Archive of Our Own ^beta

It begins with a one night stand that doesn't stay that way, the first of Harry’s life.

It’s a party, always a party, some event at uni organized by Liam, the editor of the newspaper, to celebrate their first issue being printed. To them, it’s a big deal, but to Harry it’s free booze and a chance to relax after spending too much of his time with his nose buried in a book during exams. He’s not looking for anyone more than someone to refill his empty cup and keep him laughing.

He goes to the loo and on his way back across the green, he runs into him, quite literally, the first thing out of his lips an ungraceful oops, even as the boy turns, eyebrows raised, and says hi. He’s seen him between classes constantly kicking around a ball on that very green where they’re standing and they have a mutual friend who’s there, a boy named Zayn who’s with the newspaper because it’ll look good on his record when he gets his English degree, and Zayn introduces him as Louis.

Harry loves the way his name feels on his lips, Louis, the softest, most musical sounds he could ever make without trying. The fluorescent lights are ruining it for Harry, but he’s almost sure Louis is tan, his eyes blue, or are they green? All Harry can tell is they are so fair and fine glimmering back at him, like water in a glass, something that could catch the light of the sun and refract it in every color back to him. When he smiles at Harry and some bad joke of his, his entire face lights like he has just sipped the shine from a star.

They talk. They talk and laugh and drink for so long that Zayn excuses himself, seeing another friend on their way back to the party. Harry knows in the back of his mind that he should go back to the party and do what he came to, which is nothing, but he knows he won’t.

Louis is small, shorter than Harry and slight, not to a fault but lovely, delicate and slender. There is something so mischievous and elfin about his looks that Harry can’t stop grinning, can’t stop staring. Louis is short, yes, but he is the perfect height to curl into Harry’s arm, and that is where he is not an hour later, Harry’s hand comfortable—but nervous—upon Louis’ warm waist.

They go back to Harry’s room, chasing each other up the stairs, staccato footsteps the twin to Harry’s heartbeat, anticipation coloring his cheeks rose. His roommate, Niall, is visiting his parents and they have the room to themselves. They stay up all night talking, laying facing other on Harry’s bed, Louis stroking the dark curls around Harry’s face, and Harry knows he’s being nosy, knows his question are firing wildly like a ricocheting bullet, but Louis is still smiling and answering everything just as quickly, candidly, honestly, asking questions of his own, and Harry doesn’t feel so bad. He learns so many things about a beautiful boy that night.

They are talking, laughing, and then they are not talking, not anymore, Louis rolling on top of him to kiss him down, deep into the mattress, fingers curled around his neck and in his hair, on his lips and cheeks, touching reverently. Harry breathes in the living scent of him, of grass and tea and a rich, warm cologne. They undress each other, hands fumbling, laughs quiet and husky, the ends becoming moans as tongues and fingers explore and conquer new territory. Harry devours the sight of Louis naked, and everything becomes easier then, the two of them sighing into each other, hands steady and sure. The moonlight dips over them through the gauzy curtains, touching Harry’s back with light, gentle fingers. Louis’ hands on his hips are small and soft, but they know him, know how fast, how slow, how rough, how hard, and the light caressing Harry’s back turns to gold as he is crying Louis’ name into his pillow, every shudder a wordless exultation.

Harry’s had one-night stands before, and as Louis lays there next to him, the sun rising over his sweat-slicked skin, he wonders what comes next, until Louis solves it for him:

“Up for breakfast? I know this little café a few streets over.”

Harry knows it too, he studies there and loves their muffins, and when he tells Louis, the smile on his face informs Harry that it’s been decided. Over the very same muffins, one of which Louis is all too happy to try for the first time, he asks Harry if he wants to study later in the week. He says yes.

Louis is interested in Harry’s love of music and thinks he’s charming when he has a few drinks in him and loves to cuddle, even if they’re just watching football, which they do when they can and Harry loves it purely for Louis’ love of the game. Louis takes him out on a date and they get lost on their way to the restaurant and spend most of the night exploring, finding an abandoned sweets shop, breaking in only to leave when they hear something skittering in the dark, and all the way back to Louis’ car, they can’t stop laughing, hearts racing each other in ribs battered from excitement.

By the third date, they’re telling each other something they’ve never told anyone before and Louis brings up the word commitment. This was Harry’s old cue to say goodbye, but he’s never made it this far before, not to a first date with a one-night stand and certainly not to a third, and even if it’s soon by society’s standards, it is new and surprising for Harry and he already feels he knows so much about Louis, like where he grew up and the way he takes his tea and how long it takes him to shower and where he buys his groceries and his favorite song this week and how messy he is and what he believes in with every beat of his heart. So Harry says yes to fingers running through his hair as they lay on the couch and watch telly, yes to food fights and football games and clothes borrowing and yes to kissing and hand-holding and gasping out each other’s names, yes to commitment, yes to Louis. No decision has ever been easier.

