The Charming Type

It didn’t take long for the five of them to discover who could always be counted on to get his own way. At first it irritated the others as he consistently manipulated the situations they found themselves in to his own benefit, until they realised that his rather surprising ability could be applied to the group as a whole, and then there wasn’t anyone who could say no to them. When asked who the most charming member of their fivesome was, the finger was always pointed to Harry or Liam, because well, Louis could hardly be their secret charmer if everyone knew, now could he?

Harry had charm, that much was obvious – the flirting and the dimples meant he couldn’t have anything less. The problem was, of course, that flattery and flirtation didn’t get him anywhere with the half of the population who didn’t swoon when he smiled at them.

The logic they employed with Liam was that he had the whole maturity thing going for him. However, his insistence that between them they were responsible enough to look after a puppy while in The X-Factor house was anything but convincing with Louis two metres away and whispering to Zayn about attaching a microphone to its collar and using it to spy on the other contestants.

There was no doubt that while Zayn and Niall could be charming, they failed to pick people who could be charmed by an easy smile or an earnest expression. If they mastered that, their success rate would increase dramatically. As it was, Zayn’s attempts at innocence fell just on the side of suspicious and Niall gave the impression that something distinctly odd was going on.

And Louis, well, Louis talked. The others couldn’t figure out how he did it, how within five minutes of opening his mouth whoever he was speaking to was smiling and nodding along in agreement. Somehow, without ever actually getting close to anything so much as resembling a point, Louis managed to come away from every conversation with exactly what he wanted.

They first noticed the real world usage of his hitherto hidden talent during The X-Factor when Louis convinced the stylist that blue crushed velvet suits simply did not belong on teenage boys even if it was a Halloween theme and besides, vampires are so much cooler, don’t you think? From then on, if One Direction really wanted something, it was a given that Louis would be the one to get it for them.

That’s not to say that the other boys were immune to Louis’ charm. If anything, they were the most prone to falling victim to it, even when they knew what he was doing. It happened more times than they wanted to admit: one minute they were having a casual conversation and the next they’d agreed to do a grocery run for him, or do his laundry – and they were just the tamer outcomes.

Take Niall, for instance. He’d tell anyone who asked that he’d spent a solid two weeks doing whatever Louis asked of him because he’d lost a bet. In actuality they’d been watching an old black and white movie one night and Louis had wondered aloud what it would have been like to live in a time when servants were just as common as mobile phones were today. Niall would swear on pain of death that the following conversation had not ended with him willingly offering up his services. (“Geez, Lou, you want a servant all you gotta do is ask. ‘S long as you pay me.”) While he enjoyed knowing Niall had become his personal servant simply because he’d been curious, Louis went along with the lost bet story to save him the embarrassment. He wasn’t completely full of himself, after all.

Louis would also quite happily take credit for the recent changes in Zayn and Liam’s hairstyles, though he’d be the first to admit that he hadn’t so much as charmed them as tried to see how much he could get away with.

It had been fairly straightforward with Liam; suggest he change something after the break up with Danielle and casually mention that in chick flicks girls always seemed to do something drastic with their hair. From there it was a simple matter to increase the amount of suggestion in his voice every time the subject came up. By the time Liam finally shaved his head, Louis was of half a mind to pick up the kitchen scissors and give him a haircut himself.

Zayn had been a lot more open to change and far easier to persuade. A stroke of genius had seen Louis getting Perrie onside first before he attempted to convince Zayn to dye a lock of his hair blonde – “just to accentuate the quiff.” Perrie needed to work on her subtlety, but within a week they’d succeeded and Zayn was trying to act as though he didn’t care if the others liked his new look or not.

What he’d accidently charmed Harry into doing, however, was quite a bit more permanent. It started with a black marker, boredom and the (mostly) bare expanse of Harry’s skin. The simple ‘Hi’ written on Harry’s arm had ended with both of them covered in scribbles. Staring at the vaguely crude stick figures Harry had drawn on his leg, Louis announced he was never showering again.

"Your feet already smell, Lou. Why make the rest of you stink as well?" Harry asked, his eyebrows raised in confusion.

Louis pretended to be offended. "I can't keep something from my best friend? What if you get famous and forget me?"

Harry laughed and threw his pen at him. "Why am I friends with you again?"

Laughter aside, Harry had found himself oddly touched by Louis’ ridiculous sentiment and a few days later, before the ink could fade from his skin, made it permanent. The smug grin that spread across Louis’ face when he realised why was something Harry never wanted to see again.

It was just something he’d always done, always known how to do. The right words, a certain expression at precisely the right moment and people just said yes to him. His teachers had called it cheek and his mother had agreed. He wasn’t sure when it had developed into something more compelling, but when it came down to it; Louis was used to getting his own way, even if it was unintentionally.