Chapter Text
Harry and Louis have been together 4 years, going on 5, when Louis starts finding stickies strategically placed around their flat. It’s been quite a while - a good year or two - since Harry has given him a neatly written pick-up line in the form of a bad pun, so Louis certainly finds it a bit odd when he starts coming across his boyfriend’s little notes rather consistently one week.
He finds the first note on his way out the door for work, as he’s picking up the breakfast snack that Harry’s left for him (like he does every day). “I’m bananas about you. Let’s never split,” the note says, and at first, Louis is taken aback. A moment later, though, he snorts, carefully removes the note from his banana, and tucks it into his coat pocket. He’ll have to add it to the collection, he thinks; he still has each and every note Harry has written for him throughout the years, of course he does, because they’re a very big part of the reason he’d gotten together with his curly boyfriend in the first place.
Things continue that way for a couple of days, and for the most part, Louis doesn’t think much of it - he loves Harry’s quirky notes just the same as he’d loved them four years ago, and it brings a happy nostalgia every time he finds one of them stuck some odd place in their flat.
With breakfast the next morning: “You’re my butter half.”
The next day, when Louis picks up a latte from Harry on his way to work: “Words cannot espresso how much I love you.”
The following evening as they’re getting ready to tuck up for the night: “I’ll be the ice-cream if you’ll be my big spoon.”
Each and every one of the notes makes Louis smile a little bit brighter, and by the fifth day of the week, he’s looking forward to finding Harry’s next sticky. The lad always leaves them where he knows Louis will find them, so he’s not the least bit worried. He falls asleep with a smile on his face and his nose tucked into Harry’s curls Friday night, and he couldn’t be happier.
He finds the next note stuck to the screen of the telly on Saturday morning, when he’s got the whole day to lounge about and surf Netflix while Harry is at work. And while he has to marvel at how well his boyfriend knows him, he’s got to admit he finds this one a bit odd.
“I know you’ve already got a name, but is it alright if I call you mine?”
He doesn’t quite understand it, if he’s honest - he’s been unapologetically Harry’s for the past 4 1/2 years. Is his curly beau having doubts? Is that what this is all about? He spends half the day worrying over it, and when Harry comes home from work he makes absolutely sure he wraps the boy in a tight, tight hug and presses kisses to every visible inch of his skin. He whispers the phrase “always yours” into Harry’s skin until he’s sure it’s made itself at home in the silly dimple in his boy’s cheek, and in the creases in his palms, and in the small space at the corner of his jaw, where his hair has just begun to curl again after he’d cut it short a year or two ago. If he was able, he’d etch the phrase into Harry’s skin, right above his butterfly tattoo, but he’s no tattoo artist. He settles for outlining the ink with love bites instead.
Nothing seems amiss later in the evening, when all is said and done and Harry has snuggled into Louis’s arms. He wraps himself around Louis just like he has every night since they moved in together, and he’s smiling as brightly as ever as Louis kisses his forehead and brushes his now-sweat-matted curls back from his face. The evening ends perfectly, and Louis thinks everything is probably alright, now.
The next note he finds seems to say as much, too - there isn’t anything worrisome about it, and when Louis finds it stuck next to his toothbrush the next morning, he doesn’t stop smiling for hours; not even when he gets into work, and Nick gives him shit for the “absolutely lovesick glow” he’s sporting.
“I don’t need to be a detective to know that you’re a thief. You’ve stolen my heart. (Every day. For almost 5 years.)”
Things are better than alright. They’re perfect, and he doesn’t think his life could get much better.
That is, until he finds the next sticky.
It’s roughly a week later, when he unlocks the door to their shared flat and kicks his shoes off at the door. It’s a weeknight — Tuesday night, in particular, so he knows that Harry will have beaten him home. His boyfriend works the early shift on Tuesday mornings, and more often than not, already has dinner made when Louis gets home from the record shop. So really, it’s more a force of habit than anything when Louis heads straight for the kitchen.
He expects to find Harry either stood in front of the stove or already setting the table, but that’s not the case at all. The kitchen is both empty and dark, save for what appears to be the flames of five or six candles, left burning in an artful array at the center of their old kitchen table. He turns on the lights in the room with a hum, sparing a glance around the empty room and wondering errantly if Harry had had some errand to run after work. It doesn’t make sense, though, he thinks - Harry has always been very careful about putting his candles out before he leaves the house.
His eyes return to the arrangement of little tea-lights and scented wax, then, and that’s when he sees it: Another of Harry’s notes, left just a few inches in front of the candle display.
Again, Louis is a bit baffled— he hasn’t found another note since that last morning, after he’d spent the night extinguishing any and all of Harry’s doubts, and his first instinct is to hope that everything is still alright. However, as he steps up to the table and picks up the note, he finds very quickly that everything is more than alright.
“I don’t know about you, but I think forever has a nice ring to it…”
He blinks, and reads the note over once more; it seems a bit incomplete, if he’s honest, and he’s not entirely sure why the word “ring” is underlined, but he doesn’t have more than a couple of seconds to think about it before a tap on his shoulder draws his attention away from his boyfriend’s loopy scrawl.
He expects to find Harry standing there, beaming at him. What he finds is Harry standing there, beaming at him, and dropping to one knee. He exhales sharply, and his throat constricts with emotion before he can think to stop it.
“Louis…” Harry starts, and Louis laughs, loud and wet.
“Oh my god.”
“Louis Tomlinson,” Harry tries again, and Louis is grinning, now, as his boy proceeds to pop open a tiny, velvet box. He can’t contain his giggly laughter as Harry holds the box out, revealing a pretty, golden engagement ring. “Forever has a nice ring to it”. God.
“You idiot,” he snorts, scrubbing at the tears that have yet to fall and cursing himself for ever thinking that anything was wrong.
“…will you marry me?” Harry finishes finally, and Louis can’t help but laugh merrily as he drops to his knees and gathers his boyfriend—no, his fiancé— up in his arms.
“You’re horrible. Absolutely horrible, and I love you,” he mutters, cupping Harry’s jaw with his hands and pressing a few sweet kisses to his lips. “And of course I’ll marry you.”
Harry makes a gleeful sound, then and pulls back a bit, just long enough to take Louis’s left hand in his own and slip the band safely onto Louis’s ring finger. He’s absolutely glowing as he kisses Louis’s knuckles and gathers him up in a bear hug once more, and neither of them care too much that they’re still kneeling on the kitchen floor as they fall into each other, giggly with excitement.
“I hate you,” Louis breathes, giving Harry a squeeze as he noses at the boy’s jaw. “I thought you were worried I was going to break up with you or summat.”
Harry snorts, shaking his head at that. “Not at all, love. You just took that one wrong, s’all,” he grins, and sits back on his heels to grin at Louis, whose eye are narrowed. “It was meant to ask if I could call you by my name. And now I can, yeah?”
The absurd way that Harry waggles his eyebrows at Louis makes him laugh loudly, and Louis purses his lips and quirks an eyebrow at him in response.
“Oh, so it’s going to be Louis Styles, is it?” he teases, reaching to give one of Harry’s pretty curls a tug. Harry squeaks. “Why can’t it be Harry Tomlinson?”
His fiancé softens at that, and there’s a distinctly fond glimmer in his eyes as he nods his head. If Harry’s body language has anything to say about it, he rather likes the idea.
“‘Course it can,” he says, and Louis’s heart rabbits. “Long as I can still call you mine.”
“Always yours, babe,” he sighs, and happily melts into Harry’s arms. The glint of his brand-new engagement band catches his eye as he wraps his arms around his beau, and he grins. Forever has a nice ring to it, indeed.