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Louis hates Harry.
No really. He wants to soak six feet of barbed wire in some wolfsbane soup and wrap it around a baseball bat and then shove it...well, you get the picture. He's nearly ninety-nine percent sure Harry, the big twat, feels the same about him. He mentioned this to Zayn once, only to have his best friend choke and hack while Liam patted his back. Louis needs a new best friend. No, Louis needs a new life, in a new town, on a new planet. But a new best friend was a good start, right?
“You want me to what.” Louis crosses his arms and glares up at the subject of his hatred, hoping the Alpha will implode - scratch that, Louis hates cleaning – and Harry glares right back. “I'm NOT going to 'stay away' while your family visits! I'm just as much a part of this pack as anyone else! Just because I don't go all furball and lick my own a-”
He's cut off as Harry's hand lashes out, catching his face and squeezing his cheeks until he resembles a fish. “Louis.” Harry growls, attempting to intimidate him with that...demonic frog face, as Louis has so kindly dubbed it. But really.
It really gets on Louis' tits that Harry can look like a 'demonic frog' one moment and a bloody model the next. It's just wrong. Louis mentally shakes himself then, where the Hell does his mind even go half the time.
“Harry.” Louis enunciates as best he can with that gigantic paw squishing his face like a McDonald's hamburger. He also ignores the way his face fits in the Alpha's hand like a goddamn child's. Louis needs to start eating steroids for breakfast or something because this puny human thing is really starting to piss him off.
“Alpha,” Rosie, one of the female pack members who had befriended Louis, steps forward. “I think Louis should meet your family too, you know how your mother gets when you hide things from her.”
Louis tries to smile at her but Harry's hand tightens, and he levels Rosie with a look that could scare the hair off a cat before looking back at Louis. His expression blackens even further. “If you do anything,” He steps close enough that Louis can feel breath on his forehead, “to embarrass me, they'll never find your body.”
With that Harry releases him, shoving him away and returning to the next room where Dylan is waiting. Louis hates them. He smiles at Rosie and pushes down the throb in his chest that comes every time Harry implies he isn't good enough. He'll cry about it later, and then spend the rest of the night planning Harry's demise in great detail.
Healthy. He has a healthy relationship with the Alpha.
-:-
As Louis and Zayn leave Harry's house that night, Louis pauses in the kitchen at the sound of angry voices in the next room. His brow furrows in confusion when he realizes it's Rosie and Harry.
“If you'd bloody man-up and just tell-”
A snarl from Harry cuts the female wolf off. “He's a child!”
Louis frowns. Are they talking about Dylan? No, that can't be. He's twenty, hardly a child.
“You're twenty-two, not forty, Harry.” She replies quietly, almost fondly, and Louis remembers the stories Rosie told him of herself and Harry as pups and the mischief they got into growing up together, their mothers' being sisters.
“Feels that way sometimes.” Harry's tone is clipped, but no longer murderous.
“Harry-”
“This discussion is over, Rosie. I'm with Dylan. You know where I stand.”
Louis hears Rosie's sigh, and then Zayn is dragging him out the door with a panicked look.
-:-
“You cannot wear that.” Rosie pulls a face at him from where she sits on his bed, twisting her ginger hair back.
Louis looks down. “What's wrong with it?”
Rosie sighs. “You're meeting the Alpha's mother, not the rubbish collector.”
“She raised him, could be considered the same honestly.”
Rosie chokes and holds back a laugh, giving him a knowing look that makes him twitch with something he's not ready to admit, or admit that there's even something to admit.
“Here,” she hops up and lopes across the room with the grace of a ballerina before he can blink and opens his closet door. Seconds later she hands him a pair of red pants and white button up.
Louis looks at the bundle in his arms and back at Rosie. “You made me buy these. I hate them.”
“Louis.” Rosie puts her hands on her hips and raises a perfect eyebrow.
“Fine!” He waves the shirt like a surrendering flag and marches off to the bathroom, muttering about bossy werewolves and powdered silver in salt shakers all the way.
When he's finished, he frowns at his reflection. He looks like a bloody tampon – pun intended - half red and half white. He must have said so out loud because Rosie cackles from the other side of the door before demanding he come out. After rolling his sleeves up to his elbows, Louis runs a brush through his hair and opens the door. “Let's get this over with.”
He regrets ever fighting Harry on this. He just knows Harry's mum will hate him and Harry will kick him out of the pack and then who will stop Zayn from eating cats and toddlers during full moons? Not Liam, that's for sure. The big sap lets Zayn get away with everything. It's sickening honestly. Although, Louis can admit he often wonders what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that sort of adoration.
