If you would like to read this entire series, please go and add Spurious to your library and read the first chapter before starting this one! 

Spurious is meant to coincide chronologically with Zoo after chapter 29, so if you are interested, please alternate chapters between books between this point on! Sorry for any confusion, it's the way I wanted the stories to be told, and I know it's a bit hectic, but life is like that :)

And here's the next chapter! ENJOY!

... ALSO LOOK AT THE GIF RIGHT NOW LOOK AT IT LOOK AT ALL OF THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE TOGETHER IN THIS CHAPTER AND OMFG LYDIA IS SO LUCKY BECAUSE LOUIS IS LOOKIN FIIOOONEEEE

            Liam’s POV (MORE SURPRISES!)

“Oi Payno! Would you hand me the frame you’re holding?” Louis was standing on top of a stepladder in the middle of his flat, dictating exactly where we all should be, as he decided to randomly become the most famous home decorator in all of London for the day.

            “Seriously mate, what made you want to go all Real Housewives of London on us?” Zayn had abandoned his position next to the box of awards, deciding that it was high time he took a seat on Louis’ skateboard. We were all secretly excited for the throw down that would happen when Louis caught him on it.

            “I’m redecorating, not fucking your wife Zayn.” I couldn’t see Louis’ his face since he was facing the wall with a massive picture of us at the Brits, but you could hear the eye roll in his high pitched voice.

            “It’s basically the same thing, innit?” Zayn chuckled to himself, jumping a bit when an Earth shattering crash came from the direction of the kitchen.

            “Harry Edward Styles I swear to fucking god if you broke my t-“

            “I almost broke my hand, and you’re worried about your Tea mugs?” Harry showed up between the opening that separated the kitchen from the living room, a cheeky smile on his face as he clutched his hand.

            “His priorities are mixed up.” Zayn was clearly Louis’ spokesman today. That, or he was just being a twat.

            “Tommo, your birthday is in two weeks.” I changed the subject before Zayn got his face smashed in, still holding onto the frame that housed all of our photo booth photos from the Movie premiere.

            “Yeah mate! Waddaya want?” Niall ambled down the stairs from Louis and Harry’s rooms, and Harry gave me a look, both of us wondering what the hell he’d been doing up there.

            “Niall, I said go get the damn hammer you wanker!” Louis turned around, placing the giant framed photo of the Fabulous magazine spread on the floor. “Bloody useless you are Liam, hand me the frame!” Louis was in quite the mood today. Harry had described it as him needing a change in his life, which we were all glad to help with. Besides, it was more than amusing to witness Louis Tomlinson actually cleaning.

            “I couldn’t find the hammer! Why the hell do you have so many plaids though?” Niall was sipping on a beer and leaning against the wall. His blonde hair was completely flat like Louis’, and I had no doubts that he was already decently tipsy at two in the afternoon.

            “That’s my room.” Harry informed Niall, giggling a bit when Louis’ snapped back around and glared between the two of them.

            “How the hell am I supposed to hang a damn photo if you lot can’t find a hammer.”

            “No one wants to go in your closet Lou, we’d need a map.” Zayn was cracking up in his place on Louis’ skateboard, and even I couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

            Louis was definitely the one with all the clothes, shoes, and suits. He was quite well dressed though, so maybe the rest of us should also expand our closets, because between the five of us, four of us had been on the worst dressed list at least once.

            “I’ll go get it meself.” Louis’ British was showing the more annoyed he became, stepping off of the ladder to get a really good glare in at all of us, before running upstairs to retrieve the elusive hammer.

            He’d been in a mood of sorts since he’d come back, and like Harry had said, he really did need a big change to distract himself. I don’t think any of us were in the position to give him good relationship advice, considering that the only one who had an actual girlfriend was slightly drunk at the moment.

            It’d been a long time since the rest of us had anything even close to a girlfriend, though. Zayn hadn’t really been with anyone since his girlfriend and him broke it off, and that was before Louis and Camilla even started. I’d been in nothing serious since before the second tour, and Harry was the same, usually keeping more to himself because women couldn’t seem to shake his womanizer image out of their heads.

