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Dark clouds roll across the deep green English countryside. They promise heavy rain, Louis can already smell it. The temperature is dropping fast, a nice spring day turning blustery and cold.
Nice to know it feels just as British up here as it did in Manchester.
The car he’s driving has the roof down - it got stuck a few years back and he never got around to having it fixed - and he’s fairly sure that the whole of his worldly possessions that he’s got crammed in the back are about to become waterlogged.
All his textbooks.
If he could just find the blasted practice this wouldn’t be such a pressing concern, but the directions he was given before he left get a little vague at this point, the winding roads through the dales make him question whether he took that last right or whether that was just a particularly sharp bend.
He might be lost.
He only gives up when the skies finally let loose - wipers only work so well when the rain is plastering his fringe into his eyes.
It’s lucky that the next street he turns down looks to have a row of shops going down it, and a trusty pub at the end with large letters that read The Red Lion above the door.
Stopping at a haphazard angle and throwing the gears into park, he runs for for the awning. But then, looking back at the piles of his thing smushed into the back - he’s going to have to hang everything to dry. Not to mention his textbooks, his brand new Veterinary Practice handbook…
With a put-upon sigh he runs back into the rain and spends a good ten minutes wrestling his tarp out from the floor of the back seat and draping it over his belongings.
When he finally pushes open the door of the pub, his teeth are chattering and he’s feeling downright sorry for himself. It’s fairly crowded inside, full of people who likely could name every member of the town and when they broke their first bone. Someday Louis hopes he’s at that level.
For now though, he’s dripping wet, lost, and miserable. He sits himself at the bar and and tries to look like he’s studying the selection of beer available as he impatiently waits for the barkeep to get done serving someone.
“Well hello, name’s Niall. What’s your name and what can I get for you?”
“Directions,” Louis says, rubbing his hands together to warm them. “And something strong. Also something warm if you’ve got it. I will die of cold at any moment.”
The barkeep, Niall, lets out a laugh. “You don’t look like you’re dying,” he says, “but you’re doing a good impression of a drowned stoat. You get caught out in the rain?”
“Obviously,” Louis mutters, eyeing him. He’s got a thick Irish accent, dark hair, and stubble that tells Louis he’s not got anyone to shave for. “Do you know how I can get to Payne’s Veterinary Practice?”
“Liam’s place?” Niall asks, sounding surprised. “Of course. Just follow this road until it dead ends and make a right. It’ll be the one with cow print on the letterbox.” He narrows his eyes. “You’ve not got a sick cat under your coat or summat, do you?”
Louis snorts. “No, nothing like that. I’m the new Large Animal vet. I’m supposed to be shown ‘round today, but I got a little mixed up on my way in.”
Niall nods understandingly. “It does get a bit windey up here,” he says. “I’ll set you up with a drink and some stew if you’d like. We’ve got an excess of potato, because no matter what I keep telling these folks, it’s the best stew there is and I’ll keep making it until someone eats it.”
Louis wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t complain when it gets put in front of him. The stew smells delicious and is steaming hot. He figures the least he could do is warm up a bit before he ventures out again. Maybe it’ll even stop raining before he’s done…
—
It doesn’t stop raining. But at least it’s only a drizzle when Louis starts out again.
Niall is an amicable fellow, and clearly more than willing to start a conversation with anyone he meets. Louis’s already been graced with his life story - moving from a town in the middle-of-nowhere Ireland called Mullingar because he inherited a pub from an uncle he never knew he had, apparently he’d come up to sell the place and then never left.
At least Niall’s directions seem sound, and it’s a mere ten minutes of getting uncomfortably wet before he’s pulling up at an inconspicuous looking house with a cow print letterbox. He parks and sprints to the door, pounding impatiently and hoping that this Liam he’s supposed to meet hasn’t been called away on an emergency visit.
His prayers are answered moments later when the door swings inward and he’s ushered inside by a man with a friendly yet terribly concerned face.
“Come in, come in! You must be soaking, oh dear. Are you Mr. Tomlinson? I do hope so, I’ve been waiting so long but I’ve begun to fear that he’s gotten lost. Or, that you’ve gotten lost, if you are he. If you’re not he then I assume you’re here with an animal of some kind. Is there a kitten in your coat pocket?”
“Why does everyone assume I’ve got a kitten in my coat pocket?” Louis mutters. He waits until the door is closed and then holds out a hand. “I’m assuming you’re Liam Payne? I’m Louis.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tomlinson,” Liam says, shaking his hand.
“Please call me Louis,” says Louis. “If I’m going to be boarding with someone I’d like to at least refer to them by their first name.”
Liam seems to seriously consider that point. “I suppose that makes sense,” he says. “Oh, would you like a tour around? I’ve got some time, Mrs. Potts rang and said I needn’t come ‘round until it stops raining.”
“Mrs. Potts might never see you then,” Louis says. “It’s the sort of drizzle that might go through the night.”
Liam’s eyebrows draw together. “Do you suppose I should go now, then? I wouldn’t want to have her wait until tomorrow.”
In his head, Louis has labeled Liam as the concerned type. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he says. “Maybe just wait until you’ve shown me around? I’d like to know I’ll have somewhere to sleep tonight.”
“Oh, of course!” Liam ushers him further into the house. “Please, come make yourself at home, I’ll give you a grand tour. I mean, it’s small. It’s not really grand in any way. But it works for what we need!”
It’s true: the house isn’t that big, but Liam does have endless things to say about it. Much of the ground floor is made up of the practice, with a waiting room at the very front of the house and a few examination rooms behind.
