Archive of Our Own ^beta

Louis wasn’t the best at scaring children. He’d try, but really, well, he probably mostly graduated from Monsters U because his teachers liked him. But this whole making kids laugh thing? Louis is totally on top of that. He bounces through different doors every night, loaded up with funny props and squeaky toys and an entire archive of bad jokes, and he always gets his kids to laugh long and loud enough to fill up his power meters.

He takes pride in the knowledge that he’s never failed, not once, and it’s been months since the last time Niall got to make fun of him for something, uh, unintentional happening (it’s just that kids are loud and parents are quick and Louis has a really long, fluffy tail and these things happen, Niall). So when he goes through the big navy blue door and sees, well, something that’s definitely not a child, he quite understandably kind of panics. And tries to run away. Into the partially closed door.

But when the person-adult-boy...thing? snorts an almost-laugh and Louis finally makes it through the door and runs smack into Zayn, his partner practically shoves him back through the evil door, ranting and mumbling about how quick his power meter filled up, and how they needed more, now, so Louis’d better figure out what he’d done and DO IT AGAIN.

The boy who’d been on the bed is waiting for him this time, armed with a tennis racket and a baseball bat and looking at him like he’s some sort of, well, monster. Louis scurries sideways, ducking and trying to look as fluffy and as not-dangerous as possible, despite the pointy horns and sharp teeth (baseball bats hurt. Louis’ lack of talent in the scaring-kids-realm mostly resulted in a deep understanding of how many toys kids can throw across a room in less than a minute, so...), somehow managing to get closer to the bed and farther away from his lovely safe exit.

The boy sighs and drops his weapons, slumping down against the wall next to his closet door. “You’re real, aren’t you,” he says, voice cracking and sounding altogether too sad for a boy-thing with a room full of toys and sports equipment. Louis nods, creeping close enough to see his quarry more clearly.

“Are you going to eat me?”

It’s not the first time Louis’ heard that question, but never asked with so little inflection. It’s like this boy doesn’t really care if Louis has plans for a boy-shaped late night snack. “No? I mean, you’re bigger than me, I think. Were you planning on eating me?”

“Uh, no.” There’s still no fear in that voice, no real interest in their conversation. And, well, Louis’s never been good with not being the center of attention. Also, there’s been a sad lack of laughter in this conversation, which is just going to make Zayn even more cranky than usual, and then Perrie will totally backlog Louis’ paperwork in revenge. So, laughter. Except.

“Were you crying?” Louis reaches out with a clawed hand, using the softer pads of his fingers to brush at the wetness on the boy’s cheek. The boy flinches back but doesn’t try to run, just swipes his hand harshly across his face, shaking his head violently. He tries to turn his face away, into the darkness, but Louis is a closet monster. His night vision is excellent, thank you.

“Yes, you were. Did I scare you?” Louis does his best scaring face, one that, even before it was supposed to, mostly just made kids laugh. The boy kind of snorts again in response. It sounds thicker this time, maybe because of the crying, but now Louis’ pretty sure he can work a full laugh out of this one. He’s never failed and he doesn’t intend to, not now that he’s gotten this far.

“What’s your name? It’s just, I mean, most of the kids I see have it plastered up the wall or on the door, but you’re kind of big for a kid. Is it a hormone thing? I’ve heard stories about that.” Louis has, but mostly those stories came from Harry, and Harry’s stories are always kind of weird.

“I’m Liam. M’name’s Liam,” the boy says, “and I’m 18, I’m supposed to be this big. You’re just sort of tiny, you know, for a monster,” and really that is just not on. Louis is not tiny. The people around him are just all giant-sized. And besides, he has an awesome tail. Louis just crosses his arms and pouts. The boy giggles, suddenly, looking surprised at himself. Louis can just imagine Zayn jumping for joy on the other side of the door in response.

But really, that’s all the encouragement Louis needs. He throws himself across the few feet separating them and pulls the boy-thing, Liam, into a furry hug. He’s stiff at first, then it’s like all of the tension melts out of him—possibly along with all his bones—and Louis is left wrapped around a sobbing bundle of boy.