            Louis however had been with two quite serious girlfriends in the time that it’d taken all our arses to get dumped. In fact, he seemed to be the one with the most ‘game’ if we really had to put a name to it. He was quite charming, and although the nice award didn’t go to him, his personality was quite entertaining.

            Wherever Harry and Louis went, there were always loads of girls, and as usual, loads of trouble. Which was exactly why we were all so worried about Louis. Never had any of us ever seen him act like this. Even when Belle broke up with him, he’d just been quiet for a few days before we had to get back to work. He never complained about it, he just did what he was supposed to do, and eventually he was ok.

            This was different though, and I’d heard it from Louis himself. This time he wasn’t just going to get over it, and that was completely understandable. We were all just incredibly worried about him, but you couldn’t say that to his face or he’d let you know exactly where you could put your head.

            “Get off of my skateboard before I smash your face in,” Louis barked at Zayn. The rest of us cracking up when Zayn let off a big sigh and unwillingly moved to sit on the floor, but not before he flashed Louis the finger.

            “Louis what do you want for your birthday ya tosser!” Niall shouted above the arguing that had ensued about whether or not Zayn was allowed to touch Louis’ skateboard, and I was nearly certain that the hammer was about to be put to a very illegal use.

            “What the hell do you think I want, you bloody well know what I want for my birthday. Now sod off or help you git.” Louis was in a mood again, one of the ones where we spent the majority of the time laughing at how damn easy he was to piss off.

            “Alright, I’ll get you what you want. Do you like your purses in blue or green?” Niall joked, and before any of us could even take a breath, Louis was already off of the step ladder, chasing after Niall with a wicked grin. The pile of photographs at his feet now lay abandoned, where they would probably remain untouched on the floor until he worked up the motivation to continue his quest for ‘change.’

            “Well, who wants to play some fifa?” Harry quipped, grinning from ear to ear when Zayn turned to give him a look.

            Out of all five of us, everyone knew that Zayn and Harry were complete shit at fifa. Harry was probably worse than Zayn, but that wasn’t saying much since Zayn usually couldn’t figure out which player he was until halfway through.

            “Everyone knows you’re shit at fifa, curly.” Louis came strutting back out of the kitchen with an eerily amused gaze, which started a bit of panic in my chest with the Irishman didn’t follow out behind him.

            “I actually have to go.”

            “Louis drained all my beer, where are you going?” Niall reappeared from the kitchen, looking a bit lost without a beer in his hand, but speaking in a slur of words all the same.

            “To a friend’s place.” Harry shrugged, his boots already on as Zayn stood up and looked around at all of us.

            “Probably going to head out too, wanted to see my sister while she was still in the area. I’ll catch you for dinner though, yeah?” Zayn spoke in strange sentences sometimes, and it took us all a bit longer to decode that one, but before we knew it, everyone was gone.

            Harry left first, and then Zayn got halfway through the door before Niall came running at him, demanding a ride home since he wasn’t safe for driving. When asked why Niall had to leave, he claimed he needed to find an outfit for tonight, and by that he meant that he hadn’t even begun to unpack his luggage yet.

            Now it was just Louis and I, which was working quite well for me since I’d wanted to have a bit of time with the lad since he’d returned. There were just so many unanswered questions that I had, and I’m sure he wanted to say.

            “You got half the photos hung mate, did you want to finish or we could take a break?” I weighed Louis’ options out for him, since he was quite prone to just flying off the seat of his pants.

            “Hold on a minute Liam.” I hadn’t noticed until then, but Louis was staring at his phone with what looked like a conflicted gaze. His bright eyes were locked on the screen for quite awhile before he finally made a decision and answered it, “Cindy, is everything alright?”

            Cindy? The Cindy? The women who was Lydia’s step in mum?

