teach you to eat some shit?”
Louis squints a little, leaning in just a bit to bump Liam’s tangle of shopping bags with his own. “I guess I could go for fifty-three percent of my daily sugars.”
“Please don’t tell Niall,” Liam says. “He’d never shut up about it.”
Louis winks, because his personal trainer is buying him coffee and he’s barely even had to try. “Our secret.”
Later that night, he sends Zayn and Harry on their merry way with the promise of 3AM brunch upon their return - “Not your shit turkey bacon! The real stuff!” Harry barks, and Louis rolls his eyes but agrees - and drags his duvet out into the living room to settle into the couch with the remote and a cup of tea.
Nothing’s on because the people who schedule television programming know that everyone’s out drinking at this time of night; he catches the end of an informercial he’s seen a few times, then switches over to a late night talk show he knows his mum watches when she manages to stay up past 10. It’s nothing exciting, but it’ll do.
He’s half asleep, tapping lazily at a game on his phone when a text appears at the top of the screen. He opens his messages expecting it to be Harry letting him know when to start the food prep or Zayn whining, but it’s neither.
where th fuck r ye
It’s Liam. And Louis can tell Liam isn’t texting him on purpose; Liam is drunk. But he doesn’t want to ignore it... maybe Liam’s lost.
sorry? Louis responds. Doesn’t want to be rude or anything. Especially after the good-maybe-great-possibly-perfect day they accidentally spent together.
where re yae
Time to break the bad news.
liam... you definitly have the wrong number haha
oh shiiiiiitttttt loouis
ur name is lik m m8 i got it wrooooooong misattke lol lol
1:14AM. Louis kind of wants to see where this goes. No harm no foul.
lol yeah? that’s okay, hope ya find him ;)
funny lol he was n xt to me?? lol
wat re u up to
Bit late for small talk, Louis thinks, but still harmless.
drinking tea under my duvet if were being honest
????????
in mayfar celebratiiiin cmeree
hahaha liam
cmere wananana see u
:) :)
Louis feels something pull in his stomach, something heavy and warm. He’s no daft; he knows what things like this lead to.
thats a 40 min bus ride lol
no but u shoud comeeeee
u do so godo at th gym iwanna see u dancccee
And wow, Liam is doing the difficult part for him. Louis feels a twinge of discomfort because Liam must be absolutely pissed, but that doesn’t mean this can’t be fun for them both.
werent you just telling me how awful i was haha
And before Louis can think any better of it --
and what makes you think id be a good dancer?
ou just move so goooood
wwaannna see ru hips mvoe
yiur so os epretty
Louis’s eyes go so wide he thinks they might fall out of his skull. He feels somewhere between wildly turned on and achingly embarrassed, because Liam is saying these things but he doesn’t actually mean them. He can’t actually mean them.
hahahahah liam you absolutely flatter me
ssrious louuis cooome out heree
As good as it makes Louis feel, he doesn’t want to embarrass Liam. He’d never have answered if he had known there was potential for that; Louis doesn’t like to play dirty.
its quite late liam haha. and ill see you tomorrow yeah?
louiiiiiissssssisssssssss
another time Louis tells him. another time i prmise
Liam takes a minute in responding and Louis’s heart creeps up into his throat, but suddenly he gets four messages in a row: all variations of his name with letters added here and there. looooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuiz the last one says. He’s tapping out take it easy liam hahaha just as Harry and Zayn bust through the door.
“C’mon Lou!” Harry shouts, zipping around the corner and into the kitchen. “Time for eats!”
Louis looks back down at his phone and sees that Liam is still typing. If he keeps entertaining Liam’s drunk advances, he’s definitely going to have to hide a boner while trying to fry bacon. Unadvisable, he thinks, so he heads to the kitchen and drops his phone onto the counter while he collects the things Harry’s thrown onto the stove. At least he didn’t light the burner yet.
“How was your night, boys?” he asks. He tries to camouflage the knocking sound of his phone vibrating with the pans he’s moving on the stove, but Harry hears the message come in anyway.
“Who’sat texting you so laaaaaaaate?” he asks in a whine.
“Yeah.” Zayn’s propped himself up against the fridge, eyes half closed and head lolling back against the door. Looking like he’s asleep while standing up is Zayn’s specialty. “All the people you ever talk to are in this room already.”
“It’s not a room, it’s the kitchen,” Harry tells him.
“The kitchen is a room.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Oh, okay Haz.”
“So you agree.”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
“You’re a fuck, fucking with me -- ”
Louis hopes the sizzling of the food and the room-versus-kitchen shoving match will distract his friends from his phone for the duration of their ill-advised meal, but Zayn remains frighteningly observant in his inebriated state. Louis’s phone vibrates against the counter again and before he manages to grab it, Zayn’s hand slaps down on top.
“Who is it?” he asks, trying to slip the phone off the edge so he can look at the screen.
“Stop, it’s no one.” Louis reaches over and gets his hands on top of Zayn’s. “Stop, Zayn.”
“The bacon,” Harry whines.
“Who!” Zayn shouts, eyes going all wide and sparkly. Louis wishes he was mostly asleep like he looked a minute ago.
“Zayn, stop it,” Louis says through gritted teeth. “Can’t you just -- ”
“But who’s watching my food?” Harry asks, collapsing down into a chair at the table, a safe distance away from the new fight that’s about to break out.
Louis’s phone pulses again under the pile of hands and Zayn lets out a frightening laugh. An evil laugh. “It’s the boy!”
“Ugh.”
“It’s the boy!” Zayn crows. “Is he sendin’ you pictures of his dick?”
Louis throws his head back, indignant. “Zayn, ew.”
“’s what people do at 3AM, Lou. You would know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Lou.” Harry’s made his way across the room and come up behind Louis, wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him in close. His head hangs over Louis’s shoulder, and after surveying the scene he drops his chin into the crease of Louis’s neck. “You can text Gym Boy. Even if it’s late and he should be sleeping. But can you also watch the bacon?”
“You two are so awful,” Louis tells them. With Harry against his back and Zayn pinning his arms down, he’s afraid he might not win this one.
“Lemme just tell him how bad you wanna suck his dick and then we can all definitely go to sleep.” Zayn tries to pull the phone out again. “Then it’s definitely bedtime.”
“We’ve got to eat,” Harry informs him.
“Don’t upset Harry, Zayn. Please.”
Zayn makes a face that Louis has seen on fourteen-year-old girls. “Fuckin’ hell.”
“You’re going to have to hold Mr. Malik responsible for the burnt bacon, Harry. This is out of my control.”
Zayn’s body goes slack again as he extricates his hands to lean back against the fridge. “‘m only givin’ in ‘cause I’ve already seen Harry cry this week. And I’m bloody tired.”
“Thank you.” Louis pockets his phone before he misses the chance. He returns to the stove and jacks the heat back up; he’s got to put his friends to bed sooner than later.
His phone vibrates again as he’s laying a paper towel down to soak up the grease. He thought Zayn might have actually fallen asleep this time, but he hums out a little laugh when he hears the buzz.
“I ‘aven’t cried this week,” Harry announces, pulling a piece of bacon off the plate even before Louis’s managed to get it on the table.
“Just eat so we can sleep, yeah,” Zayn mumbles, flopping into a chair.
Louis turns the water on and stands at the counter to pretend to do the washing up. When he pulls out his phone and sees that his last three texts messages are just a series of smiley faces, he kind of wants to stick his face into the pan of bacon fat. That would probably be easier to deal with than this.
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