It’s Louis’ trick, you see. It’s why his name is up there on the wall right under Sully’s. When all else fails, hugs are magic.

Liam turns into a boy-shaped fountain of words, mumbling his pain into Louis’ fur. He tells his monster all about work, and how singing alone in a dark coffee shop, listening to the jeers and complaints of the regulars, grinds on his nerves. How he comes home to a dark house smelling like stale coffee beans, and how his roommates have managed to find lives and loves without him.

Mostly, he tells Louis about how lonely he’s been, and how sad it is that the only one who seems to care is the monster in his closet.

They stay there, curled up in a comfortably uncomfortable pile on the floor, until Liam falls asleep and Louis hears other people in the house begin to stir. He gently carries his boy over to the bed, tucking him in like Louis’ mom used to do with him and his sisters. He wipes off the tear tracks and drops a gentle kiss to Liam’s forehead, then ducks out the navy blue door and back into his world.

Zayn’s still there, waiting up for Louis and nearly incandescent with glee over how much power a giggle from Louis’ Liam gave them. His skin is glowing, lighting up the dark door room and illuminating the vague form of a yawning Perrie in Zayn’s chair. She gives Louis a glare as she comes through, then ignores him again.

“Tomorrow night. You’re going back there and we’re going to do this again, and we’re going to beat Sully and his Boo (the cheat), and squash Nick and Harry once and for all, and then we’re going to POWER THE WORLD and become superheroes!” Zayn’s bouncing a little, showing more emotion than Louis generally sees from him over several months. But then, he’s always been a little...competitive.

Louis scratches the the fur on his neck and ducks his head, looking at the floor instead of directly into Zayn’s exuberance. “Um. It wasn’t a kid. He was an adult, Zayn, or adult enough. Pretty sure that door’s gonna get shredded.”

Perrie snorts around a yawn, then wanders over to join them. “Right, like we’re going to shred a door that lights up six containers on the power of a giggle? Have you met Paul? No, you’re clear.” She pops Zayn on the head, then taps her watch. “Home, Zayn. Now.”

With a last look at Liam’s blue door, Louis drags himself home, thinking about stale coffee and sad boys.

It doesn’t take long for Louis to figure out why not-child Liam’s door showed up on the floor. Liam has Batman sheets and little glowy stars on his ceiling, and a collection of action figures that rival any he’s seen in the bedrooms of little boys obsessed with robots and army figurines. But Liam is sad, sadder than most of the kids Louis deals with, so he treats him like the kids who are almost too broken to laugh.

There are hugs, and one-act plays, and adventures under the bed and into piles of dirty clothes. They make pillow and sheet forts, and pull toys out of boxes and into their secret clubhouses. Louis rides on Liam’s back, tail wrapped firmly around a strong waist, playing piggyback and fighting imaginary jousters. All of their enemies wear black hats or black armor, and the heroes always save the day.

Most nights, Louis can make Liam laugh enough to fill their quota of containers before midnight, so he’s free to spend the rest of the night making Liam laugh just for himself, because he likes the sound of it.

And maybe Liam’s bigger than Louis’ normal charges, but he loves his hugs just as much, and at the end of the night, Liam drags Louis into the bed and whispers all of his secret thoughts and fears and hopes into the soft fur on Louis’ belly, and Louis pets his hair until he falls asleep. He goes back through the blue door, back to his world.

Sometimes, though, he stays through the night, only creeping out as the first fingers of sunlight creep through Liam’s curtains. Something in him wishes he could stay, wishes he could see Liam’s face first thing in the morning. He wants Liam to see him in the sunlight, see the way the light plays across all of the shades of blue in his fur. Mostly, though, it’s just getting hard to let go.

Liam’s gone one night, then two, then a third and a fourth, and finally Louis watches his door go dark, watches his blue door being taken away into storage and pretends he doesn’t want to cry.