            “That’s great. She’s doing alright though? No, of course I’m doing fine. Yeah, we have a few lined up. Tell your daughters I say hi. Thank you,” the conversation had lasted no longer than two minutes, but the smile on Louis’ face as he hung up shocked me into silence.

            Louis wasn’t one for giving away free smiles, but this one was one hundred percent genuine. He was happier than he had been in a long time about something, and it was obvious who it had to do with.

            “She’s going.” Was his cryptic answer, his blue eyes crinkling at the sides as he sounded almost giddy.

            “Alright mate, maybe I missed something, but who is she and where is she going?” I couldn’t help but grin with him, even though I had no idea what it was about, Louis’ smiles were just contagious.

            “Lydia, she’s going on the internship.” He said it as though he’d wanted nothing more than for this to happen.

            “Alright Tommo, you’re going to have to explain this one a bit more.” I chuckled, more than a little taken aback by his sheer excitement for her. They’d screamed at each other nearly a week ago, and it wasn’t just a fight that happened and was over with. He’d left the country because of it, and now he was happy for her?

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she was absolutely amazing if she could have this effect on him, but I just couldn’t even understand it. I had no idea how he was so genuinely happy for her after they’d both ripped into each other, and torn their emotions into shreds.

            “Lydia is going on the internship to Central and South Asia. It’s been her entire life, saving this Earth and everything within it is what she lives to do. She’s one of those people that has a purpose in life and knows it better than the rest of us could ever dream to know, but she wasn’t going to take the internship. She didn’t even apply actually, Cindy applied for her and Lydia found out she got accepted one of the first few weeks I was at the Zoo. It was a massive argument for her and Cindy that day, I didn’t think she was even speaking to Cindy when I left-“

            “So she didn’t want to go, but now she’s going? I’m missin’ something.” Louis had migrated back into the kitchen with me, his smaller build leaning over the island in the middle while I boiled a pot of tea –because what was Louis without his tea?

            “Her parents are something like world famous scientists or some shit. They’re basically Ghandi and Jane Goodall in one, and Lydia is their prodigy child. She about to graduate from grad school and she’s a few months younger than me. She is held to the standard that she will be as great, and do as great of things as they’ve done. She wouldn’t admit it openly, but she was afraid of going and then letting people down. Since the snow leopards are also an incredibly endangered species, she also has a huge burden on her shoulders with the information she retrieves from this internship. It’s a huge deal for her, and I knew she wanted to go and she just wouldn’t let herself, but Cindy said she came to her with the idea herself. Do you get what that means Payno?” Louis was speaking quickly, his hands moving animatedly about him as his dark hair flopped into his face.

            “I have no idea what that means Louis, but you swallowed an encyclopedia when you were there.” I teased him, pouring his tea and watching as he frowned at the mug, his bright smile briefly overcome by conflict. “What?” I questioned, wondering when or where his mood had turned sour.

            “I put my milk in first Liam.” Louis responded with the last thing I’d ever thought would come out of his mouth, and quite frankly it made me want to crack up. He was such a drama queen sometimes, the smallest things would piss him off, but when the big drama came he just laughed and brushed it off, gladly taking the blame only to joke about it seconds later. “You’ve known me for, four years.” Louis was still pouting, and I debated smacking him before he sighed and grabbed the milk, pouring it in himself and frowning at the swirls in the dark brown that it made.

            “I don’t exactly study you.” I rolled my eyes, remembering that there was still a story to be told before Louis had gotten his knickers in a twist.

            “Right, studying. So it means that I did something great. When I left she had time to think it through, imagine if we hadn’t have fought? She’d be missing out on perhaps a career changing, and life altering opportunity. She’s going to Asia because she’s a damn genius, not because of her parents. I’m just really happy that she’s going to be able to experience this, it’s clearly something she loves to do and she would die doing it. I just hope that’s not the case though, because she’s quite close to a few problematic countries and that worries me, but Cindy said she’d keep me updated and make sure I knew she was safe.” Louis was speaking more to himself now, still aimlessly stirring his tea as his eyes were locked on the air floating around in his bright kitchen.

