Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

2016

One day post-AUB:

Two slices of toast. That’s all it takes to startle Niall’s heart into a throbbing pain. Claws of shock digging into it, leaving crescents of emotion to fade as he exhales disbelief into the reappearing silence of his flat.

He shakes his head at himself, looks down at the fingers that have clenched around sweater fabric over his chest, and sighs once more while a train of self-mocking thoughts chugs on in his mind.

He’s not quite here. Not entirely present.

He hadn’t noticed the shift from morning to noon until Liam chimed in with a text about lunch that he just met with poor excuses before he shifted his attention; blinked incomprehensibly at the sky outside of his bedroom window and wondered when dark night had turned to dull grey and then the gilded blue of daytime.

Now bread has announced itself toasted with a familiar noise, and Niall’s stood in his kitchen trying to breathe through the lingering shock of it, hoping to find metaphorical footing and a grip of the scattered bits that are supposed to make up his life. He came home relatively early last night - hasn’t managed to get anything sorted yet despite a lack of sleep - and now his heart thuds away from him as though it wants to be anywhere but here, anyone’s but his.

Not anyone’s, the first slice of toast points out by burning his fingertips when he picks it up.

One’s, singular. His heart knew who it belonged to long before Niall did; set him straight when he was about to give up. It is pointedly not broken beyond repair despite what’s happened to it, despite the truth that has been hidden from it, because it knew all along. Whispered it beneath the roar of Harry’s beauty from the very start and thereby kept Niall from realizing, because it knew that he was too scared to fold into himself and find out. Knew that he needed some time.

Now it’s beating away from him, pushing the rubble of the past days’ contemplation and sorrow out of the way to declare its loyalties; declare where it wants to be because it’s the place that it fits into the most, and also where it has a match. Niall fills up the lungs that work quietly beneath that heart, with air that smells of slightly burnt toast, and manages to put butter on those slices of bread despite his distracted state. Even gets himself seated at the table that he rarely uses and bites into a corner of his lunch before his phone starts to ring, disrupting silence and distraction.

His first thoughts are of Liam and the declined invitation to lunch. Guilt starts to creep in; he’s sure that Louis has said something to hint at the situation that Niall and Harry are in, and he should fill Liam in on the details, but he barely knows them himself. Is still looking for that footing, fumbling around without socks in his flat and mind all at once, and in no way ready to speak about it with an outsider.

He licks melted butter off of a fingertip, then uses the same finger to nudge his phone closer on the table top and give it a closer look. Shock ripples through him another time; no claws spiking his heart this time but the kind of eerie, quiet stillness of a foggy forest and the knowledge that one is about to get lost inside of it. He will. Has before. Harry is an entire universe to get lost in, and Niall has no maps to him. Always did fumble around on instinct and hoped that he wouldn’t cause any sort of destruction on his path.

The nearly faded crescents in his heart do twinge at that last thought; realization that he did, unintentionally, cause Harry to hurt. Pain inflicted on two hearts, not just his own. This fact is big and undeniable in the aftermath of everything – not something he could fully consider when he was last locked up in this flat, moping, but something that has hovered in the centre of his mind since information started to pile up in it during Louis’ talk, and that only kept stealing his attention as the night progressed.

There lies history in Harry’s being. Strength and bravery infused in everything that Harry is, in everything that Harry does and in the forgiveness that he has given people who have hurt him in the past. Louis evidently thinks of this man as a hero. Niall ponders the way that Harry slowly uncovered his own heart and tentatively let Niall into it despite everything that he has been through, and thinks; Louis is right.

The way Harry let himself and his son have a chance at happiness is heroic, and the way he went about it was the only way he considered remotely safe even though it wasn’t – even though the trembling beginning of a love story never fully is.

“Hi,” Niall answers on an emotional exhale, because this time yesterday he was clueless; had no idea of what Harry’s past contained or what had led him to his actions, and no idea of how to feel about anything. He wasn’t even sure that they’d ever speak to each other again, yet here they are. The ground between them is shaky, but they’re still standing, sliding through uncertain emotions but not away from each other.

Harry has called him, closing a distance and invading the space that he promptly gave Niall to contemplate everything in, and his voice his hushed and apologetic when he says, “Niall – hi.”