Still, he has to ask, “You know this is me, right? This is who I am and I don’t get any better.”

Nonsense. Louis tells him so. He knows exactly what he’s getting into, and Harry can see that, can see it illustrated perfectly in the smile that Louis flashes him, eyes crinkled at the corners, laugh lines brilliant and hopeful.

Why would he ever say no?

It begins with the way a hand moves, gripping a pen easily, dancing its way across a page.

Days make up months and every moment is a journey. Louis learns so many things about this sweet, soft boy that he calls mine, like Harry is shit at playing football but he tries anyway, running up and down fields like a puppy let off the leash. He learns that Harry likes American football too, and Louis puts up with it, if only because green looks beautiful on Harry. Louis learns that Harry likes coffee and tea both, but not Yorkshire, even when Louis makes him try it, and he knows to make two different cups when the kettle’s on in his apartment when Harry comes over. He learns Harry sings constantly, from Shania Twain in the shower to The Beach Boys when he’s cleaning and Joni Mitchell to Louis, just him, crooning, We don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall, keeping us tied and true into Louis’ ear at the end of the night.

He learns that Harry loves rings and tattoos, snuggling and cuddling, Louis always fighting to be the big spoon. He learns that if Harry ruled the world, he wouldn’t have to wear clothes, and Louis understands what he means when they spend the surprisingly warm, uncomfortable summer together, Harry lounging around in boxers, draping himself over furniture in an effort to get cool in Louis’ apartment, or swimming naked, laying out on a blanket beneath the sun afterwards with his eyes closed, wet hair brushed back from his face, letting nature wrap him up in its arms instead.

He learns that Harry constantly texts his sister and needs to visit his parents and Gem at least once a month or he gets lonely and Louis hates, hates the way Harry’s face crumples when he’s sad and the way his green eyes fill when he thinks Louis doesn’t see him. He learns that unexpected dance parties happen often and when they do, they care nothing for the table and chairs in Louis’ apartment that might get in the way, and they don’t even notice that scuffed coffee table in the middle of the room, Harry leaping all over the furniture with surprising grace and flexibility, his lithe, slender legs adorable in skinny jeans, so much so that Louis often finds himself just watching the younger boy with rapt fascination. How someone so dear and sweet can exist is still a mystery, even to him.

The best dances, however, are the ones in the middle of tea or play-fighting or on the verge of an argument, when one of them can just reach out for the other, pull them in, and slow-dance right in the middle of whatever else they’re doing. The very act of it is cathartic; it seems to make everything else that has preceded it go away, and then it’s just them, hands at the smalls of backs, fingers clasped, cheek to cheek, spinning slowly. Sometimes Harry hums waltz-y tunes reminiscent of the Jazz Age, but Louis likes best the music they make themselves just by being together: The telly left on low, the heat flickering beneath the kettle, the rustling catch and drag of their clothes against each other, the stereo from inside someone’s car as they drive past, rain spattering against the windows, Harry’s heartbeat pressed right up against his chest, their soft breathing as Louis leans his head into the crook of Harry’s neck. Even if there are a million other people he wants to kiss throughout his lifetime, Louis still would only want to dance with Harry.

He learns of Harry’s love for flowers, his job as a florist suddenly clear as crystal. He learns Harry’s favorite flowers are almost every flower and each for different reasons than the last: roses, perhaps the most, as one is etched into the skin of his arm one afternoon, Louis holding his hand during the shading; plumerias for their fragrance; violets for their softness; cherry blossoms because they remind him of that trip to Japan he took with his Eastern Philosophy class during his first year and how he absolutely filled the memory card of his camera with every possible shot he could get of the trees, their blossoms too beautiful for him to describe with words alone, physical evidence needed (Harry let Louis read one of his older journals, and a handful of dried cherry blossoms spilled out onto his lap, still holding a hint of sweet scent.)

The list continues: orange tulips, so bright they could have been painted with sunlight; stargazer lilies, vivacious pink petals curling elegantly; orchids for their gentility; and sunflowers, because they remind him of Louis. Louis thinks they’re his favorite, too, because they’re happy and warm and so very Harry, who wants to plant some in the window at his dorm room, but he can’t because sunflowers don’t grow in a place like London, and Harry is so dejected that Louis brings him a handful of some for his birthday and Harry almost cries, he’s so overjoyed, and he covers Louis’ face with kisses. A month or so later, he looks up from below on his way to Harry’s, and he sees the sunflowers pressed against the glass of the window, held in place along the pane with several large textbooks. Louis grins, heart fluttering.

