Work Text:
Monday meetings should be forbidden. Especially ones that start promptly at 9 am. Niall is not a morning person and should not be expected to attend meetings before he is fully functional. If he had his way, there would never be meetings before noon.
But he doesn’t have his way. So, Niall straggles into the conference room at 8:59 and stifles a loud yawn as he takes his seat at the end of the table. At least he had time to grab a mug of coffee.
He tries to get comfortable in the hard plastic chair, but it’s nearly impossible when there’s ten people crowded around a table meant for eight. Their department is the smallest in the company, responsible for all the print and social media marketing. As the smallest department, the ten of them are nearly always downgraded to the worst conference room in the building. It’s an interior room without windows and one small table. It’s crowded and overheated. And the worst part of this conference room is the chairs. Niall loathes these stiff backed plastic chairs.
One time they rescheduled their team meeting to a Friday afternoon and were lucky enough to snag the largest conference room, where there are two entire walls of windows that look out toward the street and a coffee cart in the room. There are also large cushioned leather swivel chairs. And the chairs recline! Niall is still bitter about having to sit through endless meetings on these old plastic chairs while the sales department get to sit in reclining cushioned chairs for their team meetings.
“Alright team! Now that everyone’s here, let’s get going!” Chandra, their team manager, starts off the meeting. She’s always much to cheery and awake during these meetings. Niall might be more awake if he also had to get up at 6am to get kids ready for school, but as he’s not a father yet, he is lucky to be able to roll out of bed with just a half hour to get himself to work.
The room is quiet as Chandra clicks through a few screens on her computer to display her powerpoint. The title slide shows the company logo and reads “One Direction Financial - The Right Direction for Your Money”. As a copy editor, Niall shudders at the horribly cheesy slogan.
“Last quarter was one of the best in the history of One Direction Financial!” Chandra goes through her spiel of how strong the company’s sales were for the last quarter and how she hopes that the team will maintain the enthusiasm throughout the summer. The PowerPoint is filled with black and white graphs juxtaposed with unrelated summer-themed clipart.
Niall stares blankly at each new slide, not really paying attention to any of the company updates. He shifts uncomfortably in his too-hard chair, as he tries to stay awake. As his mind drifts away from their engagement stats and sales figures, he glances around the room.
As usual, the women on their team, Sarah, Teresa, Margaret, and Kate, are all sat upfront, looking awake and put together in a way Niall could never. They’re all taking notes and paying attention, nodding along to the stats. It’s no surprise that they’re actually focused on Chandra’s presentation. These women hold their team together, and they’ve saved his ass on more than one occasion when a project deadline crept up too quickly.
The men on the team take up the back of the room during their meetings. To his left sit Louis and Liam, and to his right sit Harry and Zayn. They’re significantly less put together than the women. Out of the five of them, only Liam takes their weekly meetings seriously, and is fastidiously recording notes on his laptop. Zayn looks like he’s barely awake, not even pretending to pay attention as he sits with his eyes closed. Niall envies his ability to sleep sitting upright.
Louis and Harry are a whole different story. He watches as Harry fidgets in his seat, then Louis shifts around as well. Something is going on, as usual with those two.
As Chandra goes deeper into her presentation, listing statistics, stating goals, and cheering on her unenthusiastic team, Niall realizes what’s happening between the two. They’re playing footsie under the table. He can't believe their blatant display of flirting, right in front of their entire team. How rude.
Yeah, they’ve been dating for over two years and he knows they haven’t grown out of the honeymoon phase yet, but they could at least try to be somewhat professional in a meeting. Even Niall and his husband Shawn aren't that bad in public and they’ve literally gotten back from their honeymoon just a month ago. Chandra had just caught Harry and Louis snogging in the break room last month. He’d have thought they’d have learnt their lesson. But there they are, not so subtly touching feet under the table.
Niall lifts his eyebrow discreetly at Louis. Louis returns the look with a smirk. And then keeps doing it. Niall tries to tune it out, but it’s difficult when the alternative is the most boring meeting he’s ever been in.
As he’s trying his hardest to ignore them, focusing on the graph Chandra is explaining, something hits his ankle. Based on the quiet squeak from Harry, he’d bet money that it was his foot that just made contact. Chandra must not have heard the noise, continuing unaware of the mischief happening right below the table.
Niall tries to ignore them again, not wanting to be involved in whatever is happening.
Then someone’s foot lands on his. “Hey!” Niall whispers angrily at Louis, who just shrugs. Chandra catches on to the commotion at the end of the table. She gives Niall her evil eye, the look that she has perfected to pour fear through the veins of both her employees and her own children with just a glance.
Niall mouths “sorry”, tucks his long legs under his chair and tries to follow what Chandra has been presenting. It seems they’ve moved on to a few new safety policies and regulations put in place by the corporate office. There’s a stock image of a man trying to change a lightbulb while standing on a swivel chair. Niall laughs quietly to himself at the absurd image.
The meeting is continues dragging on. Everyone is uncomfortable in the poorly-ventilated room and ready to get on with the rest of their work week. Chandra moves on to the final section of the meeting agenda, dividing up the weekly tasks and assigning projects.
He takes a sip of his coffee. As he sets down his mug, Louis kicks his shin. Hard. “Ow!” The sudden pain in his shin causes him to jostle the coffee mug, splashing hot coffee onto his hand. “Motherfucker, dammit!” He backs up his chair, wiping off the hot coffee onto his black dress pants, and then rubs at his injured calf.
“Niall!” Chandra stops mid sentence, “I can’t believe I have to remind you again, but you need to be more professional. If you spill your coffee just grab some paper towels next time, there’s no use shouting profanities.”
“But—"
“No excuses Niall. These meetings are long enough as they are, I don’t need you interrupting and causing a scene. And to make sure you remember, I’m giving you the monthly Outreach Report. Work with Brad in the sales department and get that report to me by the end of the week.”
Niall nods in understanding but groans internally. Of all the punishments, there is nothing worse than having to team up with Brad from Sales to write a report. At least Louis looks slightly guilty for the injustice he’s brought upon Niall.
He glances around the room. Liam looks annoyed, having definitely caught on to the antics under the table before the incident occurred. Harry is trying to hide a smirk behind his hand. Irritation boiling under his skin. How dare he find humor in Niall’s misery? At the far end of the table, Margaret offers him a sympathetic smile. Or maybe she’s just relieved that she didn’t get stuck with the Outreach Report again this month. Niall wallows in his misery the rest of the meeting.
“Alright, that’s it for this week’s meeting.” Chandra wraps up and begins packing up her computer and notepad.
The team files slowly out of the conference room, Niall glares at Louis as they exit the room. “You know, Karma’s a bitch, Tommo. You better watch your back.” Niall heads back to his cubicle without waiting for a response.
After all, he doesn’t have time to idly chit chat by the water cooler. He’s got a report to write and a prank to plan.