            “You like this girl a lot.” I amended, my lips turning up at the edges when Louis just smiled like he knew something I didn’t and nodded. “So what will you do with the information, are you going to find her after she comes back?” I wondered the question that had been on everyone’s mind; would Louis go after her, or was it really the end?

            “She’s not someone who would want me to come running after her the second she came back or anything, she doesn’t even know I know. I think Lydia needs time to herself, and feelings change between two people quite easily. I can’t honestly answer that Liam, I don’t know what will happen, but I won’t be the one to force anything. She’s a strong woman, and no matter what I say, she’ll do what she thinks is best. I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to let her make this decision.” Louis concluded, a bit of sorrow clouding his happy demeanor, but I knew he was speaking from the heart.

            “I don’t think anyone could stop caring about you, Louis, and definitely not her.”

            “Thanks mate, I’m really lucky to have you.” Louis brushed his hair out of his face, his eyes looking contemplating before he announced something that confused me as much as it made me laugh. “Let’s go get a tattoo.”

            So in the middle of the rainy London day, Louis and I got dressed for dinner and headed out in search of a parlor while he spoke of the great times he’d had, and I listened intently. Learning much more of his curious heart, and deciding that if she never spoke to him again, then I was just going to have to make her see the light.

            Louis had a large heart that was frequently targeted, but if you had enough sass and charm to make that sort of a mark on it in two months, then you deserved every bit of him.

            Cassandra’s POV (… oh c’mon, who doesn’t like Cass? She’s adorable.)

            “You can’t convince me that you don’t still care about him!” I was doing my favorite thing in the world; annoying Lydia.

            Now this art was not easy-

No, that was a lie.

Annoying Lydia was easier than annoying Louis, which was actually really fun as well, but annoying Lydia was also an art. For you had to find the one thing she didn’t want you to do, and continue to do it until she literally dragged you by your hair out of her space, and then you waited a few minutes, and did it again.

            “Why the hell are you still talking?” Lydia grumbled, she’d been sitting in the middle of the living room with stacks of clothes for almost the entire day –and it was ten at night. Packing was clearly harder than David’s dick when he saw her, because Lydia could not for the life of her decide what she was going to bring on her damn internship.

            “Y’know, I never realized it before, but I didn’t know what the floor of your room looked like until now.” Josh waltzed out of Lydia’s room with a laundry basket full of her shoes. A piece of pita bread hanging out of mouth as Lydia fell back onto the carpet and groaned, pulling on her huge hair in frustration.

            “What the fuck do you wear in a tree all day?” She whined, ignoring me once again while I continued to throw her underwear across various lamps and statues in the room.

            “Are you trying to impress someone?” Josh snorted, trying to sidestep her pile and not paying any attention when he landed his big foot on the stack of clothes she had decided to take, knocking the entire fortress right over.

            “Josh those were already folded!” Lydia ignored the question, freaking out instead, and scrambling to keep the few survivors from falling back into the giant pile of clothes that she had yet to decide from.

            “You’re bringing his shirt!” I screeched, jumping up from my position standing on top of the counter to run over and grab the familiar t-shirt, before she could push it back into the pile.

            “I am not bringing it.” Lydia mumbled, pushing her ridiculous curls out of her eyesight with both hands as she searched the room for me.

            “This is his shirt, and it was in the I am taking it to Asia to snuggle with pile!” I teased her, showing Josh the printed Pink Floyd shirt that Louis had worn on more than one occasion. “How did you even get this?” I grinned, pushing her buttons even further when I held it up to my face and breathed in a nice whiff of his incredibly expensive cologne, and something that smelled a lot like the outdoors.

            “Put it down!” Lydia shouted, standing up and frowning when she realized that she had barricaded herself in.

            “Tell me how you got it!” I giggled, and Josh nodded his head in support, even looking away from the TV to watch the show in front of him.