Louis learns Harry cleans compulsively and he learns to clean up after himself a bit, at least putting his clothes in the basket before Harry comes over, begrudgingly helping when Harry asks because it’s Harry and he can’t say no. He learns Harry loves to have his head rubbed and they spend many an evening curled up on the sofa, Harry’s head in his lap, eyes closed as Louis watches telly and runs his fingers through those impossible, beautiful chestnut curls. He learns how to win arguments and lose track of what clothes he let Harry borrow and how amused Harry really is by the timbre of his laugh. He learns where and how hard or how soft, how sweet, divining the truth of Harry’s helpless gulps and broken little cries with every snap of his hips, and his favorite sound becomes his name from Harry’s mouth, climbing in intensity to the zenith, desperate, pleading, before it’s warm and awed, spoken in all breath against his chest, Louis.

He learns things about himself, too. He learns he loves to kiss Harry’s dimple. Harry’s hands, larger than Louis’ own and so finely-structured, are his favorite, and he learns he never feels quite right unless he’s petted Harry’s curls at least once in a day, the younger boy fairly purring beneath Louis’ hands. He learns he can’t stop talking about Harry to Harry, teasing him out and about in the city, telling him just how cute sexy gorgeous wonderful delicious perfect he looks. He learns that his body is a slave to Harry’s tongue and the way it traces Louis’ tattoos, that he comes absolutely undone when Harry bites his lip, and they both learn just how nice a bruise can be with pressure applied in all the right places.

He learns that he smiles more.

But for Louis, more than that, it’s the little things he notices, like the grocery list hanging off the mini-fridge in Harry’s dorm room, and the notes he reviews as the two of them study in relative quiet, Harry humming every now and again, Louis tapping his pen. He sees it in the sticky notes left taped to Niall’s things in Harry’s dorm room, to Louis’ own apartment furnishings, to the surface of the mirror obscuring one of his reflection’s eyes, like he’s a pirate: have a lovely day! x

He sees it on Harry’s calendar, in notebooks, on Harry’s arm as Louis plays guitar and Harry sings for him, in steam on the glass of the shower, in the margins of books, on notepads in Louis’ kitchen, in the journal he carries with him and scrawls his thoughts into, on the mirror in dry-erase marker, on receipts, everywhere they go. He learns the way Harry’s hand moves when he writes Louis, the subtle curls of the l and the s. He learns the prick of every dotted i, the slant of every crossed t, the loops and swishes and swirls and scratches that make every love letter Harry sometimes tucks into his pillowcase when he leaves worth it. Louis memorizes every mark Harry leaves in his world.

Which is how he knows immediately when he sees the marker scrawled on a flyer on the platform for the tube. At first he thinks what he’s seeing can’t be real. Why would Harry leave a note for him in a public place? But when he thinks about it, that’s the exact sort of thing Harry would do, and he knows that Louis takes the tube to get to the toy store where he works across the city.

It says i dreamed about him last night

Louis has his doubts at first as he stands there, clutching his bag, but those a’s are Harry’s kind, that y left behind with the usual flair. He smiles, scrunching his nose at it. Cute, Styles, he thinks to himself. Really cute. But Harry is always cute and by the next week, he thinks fondly on it but nothing more.

Until he sees the words left on his post box as he’s stopping by after class for a spot to eat before dashing off to work one day. It looks like it’s written in pink chalk, stolen from some kid’s school things, no doubt. Although, if Louis thought about it, Harry was also the type of person to have a box of chalk lying around for those days when it was sunny enough to draw shapes and fairytale creatures on the sidewalk outside, people hurrying past without so much as a second glance at the worlds he was creating.

This one says his smile is everything

He knows those e’s, those slanting i’s. As Louis is staring at it, one of his neighbors, an elderly woman named Carol, comes tottering down the steps in her carpet slippers, carrying a bag of garbage to take to the skip in the alleyway alongside the building. She catches him looking, turning to see what has him so captivated.

“Huh,” she says, nodding at it. “Whose smile, then?”

Louis shrugs, a brilliant grin stretching across his face. “His.”

They start cropping up more and more: On the fire hydrant outside the grocer’s that Louis goes to, several streets away from his apartment. The words are messy, wriggly and unsure as if Harry was trying to be quick before a cop came along and nabbed him in some insane effort to clean up graffiti. He’s written it in black marker, just like the train station. 

his touch is gold

and beneath it, there is a small drawing of a flower. The lines are straighter there, more sure. Louis reaches out, lets his fingers slide over the words as he strides past.