At the very back of the house are the kitchen, a small dining area and a sitting room with a fireplace. Liam continually assures Louis that all of these rooms are common space and Louis is welcome to them anytime (although Louis thinks that the two dogs bigger than himself who are somehow taking up all of the furniture in the room at once might say otherwise).
Liam then takes him up a very narrow and steep flight of stairs (which Louis supposes he will be falling down in the early hours at some point). At the top are two doors, one of which Liam unlocks before handing Louis the key.
“I’m afraid it’s not much,” he says, gesturing for Louis to follow him inside. “But if it’s any consolation, you’ve actually got the bigger of the two bedrooms. Your bath is a bit on the small side, though…”
The room, and attached bath, are in fact not particularly big, but there’s already a bed and a chest of drawers, and it’s honestly bigger than Louis has used for the last few years at university, so he’s more than satisfied. “It looks perfect,” he tells Liam, smiling reassuringly.
“Oh good,” Liam looks relieved. “I did hope you wouldn’t mind - and it’s honestly quite nice in the summer with the windows open. Well, the left window. If you open the one on the right you run the risk of ants."
The windows currently give a very good view of a darkened sky and the soft pitter patter of rain, but Louis chooses to believe him.
“We share the bill for the weekly shop, so you’re welcome to anything in the kitchen. Ooh, and I can help you unpack! Or you could do that yourself, if you’re particular about that sort of thing. I wouldn’t want to step on your toes! Metaphorically or your real toes!” Liam chuckles at his own joke and then runs a hand through his cropped hair self consciously. “And I can start introducing you to people around town as soon as tomorrow. I’ve told them we’ll be splitting the responsibilities! You know farmers, though. Always so caught up in their ways, never like anything to change.”
Louis nods like he does, although the only farmers he’s met were the ones on the outer edges of Manchester who were willing to let students attempt to care for their animals. He’s not at all as sure what to expect out here.
“I wouldn’t turn down a bit of help with my things,” he says, and watches Liam’s face light up. “I mean. If you’re offering.”
Liam is offering. Liam ends up doing most of the work. Louis thinks this is a good sign for their veterinary partnership.
—
Everybody loves Liam.
Louis knew going into this that he was going to have to win the trust of his clients, but he hadn’t realised that he also was going to have to compete with the sheer love and undying loyalty that the people have for Liam.
Liam had hired on Louis so that he would be able to concentrate on his specialty - small animals. Louis suspects it’s going to be a long and tenuous journey to the point where Liam isn’t being called out day after day because the farmer Louis is attempting to help doesn’t trust someone so inexperienced (read: not Liam).
Then of course they invite Liam in for tea and… grudgingly let Louis in as well.
The people love Liam, and Louis is going mad.
Mr. Bright made doubtful sounds when Louis said he could easily set his pig’s broken leg.
Mr. Archer rolled his eyes when Louis suggested a new type of injection to help his bull’s illness.
Mrs. Jones wouldn’t even let him look at her heavily pregnant ewe until Liam regretfully told her over the phone that he was performing surgery on a puppy and could not be there.
No, not even later today.
Louis is the only option.
So sorry.
The worst part is Liam is always so apologetic that Louis can’t possibly hold it against him. When they sit down to dinner (provided Liam hasn’t been called away for one emergency or another), Louis generally has to spend half the meal assuring Liam that no really, it’s fine, it’s not Liam’s fault that he’s so incredibly friendly and likeable that farmers from here to the far end of the Dales would rather wait for “trusty, reliable Liam” to show up than simply let Louis have a look at the spots on the underside of their horse.
After nearly three weeks of what feels like rejection after rejection, Louis’s favourite part of his schedule has become the occasional pub night, where he only has to deal with farmers in the most passive of senses. Liam joins him from time to time - only on nights when the secretary stays late to answer the phone, should it ring - but Louis’s struck up a right friendship with Niall. There’s something about being the only two non-natives of the village that makes him very easy to bond with.
That, and Niall could probably bond with a pet rock. The man has that unmistakable Irish Charm.
He’s never lived life so slowly before. Sure, life promises to speed up if and when the locals begin actually trusting him to look after their livestock (Liam is always frantically making his way from one place to the next), but as it is, Louis has been absolutely gobsmacked at how slowly life seems to happen out here in the countryside. His years of schooling in Manchester had been go, go, go and now that he’s here he’s finding that, even in issues of veterinary emergency, life seems to move slower. The rain comes and goes and the farmers complain about the rain when it’s here or the rain when it’s gone, but they rarely have more than the odd bit of gossip about escaped pigs or someone else’s weak crop yield. It’s often like life and news of life outside of the Dales isn’t able to reach all the way out here.
That’s another reason why Louis is so thankful for Niall.
“There I was, minding my own business and composing a little tune, when out of nowhere he lands a punch straight to my jaw - bam - and I go down!”
“Wait, who’s punching you?”
“My mate Greg. Keep up. So I’m on the ground thinking like, what’s got into him? When Greg starts yelling something about beer and-”
“I’m afraid that table over there really would like your attention, Niall.”
“I’ll give it to them in a second, they’re fine. As I was saying, apparently this was all because I spilled beer in his car when I took it into town, but little did he know that wasn’t me at all- it was Poppy!”
“No!”
“Yes!” Niall’s laugh mixes in with the rest of the din from the pub. “But I couldn’t tell him that, of course. So I just had to let him finish yelling himself hoarse until he tired out and left me alone. Then a week later when I’m away he jumps my fence and pours beer all down the seats of the car in my front lawn but you know what?”
“What?”
“The car was Poppy’s too.”
Niall starts cracking up again and Louis rolls his eyes (fondly). “I really think you’re about to lose some business if you don’t start serving some drinks,” he points out.