Silence edges in between them, highlighted by the way the background on Harry’s side is nothing but quiet. A child’s crying, muted by distance but still there and heart-breaking across the line, mixed with faraway music. He can picture Harry standing in the staircase between home and studio; can tell by that inner vision alone that something’s not right – that Harry wouldn’t be calling so soon if he didn’t have to.

“Harry,” he nudges. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. I mean – no. I didn’t want to call you. I wouldn’t if it wasn’t—“ Harry cuts himself off with a frustrated exhale, probably runs a palm across his face in the process. There’s a sense of urgency in his voice, now; something wild rippling through his consonants when he adds, “Are you free? Right now. Working?”

“Eating lunch,” Niall informs, glancing at his toast. “Nothing important.”

“Very important. When you’ve finished it, though – if you wouldn’t mind,” Harry starts, emotions scattered in every pause, every rise and fall of that voice, as though the cracks in his foundation have only gotten worse since yesterday. “Danny’s sick. Feverish. And I cancelled all my appointments today but one, but I still have an hour or so left until it’s done and—“

“I’ll come.”

“—Louis has been taking care of him until now, but he won’t stop crying and he keeps trying to get down here to see me and Louis just – he doesn’t know what to do, and he’s got appointments of his own, right, and I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t absolutely necessary but Ed’s out of town and—“

“Harry,” Niall snaps. Can feel himself smiling, mouth and heart in tune. “Of course I’ll come.”

Even if he wasn’t currently at home doing nothing, he’d come. It’s Danny, and it’s Harry, and the shit that they’ve been through recently doesn’t change the fact that Niall worships the both of them – that the soulmate bond simply underlines that fact.

He can hear Harry breathe in. Realization dawning; wet emotion in his voice as panic subsides under the weight of something quieter. Relief, and gratitude. “You’re the best.”

*

He slides into denim shorts and a long-sleeved shirt, regarding the mess that is his bed with dismay. Takes his second slice of toast between his teeth while he gets his shoes on, and heads out of the door five minutes later.

It’s a dull Saturday. The sky is as grey as it was yesterday, and the slight wind is chilly, as though the world’s still tentative – unsure whether to edge towards sunshine and brightness or if the past days’ heavy clouds of contemplation and honesty need to linger to provide further protection against unexpected threats of new storms. There are patches of lighter grey up there, though. A sky showing the cosmic longing for something joyful to break through, to bring back the heat that this summer needs.

He catches the mirrored image of himself in the studio’s window, and wishes that he could blame the wind for his appearance. His hair’s flattened against one temple, though sticking up straight on the other side of his head, and there’s a rather thick growth of stubble lining his jaw and chin. He drags a hand over it as he uses the other to let himself through the door; moves it up to his head in attempt to brush some sense into his hair while he lets his gaze drink in the familiarity of the place.

No Doubt’s Sunday Morning over the speakers, an attractive mess of art splattered on the walls, and a wooden floor stretching out like the sea around him. No one’s stood behind the counter, but the door behind it is an open, dark square standing out amongst the art, and from the stairs inside he can distinguish the faint murmur of Louis’ voice drifting down.

More attractive than the art on the walls – than any art, anywhere – is Harry, sat in his chair at his station and currently hunched over a woman’s calf with his tattoo gun poised and buzzing. Niall loses his breath at the very sight of him, of the visible pull of muscle and tendon in Harry’s side and back when he shifts, and the sharp juts of bone in cheek and jaw where his profile is exposed to the room.

His shoulders are broad, the lines of them straight and wonderful to trace up to his neck, to that hidden place beneath wild curls that holds Niall’s name – and Niall’s lungs squeeze painfully at that thought, around nothing. His heart’s suddenly so big that it feels like it dents the closest one, like the lung would be punctured if there was any air left in it to let out.

The weight of his gaze registers eventually – makes Harry swipe away ink from abused skin before he looks up from his work and over at Niall. He addresses some words to the woman on the bench – puts the gun aside safely and helps her up into a sitting position so that she can take a break before he finally comes closer.

He can’t have gotten much sleep last night, either. Looks a bit worn down, but good. Always beautiful.