He hears Liam’s laugh in the joyful sounds made by the other children on his rounds, sees his child-like joy in the face of every child who giggles at Louis attempting to juggle footballs with his horns, and pretends he doesn’t miss his friend. He mopes around the building when he’s not actively on the other side of a door, when he doesn’t have to put on a face for his kids. Zayn pokes at him and Niall feeds him, and Harry starts giving him surprise hugs in the hallway, but not even giant yeti Harry can give him a hug warm enough to chase the memory of Liam’s hugs from his fur.

He sees Perrie and Zayn conspiring with Harry and Niall, and normally he’d be curious enough to stalk them (Sneakily. He’s totally sneaky), but he just can’t force himself to try.

Two days later, as he’s leaving work—lunch bag still full of Niall-created goodies—a bright blue arm picks him up and tosses him over a shoulder and he’s being bounced out of the door room and into the dark storage room where lines and lines of abandoned doors wait, hanging in the gloom, for a child to set them off. Sully drops him, suddenly, then bends over to look him in the face and shove him toward a very familiar door.

From behind the big blue monster, he can just see Boo’s very human face peering out at him, little hand waving gleefully. “Boo door! Perrie says boo door!” She scampers off, her harried-looking “Kitty” trundling after her with a single encouraging look back at Louis.

“Right. Boo door,” Louis says to himself. He can totally do this. He’s the bravest, funniest monster in all the land, or so Lottie tells him. He takes a deep breath, then opens the door and ducks in before he can stop himself.

The room hasn’t changed, but it feels darker to Louis, like it’s been abandoned. There’s no one in the bed, and the action figures have been packed up. A box by the bed marked “Goodwill” holds familiar-looking stuffed animals and the heads and limbs of superheroes who’ve seen too many imaginary battles. Louis totally feels their pain. He lets the door close behind him, slumping against it in dejection. Of course, he manages to sit on his tail at the same time, which, really, is just perfect.

He’s whimpering and cuddling his tail, wallowing in his pain, when’s he’s suddenly blinded by the beam of a flashlight. Louis ducks, hiding his face in his tail, until he hears a very familiar giggle and peeks out to see a Liam-shaped figure waiting on the other side of the door. Throwing himself across the floor, he curls himself into his Liam, almost purring with glee. Liam wraps his arms around Louis, pulling him more firmly against his chest.

“M’sorry, I’m sorry, I had to leave, there was an emergency, my mum, she—” he whispers into Louis’ fur, fingers holding on with a kind of desperate force.

Louis’ the one crying this time, tears dampening the thinner fur on his face. “You were gone and then your door was gone and not even Harry hugs like you do,” he babbles, pushing damp fur into Liam’s neck.

They stay like that for what feels like hours, then Liam gets up, lifting Louis with him, and dumps them both into a reassuringly Batman-covered bed. Louis’ eyes drift over to the box by the bed and Liam stops petting his fur. “I just, you weren’t here when I got back and I though maybe. I thought it was time to grow up a little.” Louis just growls in response and buries his face again.

Louis falls asleep without meaning to, and when he wakes up Liam’s looking down at him with a tired grin. He strokes his hand across Louis’ fur, playing in the beams of sunlight coming from the window.

“So, I’ll see you tonight?” Liam’s scratchy morning voice sounds scared and kind of hopeful. Louis nods into his Batman pillow, then unwraps himself from around Liam. He trudges back to the open closet door, then spins around and pulls Liam into a fierce hug before bouncing through to the other side, grabbing a waiting Harry in a Louis-size hug and giving Perrie his best happy, toothy smile. He’ll see Liam again tonight and everything will finally be back to normal.

For the next month or so, things do go back to normal. Louis spends his workdays in Liam’s nights, playing and hugging and curling up with Batman to listen to Liam talk about his day. They haven’t changed much, the torturous day job and the even worse night job, and it seems like their nights together are the only reason Liam gets through his days. He’s talking about moving, about maybe trying a new city or a new job, and Louis stays quiet except to reassure him that he’ll always find Liam, no matter where he goes or what he’s doing.