—
The farm that Louis is due to arrive at is owned by one H. Styles. At least, that’s what it says at the end of the winding lane that he’s started down. Liam had informed him before he started out that this Farmer Styles is one of the nicest in the area, never met a kinder soul. Louis, at this point well on his way to being the most cynical one left in the village, thinks he’s probably about to challenge that kindness. If Harry’s anything like every single other farmer out there he’s about to very politely, but firmly, ask for a second opinion on whatever Louis prescribes.
(Sure, this is only supposed to be routine tetanus shots, but still).
The winding lane is cut short by a wooden gate with another automobile parked in the grass alongside it. Louis grimaces, already feeling his leg muscles protesting as he parks his car and dismounts.
His wellies squelch through the muddy grass as he shoulders his bag and pushes his way through the gate, calling out a loud “Hello?” in case Farmer Styles isn’t one for strangers on his property.
The pathway he walks down is wet and green, mud spurting up to freckle his trousers thanks to the rain from earlier in the morning. The clouds now are fluffy and white, offering just a little shade from the midday sun.
The farmhouse comes into view eventually, and Louis doesn’t think he’s ever described something as quaint before but that would definitely be it. It’s one of those houses that could have been recently built or could have existed for centuries, the flowerbeds in front overflowing with colorful blooms and the door painted a stark red.
“Hello?” Louis calls again as he draws near.
There’s a sudden swishing noise in the grass near him and he jumps back, a fear of ankle-biting dogs ingrained after his visit to Mrs. Pothos last week. The fears are assuaged only a moment later when a small, amber coloured kitten pops out of the grass and rubs up against his ankles.
“Well aren’t you an absolute sweetie,” Louis says, leaning down to scratch at her large ears, ones that she clearly hasn’t grown into yet.
A bang sounds from the house in front of him, and when he looks up, Louis sees who he presumes to be Farmer Styles, pulling on wellies of his own as he stumbles out the front door.
“Hi, hello, good morning!” the farmer calls. “You must be the vet!”
“That I am!” Louis calls back, standing and trying not to trip over the kitten as he makes his way to the front of the house. “Are you Farmer Styles, then?”
“Oh, call me Harry,” the farmer says, putting out his hand when Louis gets close enough to shake it. “Farmer Styles was my mother. Well, not really. Her last name was Cox. My father’s name was Styles, but he wasn’t a farmer. Was a bit of everything else, honestly, but never a farmer. Funny that.”
Louis shakes his hand. “Harry, then,” he says. “I hear you’ve got some pigs in need of tetanus shots?”
“Oh!” says Harry. “Oh, oh yes. I’m sorry, I know I can get way too friendly too fast. You spend a lot of your time on the farm alone, you know? Take all the interaction I can get. The pigs are just this way!”
‘Just this way’, it turns out, is almost half a mile away into Harry’s pastures behind the house. It’s all just a little bit muddy and just a little bit uphill and by the time they’ve arrived Louis is breathing hard and ready to strip off every garment of clothing on him, he’s so drenched in sweat. Harry, the farmer, seems to be in perfect shape, his long strides from his long legs seeming effortless. Louis would like to curse him, except he’s just spent the last fifteen minutes listening to Harry tell a story about how he’s come to name each and every one of his pigs, and how he tells them apart.
It sounds like it would be a boring story. It was sort of a boring story, honestly. But Harry was so serious about telling it that it was improbably endearing.
“Well these are them,” Harry says. “Do you need help? Anything I can assist you with? William and Winston are the real wild ones, watch out for them.” He adjusts the cap on his head nervously. It’s an odd fashion sense, considering his wild and unruly curls that cascade from underneath it.
“I should be fine,” Louis says. “Although if you want to stick around and tell me exactly which ones are William and Winston, that would be lovely.”
He sets down his bag and begins taking out everything he needs. The pigs eye him like suspicious gargoyles - like they know what he’s up to, but aren’t about to move to stop him.
This is generally the point where farmers start critiquing his techniques. Telling him Payne does it this and that-a-way and that hasn’t he learned the right way to deal with an animal before? Louis can feel himself tensing up, knowing Harry’s eyes are on him as he works.
“So…” says Harry. Conversationally.
Louis grits his teeth. Here it comes.
“Do you have any experience with pigs?”
“Yes,” says Louis, his voice steely. “I have plenty of experience with pigs. I did spend years in Veterinary school for a reason, I do know what I’m doing.”
“Oh,” says Harry, quietly. Louis looks up. This is where most farmers have just bitten back.
“I was just, um, I wasn’t trying to question your practice,” Harry says. He’s leaning against the low fence, intent on examining his hands. “I know some of the farmers around here have given you a hard time, but I really didn’t mean- I just talk a lot, you know. I’m not always much good at starting conversation. I know it was a shit try, I’m sorry.”
Louis feels something sit heavy in his stomach. “Oh,” he says, his face heating up. “No, I’m sorry. That was- completely uncalled for. And terribly unprofessional of me. I shouldn’t have rushed to conclusions like that.”
“It’s fine,” Harry says, voice still gone all soft.
Louis begins pulling the injections from their bottles, feeling like a total idiot. The one farmer in the village who didn’t apparently distrust him on sight and now he’s gone and cocked it.
It’s all quite shit, really.
“I didn’t grow up on a farm or anything,” he says after a few more tense moments of silence. “Grew up in the middle of the city, actually. Just… always really loved cows, for some reason. Sheep are great, and pigs don’t seem to be half bad if they’re not holding a grudge against you. So I can’t say I’ve got more than technical experience with pigs, if I’m honest.”