The next one is on a park bench at his bus stop. He’s dead tired, coming off a long study session with Zayn and a double-shift at the toy store because his co-worker called out, when he turns on one foot, coming face to face with it. The park bench was green, once; now it’s worn and faded. Spray-painted on it in vivid yellow are the words

more laugh lines

Louis stares at it for a long, impossible moment. He takes a deep breath, letting go of some of the tension in his shoulders, before slowly he begins to smile.

There is one last cute message, the last before Louis begins to know how direct these are, shooting straight into his heart with a fine point. He finally gets a day off, and Harry is spending it with his mum and sister back in Holmes Chapel, and Louis can admit, alone, that he’s jealous. Instead of wallowing at home, he goes to visit an old friend of his, Stan, whom he hasn’t seen since the semester began.

When Louis gets off the bus, he checks the street both ways before jogging across, head down against the autumn chill. He’s in the middle of the street when he sees it, stopping so quickly that he loses his balance, stumbles.

It’s painted on the top of a manhole cover in white paint, so if Louis wanted to, he could jump into an airplane and see it from the sky. He has a feeling that’s the point.

With purposeful, neat strokes, it reads:

he’s my one and only

Louis’ heart lurches, even as someone honks at him from down the street. He waves a hand at them, jogging the rest of the way across towards Stan’s flat. These words are no longer cute and funny, but clear in their intent, and the rest of the day, Louis’ heart beats triple-time like a waltz.

After that, there is a lag, a break in between, and he doesn’t see any words for weeks. Sometimes when he is at his most doubtful, he wonders if they weren’t Harry at all, but someone who wrote similarly, or maybe he just doesn’t know Harry as well as he thought? They were unhappy thoughts, those, and he felt even worse when he realized how much faith he had put into those words appearing, how much he had counted on them to make him happy, like tying himself to an anchor, some steadying force, only to realize he was going to sink.

He tries to lose himself in dates, in kisses, in coursework and shifts at the toy store and going home to visit his giggling gang of sisters with their singsong voices, melodious and sweet, with their impish pixie smiles and hair always in need of braiding. It helps. Still, there are times when he’s at his most restless, most edgy, and he excuses himself from class and work, wandering, hands in his pockets, looking for more of the words they still haven’t talked about, all these little things Harry hasn’t told him outright. Once or twice, when Harry’s side of the bed is empty, Louis even leaves his apartment in the middle of the night, darting between halos of light, retracing every step he took that day, searching for Harry’s footsteps along the way. He feels like there is something more that he wants, but he doesn’t know how to give form to such an idea, not yet, and trying to do so would be like trying to catch smoke in the palm of his hand.

It takes a fight, a stupid thing that starts when he doesn’t do well on a test and is reprimanded by his boss, and when he goes to see Harry later, everything grates on him, his skin feeling hot, something he needs to shed, and Harry says something that pushes him over the edge, something he won’t even remember, and jealousy rears its ugly head, all quick biting anger, Harry lashing back out of confusion, a wounded animal caught in a corner, and things are said with no thought on either part and Louis leaves a few minutes later, passing Niall in the hall, who starts to say hi but then sees the look on Louis’ face and watches him go instead, wide-eyed. Even as he’s walking back to the bus stop, thinking he’ll stop by Zayn’s place to vent if he’s not out with Liam, he knows he was wrong, that it was awful of him to take out his bad day on Harry, and he feels even worse as he decides to just go home and sleep.

They go a day without speaking, Louis consumed by guilt but not entirely sure that he wants to admit how wrong he was, especially since he doesn’t know how Harry will react, and Louis spends the day and night thinking this must be similar to how Icarus felt as he was falling. On the second day, everything hits a fever pitch of agony, and Harry hasn’t returned any of his texts so he does the only thing he knows to do and goes to Zayn’s. Zayn lives in what people on the news would call a “rough area” but he loves it, always inviting Louis and Harry out to explore and take pictures and Louis does love the place with its doorways spilling out artists and vagabonds running from lives they don’t want to talk about, and it seems every building in the area is painted up with murals, like Louis is taking a bus through a museum of modern art, love and  depression and hope all colliding together into something that just might be wonderful, life perfectly captured. Inside Zayn’s building, drawings and graffiti lead Louis up the stairs and when he arrives at the fourth floor, he follows a flock of birds with jewels for eyes to a coiled snake eating its own tail, a water lily painted over its head. Just before Zayn’s door, in between one bird and the snake, he sees it. The marker is red, brighter than anything else on the wall, and he could never have missed it, not with the words staring up at him, demanding to be seen and felt.

i’m sorry about what i said the other night; i hope he forgives me

Louis stares at it for what seems like forever, before he’s turning away and heading back down the corridor. He no longer needs to whine to Zayn, not when it’s so clear why Harry hasn’t been answering his texts, because he doesn’t want words from a cell phone, typed stock shapes of letters, he wants voice, he wants sound, he wants something real and Louis gets this as he pulls out his phone, not even dialing Harry’s number, just pressing two and holding because he’s on speed-dial, of course, and before long, Harry’s voice fills his ears and Louis sighs at the sound, an apology on the tip of his tongue.