            “That night I slept over.” She snapped, and I stayed true to my word, letting the shirt drop on top of her head so she could hide it in her suitcase when I wasn’t looking.

            “Wasn’t so hard, was it?” I smirked, going to high five Josh and nearly falling over when he abruptly moved away from me to grab the remote and turn the TV up.

            The One Direction boys have been spotted out together for the first time since they all went their separate ways, and you know what that means ladies! The boys are still making music, and get this, two of the five were seen leaving a tattoo parlor in central London right before they joined the other three!

            The woman on the screen was that host from E! news that sort of resembled Victoria Beckham’s love child with a Chihuahua.

            “Can we please not watch this?” Lydia pleaded, but despite her words, she had taken a seat in her pile once more, and was watching the screen quite closely.

            “Who do you think got the tattoos?” Josh wondered as though it were the biggest mystery of the century, his long and lanky body taking up most of the couch that Lydia refused to sit on ever since Louis had gotten a bit physical with our violet-eyed friend on it.

            “Why does it have to go to commercial?” Lydia frowned, her green eyes studying a Viagra commercial with distaste.

            “See, you do want to watch it.” I grinned, we had been trying to convince her that she would never be able to let him go completely, but Lydia had been just as stubborn –if not more than usual- and would not be swayed.

            Her excuses were everything but the actual answer that we wanted to hear, and although we both knew –hell, the whole world knew- that they were a serious case of the power couple, Lydia just wouldn’t hear it. 

            Half of me just thought she was trying to be strong and ignore the rumors, tweets, and comments that were aimed at her every day since he’d left, but the bigger part of me knew that she believed it was over. He hadn’t tried to contact her, and she knew, that she wasn’t in the place to contact him.

            I had told her multiple times that she needed to settle her issues and he needed to settle his before anything could happen between them, but Lydia was unwavering. She cared about him so much that it physically hurt me to hear her crying at night, but this internship was the right thing.

            She’d get away from the people that stood outside our building, waiting for a picture or even another angry comment from her. There would be none of that, none of the drama, rumors, or even Wi-Fi for her to dare to check any social media.

            When she came back this would all be over, and even if it wasn’t mean to be over, it was what she needed for right now. He never wanted this to happen, it was obvious in the way he looked at her or chased her around the apartment with a cooked spaghetti noodle. Louis was so normal when he was with her, and I think they both forgot about his life until it slapped them both in the face. That was what ended them, not anything he did or anything Lydia said, but what came from the thousands of people who were only there to judge them.

            “Harry probably got it!” Josh pulled me out of my though process, and I almost cracked up when I realized that the two blondes were arguing over the ‘brain dead talk show’ as Lydia liked to call it.

            “Well then who’s the other one! Harry’s the blonde one, right?” Lydia argued right back, but ended up just sending Josh and I into a fit of giggles.

            I would never understand how she couldn’t tell the two apart, for someone who was so smart, she should know by now

            “That’s Niall! Harry’s the curly haired one, Louis’ best friend!” Josh explained, stumbling a bit when he mentioned his name. We’d been tiptoeing around the floppy haired brunette for quite awhile, and it was definitely hard not to mention him around Lydia. She, however, didn’t pay much attention when we did, just sort of dropped the subject and went back to whatever mind-numbingly boring article she was reading about the endangerment of the dodo bird.

            So, speaking of the One Direction boys, getting tattoos isn’t the only thing they’ve been up to.

            Josh and Lydia stopped arguing just as soon as the show came back on, and I noticed how she held his shirt a little tighter in her hands. Unable, or unwilling to pack it away quite yet.

            Now can you guess which pair went out before meeting up with the rest of the boys, and came to dinner with some new ink?

            The woman questioned her invisible audience, and Josh jumped on the chance.

            “It was Harry and Zayn.” He announced, completely confident in his answer, and I nodded in agreement before Lydia put in her opinion.

            “It was Louis and one of the others.” She answered without even turning her head from the TV, completely focused on whether or not the man she’d spent the last two months with would make an appearance.