-:-
When they pull up outside Harry's house, Rosie reaches over and pats his knee and he knows she can hear his heart slamming in chest. He doesn't even know why he's so nervous, honestly. Aside from the fact that he's afraid Harry's mum will hate him on sight and he'll be thrown out of the pack like the imposter he is. Louis inhales and exhales deeply in an attempt to calm himself. It doesn't work.
“Anne isn't a complete twat like her son, Lou. You'll be fine.” Rosie smiles and nudges him. “Come on.”
Louis dawdles outside the car, digging through his coat pockets as if he's lost something when actually he's just playing for time. Rosie snatches his wrist and drags him up the porch steps; Louis feels sick. Harry's probably told Anne what a pain he is, what a disobedient pack member. He almost laughs at himself then, he's kidding himself. Harry didn't care enough to mention him at all.
As they enter the house, Louis focuses on keeping himself upright because his legs feel like pudding and good God he really needs to pull himself together or he's going to embarrass himself....more than usual.
It's because of these nerves that Louis squawks and nearly falls on his arse when Harry appears out of nowhere to loom and stare. The Alpha grips his elbow, steadying him. “Will you calm down. I heard your heartbeat a mile away.”
Rosie coughs at that but Louis pays her no mind, and blinks up at Harry. “Excuse me for reacting like a sheep among wolves!”
Harry lets his arm go but doesn't move an inch. Personal space just isn't a thing with Harry; Louis learned the hard way. The Alpha gives him a look. “You've spent the last year in the company of werewolves, experienced us at our worst, and you're afraid of my mother?”
Louis bites his lip and looks at the ceiling, purposely not looking down like he should with the Alpha. Harry smirks at this, like it's infinitely amusing. Louis never understood this, how an Alpha like Harry could find his unwillingness to submit so entertaining one second, and be infuriated by it the next.
“Mums are scarier than you.” Louis sniffs, shoving his coat at Harry and walking into the next room. He feels Harry's glare following him and pretends he doesn't, as usual.
Louis finds most of the pack in the living room, along with two women he's never seen before. He freezes outside the room, praying to God his heart doesn't give him away again. Rosie's at his side then, leading him in and greeting the two women. He watches, biting the inside of his cheek and mentally beating the crap out of himself for being such a big baby about this.
Louis startles and almost faceplants when he feels Harry behind him.
Harry snatches the back of his shirt before he can tumble over the back of the sofa and rights him so fast his head spins. Without thinking he reaches back and slaps Harry's hands away. “You need a bloody bell.” He mutters in response to Harry's glare.
A snort makes him stiffen. Shit. He knows he's not supposed to show disrespect in front of other packs. Louis isn't sure Harry's mum and sister count, but he's scared regardless. Harry is going to nail him to the ceiling when he gets him alone.
“Mum, Gemma,” Harry nods. “You've met my newest pack members, Oliver, Leah and Zayn. This one's with him.” He nods at Zayn.
“This one has a name.” Louis snaps, again without thinking. He shrinks back a little at the look it gets him.
“Yeah. Mum, Gem, this is Big Mouth.” Harry deadpans.
Louis narrows his eyes. “Really? I thought it was Fuc-”
Zayn scrambles over to them then, and yanks Louis away before his mouth gets him ripped in half. “This is Louis.” Zayn introduces quietly, bowing his head out of respect for the two Betas.
When Louis pries his angry eyes away from Harry to look at them, he's met with some kind of amusement. Anne, older, yet just as beautiful as any of the young females in the pack, holds out her hand to him, her eyes filled with some emotion he can't quite put his finger on. She glances at her son, then back at Louis as he takes her hand. The other, Gemma, seems to be on the verge of a hysterical laughing fit.
“It's lovely to meet you, Louis.” Anne smiles warmly and squeezes his hand.
Louis is confused for a moment at the look, but nods and returns the smile the best he can, unsure what to say. God, he's such a dweeb. “It's nice to meet you as well.” He says quietly.
Gemma smiles widely, taking his hand next. “Anyone who knocks my brat brother down a peg or two is cool in my books.”
He smiles at her before sitting next to Zayn and Liam on the sofa. Rosie is just about to sit when Harry bulls her out of the way and takes the seat on Louis' other side, avoiding his mum and sister's looks.
Louis isn't sure what sort of tension he's currently in the middle of, but he knows it's going to be a long night.