It’s an offering - information that he wouldn’t dare share with any other farmer in the area, for fear of them holding it against him. Still, when he looks up he sees Harry smiling down at him, not as large as when he first appeared but certainly enough to show that Harry got the message.
“Pigs are great,” he says. “You’ll see. They can be really sweet!”
—
Harry’s pigs are not really sweet.
Louis knows this because as soon as he stepped over the gate, a number of beady little eyes looked to him, decided he must have food, and veritably rushed him.
Louis had been very quick to jump back to the other side of the gate.
“You spoil them!” he shouted to Harry over the noise of hungry pigs searching for treats. Harry had laughed.
“Maybe!” He’d said. “But they’re just so cute! They deserve it!”
It took much longer than Louis would have liked to get all the shots into the heaving mass of pigs, but that was mostly due to the fact that he had to have Harry lure them away little by little with treats (spoiling them more), so that he could catch one still enough to get the needle in.
About halfway through Louis had decided that he really was about to come over faint if he didn’t start stripping off some layers, and went down to only his trousers and undershirt. As wonderful and cooling as it was, apparently Harry had taken this as a signal because the next time Louis looked over Harry was completely shirtless, and Louis had to very quickly look away.
Louis had known since secondary that he was much more drawn to boys than to girls, he’d accepted this about himself, and his closest friends, the ones he’d dared tell, had been accepting as well. Still, to be faced with someone like Harry, with cherubic cheeks and messy curls to start with, stripping off his clothes to reveal a body fit for Herculean exploits, well… it was a bit much to bear.
“Are you okay?” Harry called a few minutes later. “You’ve gone all red in the face! Do you need me to fetch some water?”
“Fine!” Louis had squeaked. “Just fine! Just catching my breath!”
So Harry’s pigs are not really sweet, but at least the Lord had been smiling down onto Louis and given him a sneaky peak of what heaven would look like someday, in the form of shirtless Farmer Harry Styles.
“How about a drink?” Harry asks, as Louis packs up the last of his veterinary bag. “You’ve earned it, I believe.”
Generally when people ask Louis in for a drink these days, it’s only a formality that they’re hoping he won’t accept. That being said, from Harry the offer not only sounds like a serious one, it sounds like one that Louis wouldn’t want to turn down.
“Love to,” Louis says. “You’re about the last call I should have today, so I don’t see a problem.”
Even if he did have more farms to visit, Louis is fairly sure he would have blown them off a while longer.
The walk back is downhill, which is nice considering how much Louis’s muscles are aching from the way he’s had to hold himself administering the shots.
“That’s where my sheep have been grazing,” Harry points out to their right. There’s a few visible just at the top of the hill. “Should be rotating them to the pasture at the back of the farm soon enough, what with lambing season coming up. Ooh, and that’s where I found a family of hedgehogs last week under the bushes!”
They pass a number of buildings housing feed and space for the animals when it gets cold, it’s all modest but well kept up, clearly loved.
“Isn’t that a milking parlour?” Louis points out, caddy corner to the back of the house. “Do you have cows? I haven’t seen any, but that looks like the perfect set-up.”
Harry stumbles for a moment, tripping over his own wellies. “Nope,” he says. “No cows. That’s, um. Not mine. It’s a neighbor’s parlour. Old thing.”
It doesn’t look quite as new as anything else on the land, but Louis wouldn’t describe it as old, by any stretch. It’s also definitely smack dab in the center of Harry’s land. “Right,” Louis says, shooting him a look. Harry doesn’t look at him. “Well I mean… Have you considered getting cows? This land would be perfect for it, it looks like you’ve got more than enough room-”
“Cows aren’t really my thing,” Harry says. “Too, um. Loud. And dirty.”
Right, now Louis knows something’s not right.
Maybe Harry had an accident with a cow as a young child. He shouldn’t pry.
“Anyway, about that drink. Back door’s right over this way, leave your boots on the mat. There’s a number of kittens inside because Matilda gave birth under my porch about a month ago but don’t worry, they’re all sweeties.”
Louis follows him into the house and shucks off his muddy boots at the door, immediately swarmed by ginger kittens as Harry walks further into the house.
“I can make us a proper tea as well, let me just put the kettle on. Then you can tell me all about what you think of life out here in the Dales! Unless that’s sort of old hat at this point. We can talk about something else instead. Like the weather! That’s always a reliable subject."
Louis can’t help the smile that spreads over his face as he follows Harry into the kitchen. Even if everyone else in the village can be a bit stuck in their ways, Harry’s willingness to accept him with open arms is good enough for him.
—
Harry, Louis learns, is the darling of the village.
Honestly it’s not something that really surprises him. While Louis is an outsider and clearly untrustworthy compared with the noble Liam Payne of Payne Veterinary Practice.
(Although he would really like to point out that his own name now hangs above the door as well, even if it’s simply painted on under Liam’s engraved one).
Everyone knows Harry. He somehow manages to be everywhere at once. Even as Louis tends to see him at his own farm at least once a week for one reason or another, he also begins to run into him, well, just about everywhere else as well.
He’s there at the market on Saturdays, saying hello to old Mrs. Gardenia who stocks the fruit displays. Here’s there at Niall’s pub whenever Louis makes an appearance, always having a drink with another farmer or three, or making Niall laugh loud enough to turn heads before dissolving into giggles himself.
He’s there Sunday mornings as the entire town files into the cathedral in the center of town, and of course every old woman with a casserole or a plate of cookies will be trying to force their home goods on him after the service.