Louis is plotting, though, and if Liam knew him like Zayn did, or even like suspicious Perrie in the front office, he’d know enough to be a little scared. He’s been talking to Paul, his supervisor, who Louis knows has a soft, squishy heart deep inside his thick scales, making plans and figuring out ways around rules.

When he goes to Liam that night, his boy just kind of collapses on top of him. Another bad day in a long line of awful days, and he’s just done. Louis lets him stay, just for a minute or two, then he pulls Liam up.

“Right. Time to go,” he says, and he pushes Liam through his blue door and into another world.

Louis has never seen a human—child or accidental adult—with eyes as big as Liam’s are right now. They made it out of the building, surrounded by familiar monsters and the outline of a giant scaled Paul watching from the shadows, and now they’re wandering around Louis’ world and Liam hasn’t said a word in like an hour and like half of Monstropolis is staring at them and Louis maybe starting to freak out a little bit.

Liam doesn’t even seem to notice the staring, though. Mostly he’s looking at the cars and the lights and all of the things he knows are powered by the magic of children’s laughter. He’s got a stupidly big grin on his face and doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to the flock of slightly less terrifying but still alarmingly yellow uniformed cleaners not-so-subtly stalking their every move. Louis keeps his eye on them, but they mostly just seem kind of...curious.

And Louis gets that, really. The only human most of his people have seen—the ones who didn’t/don’t scare/entertain kids, anyway—is Boo, and she’s still kind of tiny and non-threatening. Liam’s big, bigger than Louis, and well. Adult humans are the bogeymen Monstropolis’ mothers scare their children with at night.

The only sign Liam gives that he’s maybe a little nervous about being a lone human in a world full of monsters is his slightly sweaty hand reaching down to hold Louis’.

They make it almost to Louis and Zayn’s house unscathed, but then Liam lets go of his hand and darts across a busy street and Louis almost has a panic attack (not that he knows what one would feel like, but he’s worked in the same building as Mike for years, so it’s a thing he’s seen).

Liam reaches the other side and Louis starts to breathe again, and then he physically cannot stop himself from rolling his eyes when he sees Liam helping an older woman across the street. Her tentacles make it hard for him to hold her hand, but Liam makes a gallant show out of blocking traffic as she crosses. She gives him a shockingly purple apple and pats his head with a tentacle in reward, then trundles off toward the corner shop.

“You are ridiculous, do you know that?” Louis asks, then grabs Liam’s hand again and starts heading back in the right direction. They finally make it to Louis’ front door, and he pushes Liam inside before he can save Boo from a tree or run into a burning building or something.

The flat is weirdly empty, and Louis gets a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach when he sees the lack of Zayn-related objects that usually litter the bits of floorspace not covered by Louis’ dirty laundry or old mismatched socks. The feeling gets worse and worse until he notices a drawing on the fridge showing cartoon versions of Zayn and Perrie with a giant heart and a housekey and, okay, Louis is now safely roommate-free, and Zayn is an awesome partner/ex-roommate who gives great surprise gifts.

Liam’s kind of hesitantly still standing at the front door, toeing at a...possibly slightly sentient old gym sock and looking at Louis suspiciously.

“I failed housekeeping in school. I mean, I failed most scare-related things, too, but also that part where living with someone means cleaning up after things. I failed that part.” Louis would feel embarrassed except that he’s seen in Liam’s closet and under his bed, and really, he has no room to talk, here. “C’mon. It’s late for you and I kidnapped you, so that must be kind of stressful and exhausting. Time for bed.”

Liam follows him into his bedroom, and really, Louis could totally take this opportunity to introduce him to Zayn’s slightly cleaner but also slightly paint-fumey old bedroom, but he really just wants a Liam in his bed. Possibly forever.

Turns out, Liam’s kind of okay with that. And when they fall asleep on top of each other that night (day), limbs intertwined so tightly it's hard to tell where skin stops and fur begins, it's in Louis' bed, far away from Liam's pain and his troubles, in a place filled with people—monsters—who just want him to laugh.