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Louis had just arrived home and was looking forward to a nice, relaxing night. It had been a long week and he wasn't exactly thrilled that he still had one more day in the office before a couple of days off, but at least he'd gotten off on time today. He would take what he could get.
He dropped his laptop bag and was hanging up his jacket, getting ready to remove his shoes and really get comfortable when he heard a crash and a scream coming from next door.
The flats here weren't the greatest, and Greg was a bit of clumsy giant and a generally noisy neighbor at the best of times, but Louis had gotten used to his sounds. The quick rhythm of particularly loud thumbs that generally indicated he had tripped over a rug again, a bang sounding quickly followed by what Louis assumed was the muffled sound of a string of curses. That he was all to be expected.
A scream and a crash, however, was an indicator that the man might actually need some help. While he and Greg weren't close friends or anything, Louis did like to think of them as more than just acquaintances, and he was never one who would leave someone in a lurch. So he finished hanging his jacket and turned around to walk back out the door he'd only just come through.
He heard some more shouting, though he still couldn't quite make out the words, as he walked up to Greg's door. Hesitating until there seemed to be a break in his yelling, Louis quickly knocked in the hopes that Greg would actually hear him.
"Thank god!" Greg called out, even louder than he had been before, so Louis could actually understand what he'd said. "Please, for the love of good dogs everywhere, open the door!"
"Good dogs everywhere?" Louis asked as he opened the door. "The fuck are you on about?"
It was then he found Greg. Standing on a chair in the middle of his kitchen, holding one of those hand brooms Louis was pretty sure he'd never actually seen in a shop. He didn't know they were still sold anywhere, considering the last time he'd even seen one in action was when he was staying at his nan's house when he was probably still in nursery school.
"I never considered there to be a need for you to stand on a chair, considering your ridiculous height as it is. Can't you dust for cobwebs easily enough without one?" he asked, folding his arms. "You're in danger of hitting your head on the ceiling, as it is. And where do you even find a tiny stickless broom like that anymore? Do they still sell them in stores?"
"I'm not up here to dust, Louis," Greg practically shrieked. "Oh my god, there it is again! Fucking hell!"
It was then that Greg launched the handheld broom towards the wall, definitely missing the tiny shadowy creature darting through the room.
"Oh my god, you've got mice?"
Greg's wild eyes turned towards Louis. "Don't you fucking dare, Tomlinson. Do not say mice, as if there are more! As far as I know, there's only the one! One is bad enough! Do not go and thrust more upon me!"
Louis smirked at him a bit in amusement. "I swear, you're a combination of an elephant and a Victorian maiden in need of rescuing, going on like that. You do realize you're substantially larger than he is, right? There's a lot more you can do to him than he can do to you."
"Size does not matter, and don't you dare go making penis jokes right now! I know how your mind works and I don't need you laughing about that too!"
Louis held his hands up and conceded, because he wasn't wrong. He had been about to make a penis joke.
"That mouse can still carry enough diseases to take down Europe, or at the very least England!"
"Doesn't mean you have to touch it," Louis pointed out, "and if you do, just wash your hands thoroughly afterwards. We don't have to worry about the bubonic plague, lad. We do have modern medicine and cleanliness standards these days that they were pretty heavily lacking in the 1300s."
Greg leveled him with a glare. "There is a tiny creature I did not invite inside currently living here, and I am not talking about you."
"Oi!" Louis cried, but he also laughed a little. He supposed he'd gone off at Greg enough about his height, it was only fair for him to strike back. Especially considering he was around twice Louis' height whilst on that chair.
"That tiny creature needs to leave. I already told it that it would not die as long as it left the premises, but it continues to just run about! How did it get in here in the first place? I need to find out and take care of it so this doesn't happen again. Or maybe I'll just burn the building to the ground. That might work better and faster, honestly."
"Not sure that the mouse would keep it's life as you promised, if you did that," Louis pointed out.
"Well the agreement would be null and void at that point, considering it clearly did not vacate the premises as I demanded!" Greg's voice really was incredibly shrill as he spoke longer, and Louis was pretty impressed. He'd never heard Greg's voice go up quite that high.
"Yes, well, perhaps we should consider other options," Louis said, walking in and picking up the little handheld broom and setting it on the counter before hefting himself up beside it. He figured he could at least see the mouse better to keep an eye on it's movements from there.