“Hi,” he breathes out, tilting a corner of his mouth up with effort. “Thought I told you to finish your lunch before you got here?”

Niall feels his brows tilt inwards, surprised by the greeting. “I did.”

Harry picks his gloves off, reaches a hand out between them and brushes it gently over Niall’s breastbone, announcing; “Crumbs. Did you eat on the way over here?”

His smile’s more genuine, now, and Niall aches with how badly he’s missed seeing it. Nods his admission because of it, just to keep it on Harry’s face.

“And now I’m here,” he murmurs, pacifying the immediate flash of worry in Harry’s gaze with a palm pressed to Harry’s shoulder and an assurance of, “I don’t know how much use I’ll be – I’m just me. But I’ll do whatever I can. I’ll watch him until you’re done, so no stress.”

He is just him, inescapably so. Cold feet and a heart on his sleeve and absolutely no experience when it comes to taking care of a child until this particular one crawled in backwards into his life, but he’s full of love and admiration. Would fight the entire world to keep Daniel Styles safe.

“You’re you,” Harry confirms, an echo, with fondness blossoming in each line of his expression, shaping it. “Nothing just about it. Wouldn’t have called you if I didn’t trust you to be brilliant with him.”

Niall swallows. Nods again, because he can’t trust words to climb their way through his throat, can’t be sure that newly functioning lungs will be able to work up enough breath to carry a response. He squeezes Harry’s shoulder gently, looks at him for another moment, and then moves away.

The crying that Niall heard in the background of the conversation five minutes ago has picked up again, even more heart-wrenching in person. The stairs up to the flat very nearly shiver under the impact of the boy’s devastation, of shouts and screams and broken sobs that cut right into Niall’s spine and make him want to curl up and slide his way back down; bump every vertebra on the way and have that pain to worry about instead of Danny’s, because he can’t soothe the latter. Can’t ease that pain or offer to carry it instead.

Louis looks wrung out. Emptied of everything, sat like a shell in one of the armchairs with his head in his hands; hair desperately sticking out between his fingers as though reaching for a solution, for a way to calm Danny down. Whatever he’s tried up until this point can’t have worked, because Danny’s kneeling on the floor in front of the telly with his head bowed down, chin at his clavicle the way he usually tilts it in bashfulness, only there are tears happening now. A flooding down cheeks and upon the collar of his shirt where splotches of darkness speak of his state, of his misery.

“Hey,” slips out quietly from Niall’s mouth – from his heart – without input from his mind. His arms are reaching out, sharing Louis’ hair’s desperation and wishing to be powerful enough to mend something, anything. Make it better. “Hey, shh.”

Silence seeps in, sudden and soft. Louis doesn’t look up in the face of it, but Danny does. His eyes are already wide with recognition and a dash of hope, and his knees almost seem to lift themselves and his entire body up from the floor in an instant, frantic feet moving him forward a second later.

His cheeks are a flaming pink made up of heat and exertion, undoubtedly underlined by the fever. The widths of his eyes are still shining with recent tears and he looks exhausted, yet he’s sprinting towards Niall – forgoing the usual pause of hesitation before a hello to simply reach his arms out to match Niall’s and throw himself into them, displaying trust in its purest form.

Niall catches him, the weight of him that has somehow become familiar in his arms, against his chest and within his heart. Curls fingers around limbs and in fabric for support while air slips out of Danny’s lungs, followed by one final sob as the boy collapses in that safe harbour, becomes lead weight as he buries his face in Niall’s shoulder and melts.

Niall’s breath stutters again; lungs and heart and entire being shivering under the realization that he can be this vital, be so blindly trusted and offer this kind of comfort without even trying.

And he doesn’t know – can’t tell if it’s the bond or if it’s something else. He doesn’t know. But before he’s even collected his breath and managed to lift his nose from the soft mess of hair atop Danny’s head, the boy’s snuffling against his collarbone, perhaps lulled to sleep by the awestruck beating of Niall’s heart. It feels like the sofa all over; like Danny throwing himself over Niall’s lap ten minutes into their first meeting and knocking everything that Niall previously thought he knew about love over. The entire world holds its breath, amazed.