He decides to go to that café near campus one day, and he almost forgets that it’s the place where they had breakfast after the night they met, almost, but then he stops, mid-step, outside the door and he can’t bring himself to move, remembering how Harry’s curls were out of control and he looked so sleepy but he kept smiling with those petal-pink lips as they played footsie under the table and traded food quickly to taste what the other was having and Louis is quite sure he fell in love that morning, but it’s only just hit him now and it isn’t until someone holds the door open for him, a questioning look on their face, that he realizes he should probably go inside.

He gets his tea and a muffin, and sits in his favorite corner in the back, the same place they sat that first time. He’s only had two bites of the muffin and a sip of tea, his books not even out of his bag, when he sees what’s scrawled on the wall, beside the window so it’s always reflected back two-fold. His heart beat rushes to life in his ears like waves crashing on the shore when the recognition dawns on him.

i love the way he looks when he wears his glasses, so pretty…

Louis had worn his glasses that morning, the morning after they met. He had no idea how long that had been there, but it didn’t matter, because he still felt it all over again, the wonder of this boy who had bumped into him and the sweet taste of tea on his lips and the way he had this feeling like his life might never be the same again.

Nearly a month passes before Louis catches a glimpse of the next one. He’s part of a casual weekend football league and they’re playing a game against a small team from St. Albans a little too early in the morning for his taste, especially since he and Harry joined Niall, Zayn, and Liam at the pub the night before and had a few too many drinks, Harry silly and delirious when Louis finally tucked them both in. Still, he loves it, loves the wind whipping through his hair and the smell of the grass and the morning dew slick against the skin of his ankles. It’s his second favorite thing to do, the first being spend time with Harry.

He loves it even though sometimes it doesn’t love him back. 

He and a player from St. Albans collide and Louis goes down, sliding through the grass beneath the larger man. He feels the heat of a wound at his knee, his ankle twisting, and he bites down on his lip to keep from crying out at the sharp twinge of pain. His opponent helps him up, but he can’t finish the period, and he ends up limping to the sidelines to the cheers of their fans, mostly just family members and friends.

Harry in an over-large coat, clinging to a steaming cup of coffee, looks mad with worry when Louis collapses in the grass beside him. Ignoring Louis’ comments about the wet grass, Harry sinks to his knees beside him, leaning over, a look of concern on his lovely face. Though he tells him repeatedly that he’s fine, the scrape on his knee is bleeding pretty good and his ankle is swollen before the game ends, and Louis is just happy they win and Harry kisses him once, twice, three times as congratulations but he still refuses to be swayed by Louis’ assurances. Harry refuses to take no for an answer, and they’re off to hospital with Louis objecting the entire way.

A week later, he’s still limping around campus, ankle sprained, wrapped and iced daily by Nurse Harry, the sarcastic name grumbled from Louis’ lips, claiming Harry is only taking care of his old man because Niall’s got a new girlfriend (or boyfriend; Louis simply can’t keep up with him) and Harry is often denied entrance to their dorm room by way of a tie emblazoned with shamrocks hanging from the doorknob, forcing Harry to spend most of his nights with Louis. “You’re only using my injury for my bed,” Louis accuses half-heartedly, and Harry just rolls his eyes, wrapping Louis’ ankle perhaps a little tighter than necessary and smacking a kiss against his forehead.

It takes him two days of classes after a week long absence involving much hobbling and pathetically asking Harry to fetch him things (something the younger boy is actually quite eager to do, a helpful streak running through him to the core) to find the note. When he does, he nearly falls over, head tilted back as far as he can get it, equilibrium all out of sorts—and if that isn’t just the very feeling Harry inspires in him, than he doesn’t know what is.

Through some miraculous stroke of genius, the note is painted on the streetlamp in the quad, the one nearest to where they first met out on the green, Harry bumping into him and saying oops so cute and half-drunkenly, hardly aware he had nudged another person until Louis turned, a brilliant smile and bright hi leaving his lips because as soon as he laid eyes on Harry, that was it, the end, game over.

