Work Text:
It was an uncharacteristically warm Sunday afternoon. The sun was sitting high in the blue sky, shining brightly above the swaying tree tops, and the grass was soft beneath their bodies.
It was quiet, their discussion about their horrid math teachers long gone and the only sound heard was the light swoosh of the trees in the breeze and the sound of their mothers laughing somewhere back inside the house.
It was just the two of them out in Harry’s backyard, a few metres away from the treehouse his stepdad had built for the seven year old and his mates. Their other friends were probably off at the soccer field, or down at the shops, the two weren’t sure as they had decided today they were going to hang out just the two of them. Though it wasn’t anything far from usual, the two were always closer than all their other friends, despite the two year age difference.
Louis lay beside the curly haired seven year old in the grass, staring up at the swaying tree above them that offered shade from the warm sun.
He had big, bright blue eyes and feathery brown hair, along with a light cluster of freckles on his nose - the aftermath of not using sunscreen over the summer like his mother had told him.
He was older than the green eyed boy, by two years to be precise, and he always reminded Harry of that constantly, just to tease the younger boy.
But Harry didn’t mind, not even when they started seeing each other less at school due to their different lunchtimes and so on, but that didn’t bother the younger boy, because they were inseparable regardless -opting to hanging out after school and basically every weekend.
They were best friends, and had been for years now, ever since the day their mothers had found the two pushing each other on the swings when Harry was four and Louis was six.
They couldn’t remember why, Harry was shy and awkward, the polar opposite of Louis, whom was outgoing and loud, but somehow they had just clicked as if they were meant to be.
Harry lay next to the taller boy, staring up overhead as well, deep in thought as Louis hummed the tune to their favourite tv show’s theme song.
“Why do you think people get married, Lou?” Harry enquires out if know where, and Louis has a feeling it has something to do with his mother and stepdad. They’d never really talked about it, and kind of just accepted it because Robin was pretty cool, what with taking them to the movies and building their treehouse.
“I don’t know, I guess you have to when you get older…” He muses, not quite sure on the foreign subject. Then he grins and glances over at his curly haired friend beside him, “I’m gonna marry Miss Grace!”
His friend snorts, “You can’t marry a teacher, it’s illegal!” The seven year old accuses with a smirk.
Louis scoffs, “No it’s not!”
Harry hums and grins across at his friend, “Yes it is! Cause she’ll give you all A’s and it won’t be fair.” He states matter-of-factly, pushing his curls out of his eyes.
Louis sighs and Harry giggles at his friends dramatics. Louis is quiet for a second, watching Harry’s green eyes follow the floating clouds in the sky.
“I suppose I’d marry you, then,” Louis states, laughing as his friend wheezes out a confused “Me?”
Louis shrugs, “Well yeah, cause your my best friend and I don’t want to share you with anyone else, and besides your really funny and your hair is curly,” he states.
“Oh.”
The two stay silent for a while, listening to the birds in the trees and their mothers far-away voices still chatting inside.
“Lou?”
The younger boy sat up, crossing his legs as he pushed a wisp of his curly dark hair out of his big green eyes so that he could clearly see his best friend.
“Yeah Haz?” Louis asks, glancing at his friend, but not bothering to sit up, the grass was to comfy and warm, like a cloud Louis presumed.
Harry sucks in his bottom lip and nibbles on it nervously, as he twists his small fingers in his lips, avoiding Louis gaze.
“Have you ever, ya know, kissed anyone before?”
Louis stares at the seven year old thoughtfully as he runs his hands through his light brown hair, “Nah, I haven’t. Why? Have you?!”
At this Louis has shot up, and immediately mirrors Harry’s sitting position across from him, staring at him accusingly. Their best friends and they have always told each other everything, so the idea of Harry kissing someone without telling the nine year old startles him. They had no secrets, well, up until now he supposes.
Harry makes a face, and shakes his head, his curls shaking with the action.
“Gross, no!”
He shudders as if the idea were disgusting and Louis laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling with his smile as he finds himself saying “Oh, that’s good…”
The conversation seems to drop and instead lulls into a relaxed silence as the two lag down again, side by side, staring up at a plane that’s now flying high through the blue sky.
“What do you think it’s like, Lou?” Harry’s high year-year old voice breaks the silence moments later and Louis is confused at his question. He furrows his eyebrows and glances to his left at Harry’s face a few good inches away from his.
“What do I think what’s like?”
Harry blushes simultaneously, something Louis finds rather cute. But he refines from saying so, because, well, that would be weird, wouldn’t it?
“Kissing.”
Harry glances at Louis after saying it, embarrassed for some unknown reason. His green orbs flash to Louis before he turns away and stares at the few clouds that have appeared overhead, “What do you think it’s like?”
Louis almost wants to laugh at his curly haired friend, and tease him for still being caught up on the subject, they had just finished talking about it less than five minutes ago! -but he doesn’t because he finds himself wondering the same thing.
“I don’t really know, Haz. I’ve only ever seen it on movies, and this one time I saw this couple kissing down at the park! - Can you believe that? They were kissing, in public!” He says in disgust, and the two shudder at the thought.
“Why do you ask?” Louis finds himself asking quietly, picking at the grass beside him absently.
He can feel the younger boy shrug his shoulders from beside him, “I dunno’, but Gemma seems to be always going on about this boy that she kissed, and I dunno.” The boys shrugs his small shoulders again.
“To be honest, kissing sounds like the grossest, most barbaric thing I have ever heard of,” Louis says, priding himself at the new big words he learnt in spelling only a few weeks earlier, “I mean what is so special about it? It’s kind of gross, I mean you don’t even know what they could have eaten.”