            Now if you guessed Liam and Louis than you are completely correct!

            “I told you!” Lydia shouted in joy, fist pumping the air before cutting herself off to hear the rest of the story.

            The brunette duo composed of two fifths of One Direction was out today in central London. Both remained unspotted until after they left the parlor, heading over to one of London’s many restaurants for a nice sit down with their remaining band mates.

            Now I know, you all want to know what it is, but first let’s talk about these boys and this reunion! We haven’t seen the fantastic five together in nearly three months, and then they appear out of nowhere? Weird isn’t it? It seems as though there’s more to this story that we are all dying to know!

            Unfortunately however, the tattoos were wrapped up. All we can say for now is to watch out for the wrists on those two, because some new ink will be the next thing appearing!

            But, we all know you ladies want to see and hear a bit more from your favorite Brits, so here’s an exclusive clip of all five of them leaving dinner earlier today.

            Josh and I both looked at Lydia as we were hearing this, wondering whether or not it was time to turn the channel.

            “Leave it.” Lydia answered us without even having to look, still focused on the TV.

            The flashes of hundreds of cameras angled on the five men lit up the Television as shouts of random, and implausible questions fired through the air.

            The person behind the camera was focused on the doors, zooming in at dizzying rates as the noise level grew and Zayn was the first to step foot out of the restaurant, causing a frenzy that was as loud as it was dangerous.

            Louis emerged from the doors right after Harry and Niall, and even I inhaled sharply when his face made an appearance.

            Everything about him looked a bit forced, he wasn’t smiling, but his head was farther down than the others. Angled towards the ground as a pap grabbed the side of his jean jacket and pulled him a bit before being shook off by Harry.

            It wasn’t the fact that he looked absolutely incredible even from a recording, but how he was no longer being the protective one like he was so well known for. Now it was Liam standing behind him, one hand wrapped on his shoulder while he gave the paps pointed looks, and made sure no one got too close to Louis. Harry was doing the same, standing quite literally directly in front of Louis the entire time, to the point where we only saw his blue eyes lock with the camera twice in the entire minute and a half of video.

            “That’s enough of that.” Josh said firmly, turning the channel to HGTV and making a squinty face at Lydia as though he were debating even trying to talk to her about it.

            “He looked nice.” Lydia stated, already back to rifling through countless pairs of shoes as she closed the topic.

            Again, it was painful to watch, but my heart went out for Louis as well, because despite the fact that Lydia couldn’t see it, and wouldn’t listen to anyone who was to tell her, he was really hurting on the inside. I just hoped that part of him knew, that whatever it was, I would fight until the end of my roommate’s lease to make sure they saw it through, because I believed in them.

            I believed whole-heartedly in the messy blonde who had too many curls. The heartbroken girl who was debating whether or not to take his beloved red beanie with her to Asia, while somewhere in this world, Louis was thinking of her all the same, and I just hoped that she’d left him a little piece of her to hold onto until they could find their way back.

A/N

... if you haven't seen that gif LOOK AT IT NOW... and leave me a comment or a vote or just tell me how you feel about it... because it fucks me up... mmmmf those boyz

The boys are back! And they are too cute :) got a few one-liners in... and Daddy Direction with Mischief Direction ;)

PLUS CASSANDRA CRACKS ME UP!!!!!!

Ugh I just feel for Lydia and Louis, but how about that internship?!?! 

And Louis pouting over his tea... idiot :)

ALSO NEW IN THE ONE DIRECTION WORLD

Poor Harry was sick today in Manchester, so Louis was a good little friend and sang his parts with Liam :) but awwww poor kid! Meanwhile, Zouis high video is quickly becoming my most played on youtube... what a bunch of idiots :) So cute though.

ANYWAYS! Hope you enjoyed the more lighthearted side after a few heavy chapters, and we'll see where it goes from here, yea? :)

-Hannah

P.S. LOOK AT THE GIF