Niall is, too. Amazed. Full of love and scared to death, holding this boy close, feeling the exaggerated heat of that forehead against his shoulder and knowing that there’s nothing he can do to change it no matter how badly he wants to, to make it all better.

“It’s not the bond,” Louis chimes in. His voice is soft – his whole demeanour is where he’s pushing himself up to his feet. He arches an eyebrow as he passes, and adds, “You were thinking it, right? But it’s not. It’s you. It’s how much you matter to him.”

There’s no time for thought, no chance to process that information or form a reply before Louis has disappeared down the stairs and into the studio. Niall’s left on the spot, his feet bare in his shoes and his heart overflowing to show that the pressure it’s been under hasn’t rendered it useless, and his lungs suddenly work again. Push an exhale out across the top of Danny’s head and tickles those soft curls with joy just as the sun finally finds a crack in the think nest of clouds up on the sky – breath and sunshine mingling over the back of Danny’s head as if to highlight that the storms have passed, that joy is about to blossom once more.

*

It takes just over an hour for Harry to finish up his work, as promised. The sun’s shining from a slightly different angle through the window, now, but more persistently than before. The clouds must have truly parted.

Niall’s slouched in the corner of the sofa when Harry comes up, Danny sprawled across his torso and continuously huffing out breaths across his collarbone. It’s a comforting weight; a settling warmth that has tried to coax Niall into his own slumber a dozen times since he sank down among the cushions.

Now he smiles over Danny’s head, mouths a hello and revels in the softness of the smile that is aimed back at him from the top of the stairs. Harry brushes hair away from his own forehead, blinks slowly at the sight before him, and keeps that gentle and fond smile on his lips as he comes closer, crouching noiselessly by the sofa.

He uses the same hand to brush Danny’s hair to the side; fondness practically palpable where it radiates off of him, soaring like dust motes in the gaze that he rests upon his son. The emotion doesn’t go away when he shifts his attention and looks up at Niall; it’s there and it’s soft and explosive all at once, thick and wonderful to breathe in. Niall wants to kiss him.

“Knew you’d be brilliant at this,” Harry murmurs through that smile, that enticing mouth. “You’ve been from the start – brilliant with him. Us.”

Blood rushes, and Niall’s cheeks feel as hot as Danny’s forehead does through t-shirt fabric over his own skin. He looks down at Danny, away from all that honest adoration in attempt to divert the focus.

“He’s pretty much been asleep this entire time,” he says. “I got him to drink some water, because that’s always good, right? But other than that I haven’t done anything, not really.”

This makes Harry sigh, disbelief and fondness mixing in a long exhale while he sinks down to his knees and leans a forearm in front of Niall’s hip on the sofa. When Niall looks at him again Harry’s eyes are closed, eyelids pale and delicate where they hide emerald coloured joy that surely must match the grin that is stuck to the curve of his mouth.

“You came,” Harry points out, opening eyes in slow-motion, eyelashes long and weighed down by the sincerity in his voice. “Despite everything that’s happened, and despite the fact that I told you I’d give you some time alone to think everything through. You’re here. Didn’t even hesitate, didn’t think about saying no.”

“I could never. I love him,” Niall says. Takes a couple of breaths, watching the utter elation that settles over Harry’s body at that confession, and then adds, “I love you.”

Harry’s attention snaps back to him, wide-eyed and tentatively hopeful – more alive than he was when they were sat on this couch last night. It’s not a distant memory, but it almost feels like it, like it’s been years. Months, at least. The way Harry blinks in attempt to make sense of this situation surely enhances that feeling.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Niall hums, smiling. “I told you this yesterday.”

“You did,” Harry realizes – ponders it aloud. “Was a bit scared to believe it, I guess. And scared of what it would mean if you actually meant it.”

His parents, his sister, and three of his best friends; people who have loved Harry in the past have gone away, and Louis is the only one who’s come back. Yet here Harry is, heart in Niall’s hands when anyone else would have it locked away where it couldn’t be harmed another time.

“You gave me time,” Niall tells him. “Enough of it to think, to figure things out. And I think that I get it – why you did what you did, why you thought it was best not to say anything. But Harry... I’m not them. I’m me, and I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. Do you understand?”