(Louis tends to sit between Liam and Niall during the service, and they make up most of a pew of young single men who stand out quite a bit from the rest of the congregation but all that means is it’s easier to sneak the food from Niall’s pockets. God would want them to munch biscuits during the service, after all).
Yes, everywhere Louis goes Harry seems to be. The problem here is twofold; one, that Louis by nature feels himself gravitate toward Harry very quickly. He’s not sure whether that’s because Harry is one of the few to unwaveringly accept him into their home, or because Harry just has that lovely dynamic personality that could charm the squirrel out of a chimney.
The other problem, the much worse problem, is that Harry seems to always notice as soon as Louis appears, and turns and offers him the most sweet smile that warms Louis to his toes, before ambling over to talk to him and ask him about his life .
It’s becoming very clear very fast that the biggest threat to Louis’s wellbeing is the fact that Farmer Harry Styles is absolutely everywhere, and just as ready to engage with Louis as Louis is with Harry.
It’s just too much for his heart to take.
—
The phone rings late on a Friday night just as Louis is getting out of the shower. Just hours ago he’d had his arm up to the elbow inside a very pregnant cow, sprawled uncomfortably on the floor of the barn, and had spent the better part of two hours attempting to help birth a cow that was turned the wrong way ‘round inside its mother.
He’d done it, by some miracle, and had been immediately ushered away, as the farmer was the practical sort who didn’t believe in celebrating such a miracle, and Louis had been forced to drive all the way home reeking of things he’d rather not think about and ensuring that he would need to spend his next day off airing the poor car out.
After a long shower he’s beginning to feel almost human again (almost) and when the phone rings he lets out an audible groan. His bed sounds terribly inviting and this phone does not.
Still, he picks it up and tries to answer in a professional manner.
“Payne Veterinary Practice.”
“Louis!”
Louis blinks. “Niall?”
“That’s me! Listen, I need you to do me a favour. You’re friends with dear old Harold, aren’t you?”
“Harry?” Louis’s heart skips a beat. “I suppose we’ve become rather close. Why do you ask?”
“Because he’s completely plastered,” says Niall with a laugh. “And everyone else has gone on home, but our young Harold here seems to have found his way into some scotch and certainly is in no fit state to get himself home. I was wondering if you’d be willing to do the honours, seeing as how he’s talked quite a bit about you tonight. I’ll owe you a pint!”
Louis absolutely cannot help the smile that spreads on his face and he’s very happy that no one is around to see. Harry’s been talking about him?
He glances at the clock in the sitting room. It’s nearing the witching hour, and he personally would like to find himself under some covers soon, but who is Louis to deny Niall such a request?
“I can be right up,” he says.
“There’s a good lad,” says Niall. “I’ll keep the light on for you then.”
—
When Louis arrives at the pub, his automobile growling so loudly he’s sure he’s waking the neighborhood, there’s a single light still on in the window.
He opens the door and slips inside, easily locating Niall (awake, chipper, drinking a pint) and Harry (head down on the table, seemingly out to the world).
“Ah, Louis!” Niall crows. “Nice of you to give our Harry a ride home! Isn’t it, Harry?”
Harry stirs. As Louis walks over he lifts his head, messy curls everywhere, bleary eyes seeking out-
“Louis!”
He speaks as slow as molasses on a good day, but tonight he seems to be tasting each word as he says it, rolling it around on his tongue and processing it.
“Louis,” he says again. “Lou-eeeeeee- Did you see, Niall? He came!”
Niall rolls his eyes as he takes another sip of his drink. “He’s been quite excited since you agreed to come collect him. Not that any of us care about the quiet night in Niall had planned for tonight, oh no.”
“You work in a pub,” Louis points out. “I don’t think you get a quiet night in.”
“Nonsense,” Niall says. “Sundays.”
“It’s Friday.”
“The point stands.”
“Niall,” Harry says, interrupting. “Niall, tell Louis about his eyes.”
“I will not,” says Niall. “In fact, I’m just going to let you tell Louis all those things you told me earlier. I will have no part in your terrible flirting.” He stands, the glass in his hands empty. “I’d suggest you bundle him into the car before his dinner starts coming back up, because I love you two but I will make you clean the floors if it comes to that.”
“Right,” says Louis. “Time to go, Curly. Come on.”
Harry looks up at him, craning his neck and then growing the most ridiculous dimpled smile that stretches his face and scrunches his eyes.
“Carry meeeeeee,” he says, putting his arms up.
“There is no way I could lift you,” Louis says, smiling in spite of how stern he’s trying to sound. “But the sooner you get up the sooner you can fall asleep while I drive your drunk arse home, how does that sound?”
Harry seems to think hard about this before pouting. “Don’t want to fall asleep,” he says.
“Well if you stay here I think you’re going to be falling asleep on the front stoop very soon, because you’re getting kicked out,” Louis says, trying to find something to persuade him. “So come on, up you get.”
Harry spends a moment looking quite serious as he stares at Louis. Finally, he seems to make up his mind. “Okay,” he says, wiggling his way out of the booth, and nearly falling into Louis as he attempts to stand.
“There you are, that’s good,” Louis says, putting one arm around Harry’s back to steady him. His back is warm, and the material thin, and Louis is reminded of just how toned Harry is. Not that those muscles are of much help in this moment, as Harry nearly pushes the both of them to the floor as he trips over his own feet.
They make their way out the front door, and the last thing Niall says is, “You owe me, Tommo!” before closing it behind them.
“What does he mean I owe him?” Louis asks, mostly to himself as he helps Harry into the passenger seat.