It’s just something out of the corner of his eyes as he’s slowly walking past, ankle still tenderly accepting his weight. He turns to look, shocked and thrilled all at once when he recognizes that messy attempt, that glorious trying-so-hard-to-impress block of capital letters stretching from an impossible height, something Harry couldn’t reach, not without help of some kind, and Louis suddenly has this image in his head of Harry sitting on Liam’s shoulders because he’s the strongest of them all with his boxing classes and exercise, and Louis has to restrain himself with an amazing amount of willpower to keep from laughing hysterically at that mental image.

In a vertical line down the streetlamp’s stem from the flower of light at its height are the words

he hurt himself playing football but the scrape is shaped like a star

The a in star is drawn into that shape and Louis is grinning so hard, his cheeks hurt. If he wasn’t in the quad, Louis would yank down his joggers to peer at the injury, but there are people everywhere and it’s been lovingly bandaged by his determined better half, against every single one of Louis’ protestations, cleaned as gently as Harry could (though Louis was a perfect little drama queen, swearing the entire time, which only made Harry smile at him with agonizing patience) and as soon as it was covered with gauze and tape, Harry pressed a soft kiss to it and beamed at him when he sat back up. “There,” he declared, “all better.” And it was, because Harry said so.

Louis hopes it’ll become a scar, a star-shaped kiss that won’t ever fade.

Autumn dances it way out, and with it, the memories of leaves in lipstick shades of burgundy and orange fluttering past along the sidewalks and streets, of scarves twisted around Harry’s neck to hide the love bites, and of a Halloween party that Louis doesn’t remember much of, only that he was a ladybug and Harry was a sunflower and they couldn’t stay away from each other the entire night.

The next message comes during the stark cold of winter, when all the lights in the city seem brighter beyond Louis’ frozen lashes, the air freezing and burning in his lungs with a strange contradiction, but there’s no other place he’d rather be. Harry is either an absolute delight or a pure horror (Louis hasn’t decided which yet), twirling around Louis’ apartment over holiday, singing Christmas carols at the top of his lungs and stringing up the place with garlands of holly and lights that twinkle softly when the sun goes down, and they lay in the middle of the sitting room looking up at them, Harry draped over Louis, nuzzling his cheek against his chest. At some point, Louis isn’t sure when, Harry has basically just…moved in. Half of Louis’ closet is filled with his clothes and shoes, and sometimes he doesn’t leave for days, even when Niall promises their dorm room is empty and clean. Neither of them questioned it, it just sort of happened, and Louis’ stomach flip flops when he thinks of what comes next.

Not surprisingly, what comes next isn’t pleasant. At first, it seems as though it might be: Harry asks him what he wants to do for his birthday over breakfast, and Louis admits that he never has any idea, because who wants to celebrate a birthday the day before Christmas? But he casually remarks, thinking of Harry’s sweaters hanging in his closet and the belongings strewn around his apartment, that maybe he’d like to go home to Doncaster. And maybe he’d like Harry to join him. Maybe. There are no words yet invented in the English language for the look Harry gives him, the look of pure joy and love, and he practically upends the table trying to move around it to kiss Louis, cupping his cheeks with warm, steady hands and he tastes like coffee and bananas and Louis is so in love that he can’t think straight.

And then of course he gets the jury duty summons in the mail right after when Harry scampers out to the post box (no longer bearing the message as the rain has washed it away but sometimes Louis thinks he can still see the outline, the ghost of love left behind) and he is spitting fire, he’s so angry. How dare they interrupt his holiday, he rants, Harry reclining on the sofa and just watching him with amused half-lidded eyes, how dare they take him away from Harry’s sweatered arms, but he knows he has to go, because with all the gifts he’s going to need to buy his mum and step-dad, not to mention his merry band of darling half-sisters and Zayn and Niall and Liam and Stan and Harry, he really can’t afford the fines.

So he gets dressed in his nicest clothes, plus a blazer of Harry’s that looks formal and smart, even if it is slightly longer in the arm and broader in the shoulder but Louis doesn’t even care because it smells like Harry and that might be the only thing that gets him through this. It takes almost all day and he can’t even be glad to miss work; he would rather go to work, because at least there he gets to see kids and they were much better, more fun company than a bunch of boring thirty-somethings in the city trying to decide whether or not this man was guilty of shoplifting or whatever it was. Louis spent most of the time doodling on his notepad and thinking of Harry, and when they were given a break for lunch, he couldn’t get away fast enough, rushing to the bathroom to be by himself and maybe call Harry.

