Stef’s POV
Louis just proposed! No he didn’t, he just said that he would. Ok, that’s like saying he proposed. But he did not propose. But he did!
Obviously, I had been making weird facial expressions as I sussed this out with myself, because Sarah was just looking at me weirdly, trying to keep a straight face. I glared at her and in my head was teasing her, because honestly, two things: firstly, who wouldn’t want to be proposed to by Louis Tomlinson, and second, Josh hasn’t spoken to her about marriage or anything like that, or maybe... no. No no. No no no. She would have told me*. Anyway, she can be as jealous as she likes, Louis and I are getting married. We got off the train, west of London and made our way to the rock climbing place.
“So when’s the wedding? When do I save the date?” Wardy asked, skipping along as we walked to the entrance of the place.
Louis shrugged and looked at me. “When do you want it to be angel?” He asked.
“I can’t tell you that when you haven’t even proposed.” I replied. I’ve got him there.
“True. But surely you’ve got some place in mind that you’d want to have the wedding. Beach maybe?” He suggested.
I rolled my eyes. “Where, or when?”
“Where first.” He responded.
I nodded. “Then yes, a beach.”
“Sorry to break up the wedding preparations, but we’re here already if you didn’t notice and we’re to climb. Talk later.” Cass informed.
After we were strapped up, we began the climb, which wasn’t too challenging, and maybe a maximum of twenty meters at its highest point. The lower sections where you didn’t need gear, were less than eight meters off the ground and could be climbed on as long as they were supervised. But the higher climbs had all the safety gear that could be used and had to have one person as the spotter while the other does the climb.
Sarah, Wardy, Cass and Liam all went for the low climb while the rest of us got geared up. We were pared up, I was the spotter first for Louis (predictable), Harry for Amelia, Maryanne for Zayn and Josh for Niall. Pretty much, you just had to take more rope as they climbed, and give more rope as you set them down.
Cassie’s POV
We raced over to the low climb. Sarah was the first one on the wall and pretty much being a monkey. She has a tendency to climb any tree she sees, so this was like natural for her. Wardy was next, she started in heading towards the highest part of the low wall, I on the other hand walked over to the semi-circular part of the climb, where it went right over my head and met on the - it was pretty much an upside down half-pipe(A/N: that was very hard to explain, so if you don’t know what a half-pipe is...shame, google it. Otherwise, if you do know it, congratulations!). Liam went to the middle section of the low wall climbing and started his ascent on the whole pipe.
Now, me, being me, I know what I can and can’t do. So as I have a fair idea of what I’m capable of here, I started climbing the left side of the half-pipe. It was pretty easy, until I got to the middle. One: I don’t have access to the Earth’s switch for anti-gravity, two: it’s not easy to hold body weight with a minimum of two points of contact on the wall/roof. Of course, Sarah just comes up beside me as if it were nothing, crawling along the roof like a spider, then down the other side, Wardy not too far behind, but much slower, but then again, Sarah’s just generally fast.
Anyway, I’m still stuck here hanging from two hands and one foot (the other’s just casually hanging there) and my head is starting to hurt but I can’t move. I don’t want to ask for help, because then that would infer that I need it, when I don’t, but I’m starting to get worried now. What happens next? I slowly but surely being pulled towards the ground and I’m feeling my grip starting to slip.
I landed on my butt on the floor. Sarah and Wardy are giggling at my slip up, or should I say slip down... no? So I just sighed, stood up and went over to the big climb, waiting for my turn.
Stef’s POV
It wasn’t difficult to gently pull the rope as Louis moved higher, but might I say what a fine ass he has, I would so tap that - wait what? Rational thoughts, Stef, rational thoughts. But seriously: who’s to say what is rational? I mean, he...he...his...he’s very attractive... is that rational? It should be.
“Ok, Stef, can you let me down now?” Louis asked, pulling me out of my thoughts and I realised that he’d made it to the top in the meantime.
“Yup.” I replied, letting off a bit of the rope as he began his descent down the wall.
Once he was at the bottom, We swapped and I started climbing. “Three points of contact,” I reminded myself as I grabbed onto the next rock. I looked down at my feet deciding the best possible stop to place them. I pulled my foot up to about the height of my knee and as I went to move up, I slipped. “Shit.” I cursed, backing up and replacing my foot on one of the previous rocks. I looked back over my shoulder and Louis was just shaking his head at me. Damn it, he heard that. Or maybe he didn’t, because I slipped, he’d definitely seen it, but maybe he didn’t hear me.
Cassie’s POV
Zayn called me over after he realised that I’d been waiting. “Look, I don’t really want to climb, do you wanna go next or something?” He questioned.
I shrugged my shoulders and looked up at Maryanne who was about three quarters of the way up the wall. “Sure.” I took a seat next to him and watched and waited patiently. While I was waiting (and watching), I happened to look over right when Stef slipped and swore. She looked back at all of us, particularly Louis, sheepishly, and then continued to climb.
Once Maryanne had made it all the way to the top, Zayn lowered her down and then I put on a harness and began climbing. This wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be, and to be honest, I didn’t think it was going to be that hard anyway. “Ok, I got this...” Next thing I knew, I was holding on by one hand, then nothing. But the ropes didn’t hold me up. I remember falling and falling, and then thud.
I would be lying to say that I wasn’t scared or that my eyes were open the whole time. “Cass, you open your eyes now.” Zayn’s voice was rather comforting, too comforting. Why wasn’t he worried about the fact that I’d just fallen from about half way up the wall. “Cass.” He said yet again. I heard him chuckle and then he shook my lightly, wait, since when was he holding me.
I opened my eyes and as I pieced together what had happened, I realised that he’d caught me, right before I’d hit the ground. “W-w-what happened?” I asked, a little shaken up.
“You slipped, same as Stef, except you completely let go,” Zayn explained. I nodded for him to also explain why the ropes hadn’t caught me. “But I don’t know why the ropes hadn’t caught you.” He looked back and I saw that the ropes had had the same ration of slack as all the others while they were all still climbing. “Are you alright?” He asked gently.
“I’m just...” I couldn’t find the right words.
“Traumatized?” Sarah asked, walking over to where we were.
I nodded. “Yeah, that.”
“I’m not surprised. You should have something to drink, it’ll help.” Sarah explained.
“Yeah,” Zayn agreed. “Like, a glass of water or something?” He asked. Sarah nodded. “Ok, well... let’s go and get you one. Can you walk?”
“I think I can.” I replied, shakily I stood, and by that time, to of the workers came overt o investigate the problem. They took off my harness and helped my over to one of the side tables, bringing my a glass of water. If the circumstances had been better, I would have called this decent service (as they were supplying all of this free of charge), but then again, I had just fallen a whole five meters to the ground so... it wasn’t decent service.
Stef’s POV
I’d only seen Cass land, luckily Zayn caught her. Oh dear, if my harness hadn’t worked the same thing probably would have happened to me. Well aren’t I lucky that it didn’t.
We’d gone out for lunch to a cafe, luckily pre-booked so there was next to no one there. When we got back on the train, it was empty as nobody goes to and from the city in the middle of the day. But the train ride took forever, I swear. Maybe it was because we had to do the whole west side of the city first, when if we’d taken the other train it would have taken less than half an hour. But we didn’t.
So, when we got back, we said good-bye to Amelia for the day, and she went back to wherever she was staying, and we sat around not doing much.
“Do you guys wanna do something?” Niall asked.
“I think that I’m speaking for all of us when I say: I’m exhausted.” Sarah explained. There was a chorus of “yes” following that.
“But doing nothing is so boring.” Niall whined.
*Interpret this your own way, as I have plotted out many.