He reaches out – tilts Harry’s chin up with a finger pressed beneath it, and can see the emotions ripple in those eyes, the understanding dawning and making Harry nod into his touch, so he adds, “It’s not because we’re soulmates, it’s because I can’t picture myself ever being capable of leaving you and Danny behind – can’t imagine ever wanting to be without you. I just need you to talk to me in the future – put everything on the table even if you think it’s something I won’t like, because it won’t drive me away.”

Danny sighs in his sleep; Harry exhales wetly. Stillness floods the entire apartment, and Harry says, “You’re staying with us.”

“For as long as you’ll have me, yeah,” Niall confirms, because it’s true. Because no matter how terrifying it is, he’s known that he belongs with these two since the very start – knows that everything he wants is currently held within four walls and his own gaze and he is willing to lose it all in the future if he gets to have it now. Wants to revel in the knowledge that he is enough, now, for once. That he is wanted for who he is and that no branded names upon anyone’s skin is going to push him away and replace him for something better.

Harry grins, wide and real and with no accompanying worry, then. Bright and beautiful and in love, undoubtedly so, with Niall. Says, “Forever, then.”

And lets Niall kiss him, finally.

Two weeks post-AUB:

The apartment is home, now. The TV is up on the wall, he can make proper coffee in his kitchen, and the couch has curled in comfortably against the walls, settled in the corner of the living room. His clothes are all unpacked and stuffed into his closets, and his sheets smell like a mix of himself and Harry since the last night that they spent together.

Home, the way he’d never imagined that a home could feel like. Similar to the ones he had in Mullingar or Wolverhampton, but better.

Better than meetings in London, too, even though he loves everything that his job entails. Discussing futures, networking, getting the chance to show everyone in the business that he didn’t get this far just because he’s been best friends with one of the most talented footballers of the decade since childhood - it all makes Niall grow a couple of inches, settle more comfortably into his suits and simply thrive. But getting home beats it, now. Having one beats it.

He took the train back early this morning, bleary-eyed and clinging to a to-go cup of bad coffee. Took care of emails and texted Harry instead of sleeping as the landscape passed by outside, and finds himself exhausted at two in the afternoon, now, slumbering on that settled sofa of his as the minutes tick on and away. The telly’s not even on, it’s just his own breathing and the noise from the street outside there to lull him; August air trickling in with its heat as though to huddle in the corners and prepare the apartment for the oncoming fall.

Even Niall’s toes are warm, pressed to an armrest. He flexes them when the tranquillity is interrupted by a bout of knocks on the front door; pushes them against fabric in teenage-like reluctance to drag himself out of sleep as though the piece of furniture is capable of shooing guests away for him.

He’s an adult, though, above all of that reluctance and the deep-rooted affection that he holds for sleep, so he can think rationally. Can resurface from his slumber and reason that no one can possibly be knocking on his front door who hasn’t got a key to the building, which means that the person trying to get his attention is either Liam or a neighbour, and he doesn’t want to be rude.

It’s not a neighbour, though. Niall shuffles bare feet from the living room and through the hallway, drags an assessing palm over his bare stomach, and then runs that same hand through his hair before he opens up the door, immediately blinking in surprise.

Harry’s stood out there, with Danny on his hip and a frazzled expression on his face. Windswept, with his hair falling in an artful mess around his neck and curling in beneath his jaw. He’s beautiful, even when the widths of his eyes convey that he thinks that Niall’s doorstep is currently the only place in the world that isn’t falling apart underneath his feet.

“Caught your neighbour on her way out of the building,” Harry says. “She let us in.”

Niall just woke up. Has been out of town for nearly a week and probably has creases from his sofa all over his cheek; Harry and his nervous energy is proving difficult to interpret and Niall simply tries to smother his own confusion with a smile, saying, “Yeah, that’s fine. Want to come in?”

Harry shakes his head. His hair falls rebelliously and tangles in his eyelashes, but he simply shifts Danny’s weight in his arms and blinks, his expression settling into deeper lines of misery.