"If we don't catch it, I'm never going to be able to get down from this chair," Greg lamented. "I'm going to have to live here for the rest of my life. I won't have any way to pay rent or buy food, much less actually eat said food. We will be stuck in this stalemate for the rest of eternity. I'll need to win money somehow, maybe with the lottery or that American company that hands out the big checks with balloons and a lot of fanfare. Not that I'd be able to answer the door, because I'd still be stuck on this fucking chair!"
"Publisher's Clearing House?" Louis asked.
"That's seriously the only thing you got out of that entire soliloquy?" Greg asked, throwing his hands in the air. "Publisher's Clearing House?"
"Isn't it only a soliloquy if the person giving the speech thinks they're alone?" Louis asked, once again changing the subject. "And I haven't heard of Publisher's Clearing House in ages. Are they still doing those checks? And would they even allow you to enter if you're in the UK?"
"Focus, Louis!" Greg wailed. "We need to get rid of the mouse so I don't need to let my fate rest in the generosity of an American company that may or may not allow me to enter their sweepstakes!"
"Yeah, about that," Louis said, continuing to look around to see if he could find the mouse. There hadn't been any movement since Greg had thrown the handheld broom, and Louis personally considered that a good sign, but it did also mean that the mouse could resurface at any moment. "I'd seen a mouse when I first moved in, so I bought a load of traps and made good use of them until I found their entrance point and was able to get it taken care of. Haven't had an issue since."
Greg was looking at him in horror. "You only moved in six months ago."
"Yeah?"
"You're telling me you've known about mice being an issue in this building for six months and you never told me?!"
Louis looked at him, hoping he was showing Greg just how unimpressed he was with his attitude. "You've lived in this building for almost two years, Gregory. If anyone was going to be shocked by the news there are mice here, I certainly didn't think it was going to be you."
Pouting and stomping his feet in a way that made Louis worry that the chair would tip and upset Greg in the process, Greg whined, "Well I am shocked! Beyond shocked! I have never seen a single sign of there being mice here in that entire time, and I have grown to be complacent! Comfortable! This was decidedly a Mouse Free Zone!"
"You live in London, mate," Louis laughed. "Unless you're living in one of the posh new areas, isn't every building a possible mouse zone? It comes with age in buildings like this, innit?"
"I experienced enough mice as a child, I had hoped that was just a phase and I'd gotten past that in my life," Greg said with a sigh.
"Yeah, afraid not."
Greg hummed in agreement.
"So, my dear elephant friend, I am going to go over to mine and—"
"No!" Greg shrieked, arms reaching out towards Louis, despite the fact he was still a couple of feet away, on top of his ridiculous chair. "You can't leave me here alone!"
"Oh my god, listen to everything I'm saying before you go and whinge about it, will you? For fuck's sake," Louis sighed as he hopped off the counter. "I'm going to go back to mine and grab a couple of the extra mouse traps I never got rid of."
Pausing to ensure Greg took in what he'd just said, Louis snorted when Greg blinked and sucked his lips in. He looked like he was a bit ashamed of himself for crying out earlier, and honestly maybe he should be. Louis didn't mind all that much, but Greg had a good five or so years on him on top of his height, and yet he was the one crying over a fucking mouse in his kitchen.
"Yeah, now you see where I was going?" Louis chuckled when Greg rolled his eyes. "So we'll get those set up for you and then we can both escape to mine until you feel safe enough here to come back. Sound like a plan?"
Greg nodded, before asking, "What do we do when the mouse is caught?"
"We'll deal with that when it comes," Louis said. "And perhaps this weekend we can do a deep search for signs mice have been here that you may have missed and see if we can find the entrance point. Once we do that, we can ensure this doesn't happen again. At least not for a while."
"I fucking love you," Greg sighed, his hands clutched to his chest. "My hero!"
"Yeah, yeah," Louis said, waving his hand at the ridiculous oaf as he headed towards the door. If he kept his back to him, maybe Greg wouldn't see his blush.
"I'm serious!" Greg called as he entered the hall. "I'm going to owe you a kiss at the very least for coming to my aid!"
Pausing and keeping the door from closing behind him, Louis smiled over his shoulder. "I'll not turn an offer like that down," he said with a wink.
Greg's eyes felt like they were burning into him as he closed the door.
Well. There's that evening sorted, then.