He makes his way around to the driver’s seat and when he gets in, he looks over to see Harry gazing at him with fierce intensity, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Are you about to vomit?” Louis asks as the engine splutters to life again. “Because if you are, I’d appreciate it if you leaned out of Gertie, rather than toward the middle.”
Harry doesn’t so much as blink. “Niall was wrong,” he says. “Your eyes are a much better blue than his eyes.”
Louis coughs out a laugh, reversing his car onto the road in an attempt to not have to keep looking at Harry. “This is what you were talking about with Niall?”
Harry pouts. “Yes,” he says. He’s still leaning over the space between them. “He didn’t believe me, you know. When I said your eyes were the prettiest blue.”
Louis gulps.
“But what does he know? He said- said he’s prettier than you but he’s wrong you know. You’re - you’ve got a cute nose. Niall doesn’t have a cute nose.”
Louis tries his absolute hardest not to veer off the road. “How much did you have to drink, Love?” he asks.
Harry yawns. “Five.”
“Five…”
“Much.”
“Five much.”
“Uh-huh.” Harry giggles. “Niall wouldn’t let me get more than that. Said he hasn’t seen me drink this much since Phyllis.”
Louis turns off of the one main street in the village and down onto the winding country road. “Phyllis?” he asks, trying to sound only vaguely interested. Who was Phyllis? An ex-girlfriend? Was Harry scorned? Somehow the idea doesn’t sit well with him. No one should reject Harry, especially not someone by the name of Phyllis.
“Yeah,” Harry yawns, again, finally turning his piercing gaze away from Louis. “Phyllis. I miss her. We just… we didn’t work together.” He’s starting to sound emotional. “I was too… too slow for her.”
“Too slow?” Harry is only getting more cryptic and Louis is seriously worried that he’s going to fall asleep before he finishes explaining whatever happened with Phyllis. “What does that mean?”
Harry doesn’t respond and the next thing Louis knows he can hear Harry sniffling. Oh no.
“I-” Big sniff. “I couldn’t do it, Louis! I tried so hard! I loved her! I loved Phyllis but she deserved better!”
“I’m sure you were perfect,” Louis tries to tell him, even though he’s feeling a growing disappointment inside. Harry sounds like he had been in love.
“No,” Harry says. “I wasn’t perfect. A perfect- a perfect farmer would have been able to milk her.”
Able… to… milk her?
“Harry?” Louis asks tentatively. “Was Phyllis… was she a cow?”
Harry sniffs. “Yes,” he whispers. “She was beautiful.”
“I’m sure she was,” Louis says, reaching out a hand and placing it over Harry’s. It’s to comfort him, of course. It may also be because Harry was apparently not terribly in love with a woman named Phyllis. “But you couldn’t milk her?”
“No,” says Harry, sounding devastated all over again. “She was perfect, Louis. But I- I can’t have cows! I can’t milk them! Everything I do is slow, I speak slowly, I walk slowly… I milk cows too slowly!”
Louis now has the very different problem that he is trying very hard not to laugh. Because this is not something that is taught in veterinary college. Counseling farmers on their milking techniques.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” he says. “You could try again, you know. It might just take time!”
“No, no more cows,” Harry wails. “I can’t hurt someone like that again!”
Louis thinks that maybe Harry doesn’t realise it, but he’s speaking more of himself than the presumed cows.
They pull up at Harry’s farm much too soon, and Louis regretfully has to pull his hand from on top of Harry’s. “Come on, let’s get you inside and into bed, you’re not going to be too happy in the morning.”
Harry’s still rather sniffly but he comes willingly, especially as Louis once again puts an arm around his back to walk him to the house. Harry leans against his side and lets out a heavy sigh.
“You’re warm and cozy,” he says.
“Thank you,” says Louis. Harry’s curls dance across his face. “You smell a bit like beer but you’re quite cuddly yourself.”
“Yes I am,” Harry says, sounding like he’s proclaiming something proudly about himself. They make their way across the grass, two amber cats, no longer the tiny kittens they once were, coming out to greet them.
Louis walks him up to his front door and then waits for Harry to fumble it open.
“You going to be okay?”
Harry looks at him, with slow sleepy blinks. “Mm-hmmmmm,” he says. “Thank you, Lou.”
Louis smiles. “Of course,” he says. “Any time.”
He begins to extricate himself, but before he can, Harry turns and wraps his arms around Louis’s middle. He’s large and strong and he really does smell of beer but that’s not that important at the moment. “Thank you,” he says again.
“Okay you sappy drunk,” Louis laughs, not entirely sure whether it’s appropriate to wrap his arms around Harry as well. He wants to, boy does he want to, but it does feel rather like taking advantage, with how drunk Harry seems to be. He settles for lightly embracing him until Harry is willing to let go. “Off to bed with you,” Louis says when they finally part.
He resists the urge to follow Harry into the house just to make sure he does successfully navigate to the bed, but he does stand at the door for a few minutes after he leaves just to make sure he doesn’t hear any worrying thumps or crashes.
There are none, thankfully. The house is silent. As Louis makes his way back to his car, the stars splashed across the sky above him shine brightly down on him, and the ghosts of Harry’s arms around his middle keep him warm.
—
There are now three farmers who don’t put up a fuss when Louis appears on their farm.
Three.
It’s a good start, Louis supposes, seeing as how lambing season is just in its beginning stages and he’s already had to help deliver a fair amount of awkwardly positioned lambs. There’s a handful more who will begrudgingly let Louis get on with his work after inquiring only a handful of times about where Liam is, so basically, life is making progress.
Sort of.
Except for one big problem.
“Liam, can I talk to you?”
Liam looks up from his examination of Mr. Butterball, the grumpy old cat belonging to Ms. Parkinson. “Is now really the time?”