“Chaos in the studio,” he says, inching closer towards Niall. “I only just had time to pick him up from nursery, but I’ve got to squeeze in a removal sitting before I’m done for the day, and I know that you only just got home, and that you might not – you can say no, that’s –“

The confusion clears at that; clouds of exhaustion parting decisively at the pleading note of Harry’s voice because Niall is here, home , with a man and his son unarguably offering a whole other layer of contentment to this place just by being in his line of vision, and he has missed having them there during the week that he has been away.

He tilts his head a little; tries to pin Harry down with a look of fond exasperation because he can’t believe that Harry’s even felt the need to ask – thought that Niall might say no.

“You know I’d never,” he points out, stretching his arms out and making grabby hands. “Come here, buddy.”

Danny assesses his wiggling fingers with a massive grin on his face, a muted hiss of a giggle slipping out of him when he leans his upper body out of Harry’s arms and trusts Niall to catch him before he falls. Once pressed to Niall’s side – still beaming – he murmurs his trademark; “Hi, Niall.”

Niall’s heart isn’t used to that yet. It’s not used to Danny greeting him with a hello that is absolutely saturated in happiness, or to Harry standing a couple of feet away being… him. Bright and handsome and so full of love that it almost spills out of his eyes where he looks at them, visibly relieved by the turn that his day just took.

Niall looks back down at Danny at the feel of curious fingertips over his clavicle; ponders the careful wanderings of gaze and hand over his own skin before he finally replies. “Hi, Danny. You’re going to stay with me for a while, huh? While daddy works?”

This makes Danny look up from Niall’s shoulder. His eyes are wide and shining with excitement, as though he’d forgotten but instantly blossomed with curiosity at the reminder. “You live here. Daddy said you live here.”

“I do,” Niall confirms, freeing one hand to point its thumb over his own shoulder. “That’s my flat.”

Danny turns his head slightly to look in that direction, says, “That’s your shoes. Black shoes. With stripes.”

“My vans, yeah,” Niall grins. His heart is overflowing. “You recognized those?”

“Mhm,” Danny nods, fingers ever so delicate against Niall’s skin; absentminded in their exploration of what they’ve not been in contact with before where they’re mapping out the hills and valleys of bone and hollow. His gaze is still aimed at something in Niall’s hallway, distant and lost in thought. Niall ventures out for a kiss against the boy’s temple, quick and terrifying because it’s new. Colossal. Makes that enlarged heart of his leap clumsily, powered by affection.

When he shakes himself out of that bubble and looks up, he finds Harry looking right back at him. Through him. Gaze hot and unravelling, full of a brand of appreciation that Niall feels so deep in his bones that he blushes all over from its very implication. His cheeks are burning; warmth trickling down his neck and across his chest to scream of his bashfulness and fuel the smile on Harry’s face; turn it into a smirk that doesn’t help Niall’s situation at all.

“Weren’t you going somewhere,” he bites out, using what little dignity he’s got left to raise an eyebrow and declare that he’s still in the game, that he won’t turn his back on any of this. He’ll project his emotions on brick walls all over the world if it makes Harry look at him like this forever, embarrassment be damned.

Harry blinks. “Fuck.”

Niall grins. Wiggles eyebrows over Danny’s head and waits for unsaid jokes about saving that for later or me now? yes please to filter through Harry’s thoughts. When they do, Harry’s head snaps up comically, his eyes wide under eyebrows that look both dismayed and pleased with the dirty treks that Niall’s mind can wander along in broad daylight.

“Shut up,” he bristles, laughter in his voice. “Behave.”

Danny shifts. “I will daddy, promise.”

“Not—“ Harry falters, aims a wild gaze Niall’s way before shaking his head and lowering a brightly coloured backpack from his right shoulder. “Toys. And I think he snuck a movie in there when I wasn’t looking.”

“Sounds like him,” Niall nods, accepting it. Accepting everything that this man will possibly give him. It already feels like too much, far more than he deserves where it crowds his chest. “I will. Behave. He’s safe with me.”

Harry reaches out, then. Touches a thumb to Niall’s cheek before he presses a kiss there, too, in the lingering heat of his own touch and upon the pink that surely still shines there. “I know he is. I’ll bring back food, yeah?”

“Pizza?”