Harry’s silent after Louis’ speech, lost in thought and Louis almost feels bad because he didn’t mean to confuse the young lad. But than again he’s only eleven himself, he knew just as much as Harry in the whole kissing department.
“But why do people talk about it all the time?” Harry protest quietly.
Louis thinks about, the whole thing makes no sense to him really and he sighs, “I don’t know Haz, Mum says that it’s not gross when you kiss someone special, so maybe it’s different?”
Their silent again for a little while and Louis thinks Harry has forgotten about it, so he closes his eyes and thinks he could just about fall asleep like this, with the shade of the treehouse covering the bright rays of the sun.
He blinks when he hears the grass beside him rustles, and he finds Harry sitting cross legged again, nibbling his bottom lip anxiously.
“Lou?”
“Yeah?”
The nine year old staring down at him glances down at his hands in his lap, “Would you kiss me?”
The nine year old thinks he’s hearing things when Harry says that and he almost chokes on his own spit.
He sits up, crossed legged and across from Harry once again, “You want me to kiss you?”
Harry shrugs and a dimple appears in his cheek as he smiles at Louis, “Yeah….”
Louis tilts his head sceptically, and takes in his friends expectant expression. His green eyes were wide and bright.
“But why?”
His friend shrugs again and shakes his curls to the right with his fingers before he glances back up at him.
“To get it over with, Lou! Zayn has already kissed a girl in his class, and I’m pretty sure Niall has kissed someone too. I just wanna know what the big deal is…” He pouts in a sympathetic way that he knows Louis can’t ever say No to. It’s his signature puppy dog look.
Louis contemplates it for a second, he was right, their friends bragged all the time about kissing girls and even Liam seemed to know more about kissing, which Louis finds rather annoying because he’s the oldest out of the five of them - he should be the expert in this area.
“But we’re Boys,” He states as if the reason were obvious.
“So? We’re best friends, Lou; I like you and you like me - that’s all Mum said, she didn’t say anything about who it had to be,” Harry reasons and Louis wonders why it even matters anymore. He wasn’t interested in any of the girls in his grade, they all seemed rather annoying to be honest, and well, Harry had a point, and if Louis was being completely honest, he kind of liked the idea of kissing Harry than the girls at school.
“Please Lou?”
He runs his short nimble fingers through his feathery brown hair, before he moves closer to Harry until their both sitting cross legged, with their knees touching - not a space between them. Harry’s eyes light up with confusion and nerves.
“What’re you do-“
“If you want me to kiss you, you have to be quiet you idiot,” He jokes, offering his best friend a smile.
Harry’s silent once again, and his wide blue-green eyes stare at Louis, occasionally glancing down at his lips curiously as Louis does the same.
The older boy leans forward, cautiously watching his green eyed friend, “Close your eyes,” he demands.
Harry furrows his eyebrows and stares at the nine year old sceptically, “Why?”
“I don’t know, I saw on tv they close their eyes,” he shrugs and Harry nods slowly, allowing his eyelids to flutter closed.
Louis grins at the fact that Harry does just about anything he tells him to, but then again Harry seems to have the exact same affect on him.
He shakes his head and leans forward a little more, “Okay, lean forward a little bit…”
Harry leans in cautiously, eyes still closed and lips waiting for what’s about to happen. Their only inches apart as Louis leans in a little further, glad he’d moved so they were already close earlier, and he closes his eyes cause he doesn’t want to stare at Harry and make it awkward. He had no idea what he was doing to be honest.
Harry simultaneously giggled, and Louis’ eyelids fluttered open only to find Harry’s eyes still closed, a smile pulling onto the corners of his very close lips.
“I can smell the mint lolly you had,” Harry clarifies and Louis rolls his eyes and laughs at his friends random comment. The blue eyes boy closes his eyes again and waits until Harry’s giggling subsided to a small smile.
He took a deep breath, “One…” Louis whispered, deciding he should probably warn the poor boy so he wouldn’t startle him, he heard Harry’s little in take of breath as if he were waiting.
“Two…”
He leant in, feeling his nose now just touching Harry’s, it was rather strange he thought, of the touch, but he kind of like it at the same time.
“Two and half…”
He took a breath, “Two and a quarte-” and then he leant forward, until he felt the soft feeling of Harry’s lips against his.
He kept his eyes shut tightly, unsure of what to do, this was unknown water he was treading on, but he was eleven, what more could you expect.
Harry’s lips stay against his, not moving either- his eyes clasp shut, before he leant forward, adding a little bit of pressure to the soft feel of Louis’ lips, then he leant back.
His eyelids fluttered open and he stared at Louis, whom was still in the same position, leant forward with his lips in a strange pout, and his eyes staring widely back at Harry.
They seem to gaze at each other thoughtfully, their eyes glancing down from their lips up to each others stunned eyes.
Harry smiles at his friend happily not even a beat later, his eyes bright and shining as he waits for his friend to stop staring at him as if he’s got two heads.
“Say something!” Harry grins, poking his friends shoulder.
Slowly, a warm smile follows Harry’s and the two just sit grinning at each other. It was just a peck, a meer bump of the lips - clumsy, and light, but the two continue to grin as they silently go back to laying side by side on the soft grass, staring up at the sky above, occasionally sparing each other sly looks and innocent smiles.
“I’d marry you too, Lou…” Harry muses thoughtfully, a contended smile on his young face.
Louis laughs beside him, glancing to his side and smiling as his blue eyes met Harry’s green only inches from his, “Oh yeah, why?”
Harry smiles fondly as a blush crawls onto his cheeks.
“Because your my best friend, and I don’t want to share you with anyone either,” Louis grins at the younger boys words, “And I like your smile, and your kisses.”