“Well I’ve been called away to four unexpected lambing visits so far today so apparently my time is a bit more limited than yours, but I suppose I can wait until you don’t have your finger in a cat’s rectum.”
Mr. Butterball yowls in offence.
“Right,” says Liam. “This should be my last patient of the day. Does it sound like a pub night to you? Because that’s what it’s sounding like to me.”
“Perfect,” says Louis. “Oh, and be careful. I’m pretty sure that cat could bring down a fully grown horse if the moment presented itself.”
Just over an hour later finds Louis and Liam seated in Niall’s pub, oddly enough with Niall sitting at the table.
“So come on,” says Liam. “What’s troubling you? I feel like you’ve been rather quiet all week.”
“Well I’ve been rather exhausted,” Louis points out. “But thanks for pointing out how terrible I looked, Liam.”
“Sarcasm is just a cover for fear,” Niall says, sipping his pint. “Spill. This is about Harry, isn’t it?”
“How did you-” Louis shakes his head. “You know what, I’m not even going to ask. Yes, this is about Harry. Specifically, it’s about the fact that I haven’t seen him in two weeks!”
“Well that does happen sometimes,” Liam reasons. “If a farmer isn’t having many problems with their animals I would assume they’re not going to need to call for a vet that often…”
“Yes but it’s more than that!” Louis complains. “I used to see Harry everywhere! At the market, here in the pub, at church… and suddenly he’s disappeared!”
“He hasn’t been here at all,” Niall points out. “Sounds like he’s avoiding you.”
“What?” Liam throws a bewildered glance at Niall. “I wouldn’t think Farmer Styles would stop going out and living just life just to avoid one person. And why Louis?”
“Because he got drunk and confessed some pretty mortifying details if I do say so myself,” Niall says. “I’d be embarrassed if I was him.”
Liam just looks more confused. “Like what?” he asks.
“Oh I don’t know,” Niall says. “Like the twenty minutes or so he spent talking about how much he loves Louis’s eyelashes?”
Louis’s eyes grow wide. “Niall!” he hisses. “You can’t just-”
“Don’t worry,” Niall says. “If anyone is going to understand the two of you, it’ll be Liam. You should have heard how he used to speak about his old practice partner Malik.”
“Oh,” says Liam as if he’s finally connected the dots. “Oh, Harry’s avoiding you because he likes you!”
Louis puts his head in his hands. “I don’t know why I thought this would be a helpful meeting.”
“Oh, no this is good!” Liam says. “This is useful! Did you accidentally reject him? I did that once. One miscommunication can be weeks of confusion. Have you told him how you feel? Do you like him?”
Niall laughs. “Oh, he likes Harry alright, I don’t know of anyone else who would show up to my pub in the middle of the night to drive his drunk arse home.”
“You called me to pick him up!”
“Yeah, because I knew you would!” Niall leans forward, locking eyes with Louis. “Look, he’s just gotten all weird because he’s embarrassed, right?”
“If by weird you mean I haven’t seen him since that night, yeah, I’d say so.”
“So that means you must not have confessed your love for him well enough!”
“I didn’t confess my love for him at all!”
“Well that’s your issue!” Niall says. “Confess your love, kiss him and live happily ever after. He’ll never have to pay vet bills again and you’ll get free pork whenever you want it.”
“Your description of a relationship is missing some major points.”
“You should get him a present,” Liam pipes up. “Something to tell him how you feel. Have you considered flowers? Or cheese?”
“Cheese?” Niall looks askance at Liam. “Harry is a farmer. Don’t get him farm things!”
“Fine, a book then. Or wine. Niall, what wine does he drink?”
“I don’t know, I don’t carry wine.”
“You don’t?”
“How long have you been coming to my pub?”
Louis lets them carry on, an idea having struck him. A very dumb idea. A very, very dumb idea. He sips at his beer and thinks about how to accomplish his dumb idea.
—
It’s at three weeks with still no sign of Harry when Louis finally gets the chance to put his dumb idea into action.
He rarely gets a real day off, since being a veterinarian means he needs to be on call basically every hour of the day. Today, however, he’s gotten Liam to agree to temporarily take over so that he can make a trip up to Borchester.
He’s gone all day, and that’s in part because Borchester is two hours away on a nice day with a good car, neither of which he has, and in part because he is not a farmer and therefore really honestly shouldn’t be buying farmer things that he knows nothing about.
But here he is doing it anyway.
So by the time he’s arriving home again it’s well past dinner time, and he’s rather tired and unsure about his decisions, but it’s honestly too late now, because the truck that Liam leant him is full and two months of his salary is spent.
He trundles down the lane, much slower than he would go in his own car, and doesn’t make the turn off to the veterinary practice, instead continuing on until he reaches the turn that leads him to Harry’s farm.
He hopes that there’s not something actually wrong with Harry, because if he’s read the situation wrong he could be making a horrible cock up that everyone else in the village will whisper about for months.
At the end of the lane where the gate separates the dirt path from the grassy area in front of the house, Louis stops the truck and hops down. The sun is just beginning to set, casting a rosey hue across everything around him. Hopefully Harry is inside just settling down to supper. Hopefully he isn’t somewhere far off in a field. If he is, though, Louis can wait. It’s the least he can do.
He goes around to the back of the truck and spends a very long time setting up the ramp to the ground, making sure it’s secure, and then gently coaxing a curious if wary new friend down the ramp.
Securing the bridle to the leash, and the leash to the gatepost, Louis pats the new friend on the snout before opening the squeaky gate and continuing alone up to the farmhouse.