There were pen marks all over his fingers, blue freckles dotting his fingertips, and he washes his hands, not looking up until he’s shaking the excess droplets off his skin and he sees the writing in the reflection. He thinks oh, graffiti before he does an immediate double-take, spinning around so quickly that he almost injures his neck. Bright blue, written across the chipped, stained white tiles, is a message with the e’s and the s’s and Louis forgets his hands are wet as he walks to it, standing directly in front of it at eye-level, stomach doing somersaults as his fingers drip, drip, drip to the tile floor.

i’ve already met his mum but i’m nervous to meet the whole lot come xmas

Louis reads it over and over again, committing it to memory, tattooing it against the backs of his eyes, wanting to see it every time he goes to sleep. His boy is nervous. His sweet, soft, lovely nature boy is nervous. It’s too cute that Louis can barely stand it, because how could he be nervous? Harry is wonderful with kids, Louis having seen that in person often enough when he visits him at work or babysits his co-worker’s daughter. Louis suddenly has visions dancing in his head of Harry and the girls, of Harry dancing with them and talking about music and boys and tickling them and brushing their hair and playing dress-up with the younger two, flowers in his hair (because of course there would be, of course), a pink tulle skirt around his narrow hips as they have tea parties and run around chasing each other in the backyard before coming in for tea and cocoa and the girls falling asleep draped over him and Harry on the floor in their blanket fort as they watch It’s a Wonderful Life and it really will be, their fingers clasped loosely as they try their hardest not to fall asleep as well.

Louis wants it so badly—wants a future with Harry—that his eyes are too hot, too bright, vision swimming and he is laughing, crying and laughing because he has been on a journey of a year and a half with this boy, and it has been the best thing he could ever fathom, with all of its ups and downs and twists and turns and delights and frights and love, and that’s what strikes him in that moment, standing alone in the men’s loo in court: It’s just the beginning. It’s just the beginning of their lives together and there’s only one or two things left to make it official.

Louis can’t wait.

Louis manages to fake sick and escape while he can. The first thing he does is go home, practically running through the front door, so very much like Ricky Ricardo, wanting to sweep his darling into his arms, announcing himself with just a “Haz!” but he hears the music and knows immediately where he is.

He finds Harry in his their bedroom, calmly folding laundry and singing along to The XX when he looks up and sees Louis, surprise and joy at the sight of him gilding the edges of his features in light. “H’lo Lou—” he begins before Louis’ mouth is on his with the cutest little squeak of surprise from Harry, morphing into a whimper as Louis draws him down to the bed, laundry utterly and completely forgotten.

Harry’s magnum opus, his greatest work of city art, happens sometime during the night of December 23^rd. Louis is so tired from packing and cleaning before their trip to Doncaster, from spending half the day celebrating his birthday early with the boys gallivanting all over the city and having the best time of his life, that he sleeps like the dead throughout the entire night. He knows he is going to be twenty-one in a few hours when Harry manages to help him into bed and looking at the alluring nineteen-year-old boy beside him who is gently brushing his hair back from his forehead, he feels old, but loved as Harry tucks him in; tipsy and grinning softly, he whispers goodnight and Harry just laughs quietly, voice husky and deep, and that is the last thing Louis hears, asleep within minutes, before he wakes up suddenly, feeling as though only several moments have passed, to the sound of voices outside.

Louis sits up in bed, holding the blankets around himself, frowning about the noise of his neighbors, wondering why Harry didn’t wake him up earlier so they could get everything ready in time for the train. “Harry,” he calls throughout the apartment, ignoring the glare of the clock reminding him how late they are.

There’s no answer.

“Harry, please tell me you haven’t gone out, now of all days!”

Again, no reply, and the noise outside is just getting louder.

Snuggled up in their comforter and muttering, Louis drags himself from bed and goes to the window, gazing out, his breath frosting the glass. There are at least twenty people, if not more, standing on the sidewalk below, pointing up at his building…maybe even his window.

Louis scowls. What on earth is going on? Was somebody up on the roof and ready to jump? He squinted, trying to see their faces. No cops, no ambulances, no sad expressions. Weirdly enough, they all looked…happy. Were they carolers? Louis sighs, grumbling to himself, before throwing off the blanket and hurrying to the loo to do a wee and find something clean that hasn’t already been packed.

A pair of joggers on, a cream-colored sweater that they shared keeping him warm, he yanks on a beanie, socks and shoes, and braves the world outside. It’s colder than he’d thought it would be, the frigid air stealing the breath from his lungs, forcing him to fold his arms over his chest and hug himself. He follows the path down to the sidewalk, so stunned when he sees even more people outside the front of the building that he stops, staring. He doesn’t recognize a single face, yet when they see him, they start to clap and cheer.