“Hello?” he calls, feeling like it’s the first day all over again. No cats come out to greet him this time, probably out in a field somewhere sunning themselves on the last of the afternoon light.
He raps at the door when he reaches it. “Hello, Harry?”
There’s no answer for long enough that Louis begins to believe that Harry really is out in the pasture somewhere, but eventually he hears a click and the door swings inward.
There Harry is, looking just as beautiful as he had three weeks earlier, although much less drunk this time around.
“Hello Louis,” Harry says, sounding wary. “Um. I haven’t… I haven’t called for the vet?”
“I know,” says Louis. He smiles encouragingly. “You haven’t called for the vet in three weeks, and it’s the middle of lambing season, and nobody at all has seen you!”
“That’s not true,” Harry argues. “Mrs. Archer has seen me. And Helen, who runs the farm shop up the road.”
“Excuses,” Louis says. “I’m just saying I get the feeling you’ve been avoiding me.”
Harry looks rather caught out at that, his face twitching momentarily into one of… surprise?
“I… didn’t think you’d really like to see me hanging around much more after that pub night,” he says, wrapping his hands across his chest. “I mean, I honestly don’t remember all of what I said that night, but I know it was quite embarrassing and quite inappropriate and I didn’t want you to think-”
“That you meant it?” Louis asks. He cocks his head, trying to look open. To look like he wouldn’t turn Harry down. He has no idea how to give off a look like that, but he tries anyway.
“Well,” says Harry. “I mean.”
He stops speaking.
“Come here,” Louis says. “I have something I want to say, but I’m shit with words myself, if I’m honest, and I thought this might help.”
He holds out his hand, relief washing over him when, after a moment, Harry reaches out and takes it, letting Louis lead him outside and down the steps.
“Because you said a lot that night,” Louis says. “And I really hope you meant all of it, otherwise this is about to get very awkward. But if it does we can blame Niall and Liam, okay?”
He looks back at Harry who has a frown on his face. He’s still holding fast to Louis’s hand, though. That feels important.
When they reach the gate, Louis remembers how horrible he always has been at tying knots, seeing as how there is a lead tied to the gate with the other end dangling uselessly on the ground.
“Excuse me one moment,” he says, dropping Harry’s hand and darting around the side of his truck. Oh dear. How fast can an animal move?
Thankfully, this animal didn’t seem to feel the need to move further than the nearest patch of edible weeds. He breathes a sigh of relief and grabs the bridle, carefully bringing the head round and leading the animal back to the other side of the truck where Harry is.
“This is Daisy,” Louis says.
Harry’s eyes grow wide. “No,” he says.
Louis leads the calf over. She’s a beautiful light brown and surprisingly suggestable. Hours in the back of a truck seem to have done nothing for her lively spirit, as when Louis stops her in front of Harry she takes one interested sniff and then licks a fat stripe up his arm.
“Daisy is young,” Louis says. “She won’t even be ready to milk until calving season next year. For now she just needs a home and a lot of hay.”
“Cows actually mostly eat grass,” Harry says, almost as if he can’t help himself. “But Louis I- I really can’t! I tried with Phyllis, but I just move so slowly, you know. I’ve got slow hands, I can’t milk anything!”
“And I think that’s the strangest thing I have ever heard anyone say,” Louis says. “Regardless, I think that as it will take Daisy at least a year to get to that point, you also have time to learn. And I, personally, would love to show you.”
“You’d love to what?” Harry yelps.
“Oh not like that,” Louis says, eyes growing wide, his compassionate speech that was supposed to end in a love declaration cut short. “Jesus Christ, Harry, you do have a dirty mind! I’m trying to say I want to have an excuse to see you every week! And that I think you can definitely milk this cow! And if you can’t, I personally will move into your house and milk her every day for you!”
Daisy moos plaintively.
“I even bought her hay, it’s in the back of the truck too! Although now that you’re saying she’ll eat mostly grass, I’m starting to feel like I’ve been ripped off.” He runs a hand nervously through his fringe and stares at Daisy, who has gone back to snuffling the grass looking for more flowers to munch.
“Anyway, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look you in the face again at this point, so I should probably just say goodbye now. Liam will definitely be willing to look after your animals so don’t worry about that, I’ll just-”
Harry’s hand curls around Louis’s arm and he finally looks up. Harry is wide eyed and staring, so very reminiscent of when Louis was driving him home from the pub, but this time he has a ridiculous grin on his face as well. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay?” Louis squeaks.
“Yes,” Harry says. “Okay.”
Louis takes a step closer. Harry doesn’t let go of his arm, but he does reach out with his other hand and grasp Louis’s wrist. “I mean. I don’t need Liam to look over my animals. I think you’re much more fun to talk to than he is anyway.”
“Oh I’m more fun,” says Louis. “Is that all I am?”
“No,” Harry is quick to reassure, before suddenly becoming nervous again. “You’re also, um. Quite pretty. And good with animals. And very nice to talk to. Um.”
“I seem to remember Niall saying you mentioned my eyelashes.”
Harry sighs out a delighted little laugh. “They’re very long,” he says, leaning closer to Louis. “And they cast a shadow on your cheeks in the right light. You have good fringe too, even when you keep messing it up when you’re nervous.”
That’s exactly what Louis would be doing now if Harry didn’t have a gentle grip on both his arms.
He would speak up something to that effect, but suddenly Harry’s lips are on his own, and they’re soft and slow but in just the right way.
“Louis Tomlinson,” Harry says when he pulls back. “Please teach me how to milk a cow.”
Louis snorts.
Harry has ruined the moment.
But out here in the dales, in the middle of nowhere, Louis feels assured that there will be many more moments in the future.