What is going on?

Louis gives them as much of a smile as he can, though he literally doesn’t know a single one of them, and he walks past, hurrying along the sidewalk around to the side of the building, trying to find someone he knows, someone like Harry, so he can figure out what this is supposed to be. 

He runs into Niall, Harry’s now former roommate, and he smiles genuinely with relief. “Niall! What’s going on? Where’s Harry?”

Niall’s wearing a strange array of old, faded clothes and he looks exhausted, dark circles smudged beneath his cheerful blue eyes. He grins secretively at Louis. “He’s just down the road, at the side of the building.”

It doesn’t escape Louis’ notice that Niall doesn’t tell him what’s happening, and he starts feeling very odd. He’s about to leave, before Niall hugs him, wishing him a happy birthday and Louis remembers all at once that it is his birthday. Weirdly, it doesn’t feel like it, even now. Leaving the Irish boy behind, he darts between people standing about, some of them in the street, searching for that familiar way of standing, those curls falling around that lovely face.

He sees Liam and Zayn first, arms casually around each other’s waists. They’re standing in the middle of the street, looking at the side of Louis’ apartment building. He reaches them at the same time they notice him, eyes lighting with recognition and excitement, the two of them smiling immediately. Like Niall, they’re both wearing old, torn and distressed clothes, smears and drops of white paint splattered across their torsos, hands, legs. Neither of them say hello, instead nodding towards the building. Louis turns to see what the hell everyone is so fascinated by….

….and everything falls perfectly into place as he sees the note, the words, that he has been waiting for all along.

Taking up the entire side of the building are the enormous words, painted in white over the brick, I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU and painted around the words are sunflowers, their golden petals bigger than Louis’ head. One of them, just beside the enormous LOVE, is right beside Louis’ window.

When Louis manages to pull himself away, aware that he probably looks like an idiot standing there and gaping, he looks back at Liam and Zayn. They both laugh at the look on his face, leaning their heads in towards each other, resting against the other’s body.

“Are you surprised?” Liam asks, grinning. “You look pretty surprised.”

“I… I don’t…” Louis no longer has a voice.

“It was Harry’s idea. He asked us to help him back in November, he wanted to surprise you for your birthday. Which, by the way,” Liam disentangles himself from Zayn, and they both enclose him in a hug simultaneously, gentle squeezes a comfort. “Happy birthday, Lou!”

He’s still dazed as they release him, talking happily about how they were up all night working on it and how Niall almost fell off one of their ladders, and how hard it was to do with just a few flashlights and Harry giggling the entire time about how great it was going to look and Zayn taking smoke breaks and—as much as Louis loves them, loves that they did this for Harry and for him—he can hardly pay attention, as he is still looking for that pair of green eyes and that smile that is somewhere, waiting for him, surely?

A part of Louis is starting to feel afraid when just beyond Liam, he sees him. Harry is walking towards them, wearing a lavender sweater and skinny jeans, his curls bound back from his face with a bandana. There are freckles of white paint on one of his cheeks, and a smudge of yellow near his eyebrow, like he brushed away a curl without realizing there was paint on his fingers. He’s looking at the building, as if admiring what a good job they’ve done and imagining Louis’ reaction. Immediately upon seeing him, everyone behind them, everyone else on the street vanishes from Louis’ eyes. Lightly touching Zayn and Liam on their shoulders, he excuses himself, walking past them to Harry, who turns at the sound of footsteps.

Their eyes meet.

Harry blushes, grinning widely, so happy that the entire street dims in comparison. He looks tired, but he’s still breathtakingly beautiful. His cheeks are flushed pink from the cold and the excitement, and his green eyes are minty and warm, like a cup of peppermint hot cocoa that will most likely be waiting for them at Louis’ mum’s house in Doncaster. He can’t even think about that right now, about his birthday or Christmas or any of it. All that’s left is Harry.

“Sorry,” Harry says. “People started noticing it and then they all came to see it and I guess someone told the paper, so I was talking to them right now.” He giggles, voice rusty from hardly any sleep. “So I guess we’re famous now.”

Famous for love. What better reason is there? Louis takes a step forward, shaking his head, not even sure what to say. “I—I’m not even sure—I mean, how—Harry.”

Harry’s smile softens. “You’re cute when you don’t know what to say.”

You’re cute always, he thinks, but Louis doesn’t say it because he is so overwhelmed, so grateful and honored to be the one that this wonderful, genuine, sweet boy has chosen to give his love to that he can’t even begin to express it, not with words anyway. The only thing he can say is, “You’re such an—”