“Sure,” Harry agrees. Moves towards the staircase, but stops before he reaches the first step and looks over his own shoulder. “I swear I’m not just with you for your babysitting expertise.”

Niall snorts at that; shifts Danny to his other side and raises an eyebrow. “No, I’m sure my good looks play a part in it, too.”

Harry suddenly looks unimpressed. Puts a hand on the railing, lifts a foot only to let it sink to start off his descent. “I know you meant that as a joke, but you literally take my breath away every time I see you.”

The air crystallizes; Niall holds his breath in attempt not to break it, scared that he will destroy that declaration with his own clumsy voice. When he finally manages to suck in a breath and blink himself aware again, the front door of the building is slamming shut behind Harry downstairs, and Danny’s fingers have wandered on a curious path to the hollow of Niall’s throat.

“Niall,” he whispers. 

Niall tilts his nose down, in against Danny’s temple. “Yeah?”

“Wanna go inside now.”

And Niall snorts, which turns into low chuckles that Danny doesn’t pay any attention to because despite the rational wish that he just uttered, the boy hasn’t realized that Niall has been utterly ridiculous, standing like a lovesick teenager in his boyfriend’s footprints, in awe of how good he can feel.

They do go inside. Niall brings the boy and the backpack into the living room and watches Danny watch the room, take in every inch of the place with curious eyes that speak of amazement. The furniture act much the same as they did the first time Harry visited; cosy up and seem to thrive in Danny’s company as though home could never have been as much of a home as Niall thought that it was until this, until now, until a family completed it all.

He lowers Danny to the floor in the middle of the room, rubs over the side of his own torso that no longer has a human radiator attached to it, and says, “Alright, I’m just going to grab a shirt, okay? It’ll only be a second. Want to unpack your bag, pick something for us to do?”

Danny smiles at him, bright and happy where he instantly gets to work, and when Niall comes back twelve seconds later he’s already fished out three car toys and the first Planes movie, sat cross-legged on the carpet with his shoulders drawn up around his ears, around a grin that lets Niall know that Danny expects him to be exasperated by the choice of film.

Niall’s all too happy to play along, exaggeratedly tiptoeing closer with his fingers curled in the air to warn the boy of what’s coming, pressing them to ticklish sides a moment later and coaxing melodic laughter out while he says, “Planes again, huh? Trying to tire me out, are you?”

“It’s Dusty!” Danny shrieks. “I love Dusty.”

Niall stills his hands, exhales slowly while he watches the joy play across Danny’s familiar features. Says, “I know you do, buddy. Let’s start it up.”

They sit on the floor, backs against the sofa. Niall’s sliced up an apple as a snack that goes untouched on the table, and Danny tilts in with a cheek against Niall’s arm as soon as they’re settled next to each other.

Niall lets the sound of animated figures wash over him and leans his head back against the seat behind him; lets the exhaustion come back and make itself comfortable in his bones and muscles once more as he closes his eyes.

He can feel Danny’s fingers against his skin again, little tips touching and prodding against the inside of an elbow before running down the forearm, and then suddenly trying to twist. This causes Niall to open an eye, eyebrow raised, and peer down at the point of contact – ponder the apparent lack of interest in the movie and wonder what Danny is doing.

“Hey, I thought you liked this film,” he accuses. “Is my arm more interesting all of a sudden?”

Silence chimes in, dancing in the air like a mirage over a scorching road in the summer, hidden underneath the joyful voices. Niall keeps watching, perplexed, as Danny quietly tugs and twists as much as he can, now entirely swallowed up by whatever issue he is trying to solve.

“Empty,” is muttered under his breath eventually, only audible because of how close they are sat. And then he looks up with a furrowed brow, and adds, “’s empty, Niall.”

“Empty...?” Niall leans forward. His expression must match Danny’s now, confused and affronted by what he doesn’t know. He looks at Danny’s hand on his own arm again, trails the movement of small fingers and feels like the entire Earth is standing still for a minute, until everything finally clicks. Planet back in movement; his heart splintering with realization. “Oh. You mean I don’t have any tattoos?”

Danny nods solemnly, eyes full of emotions that indicate that he might be sad about this discovery – worried, perhaps, that Niall is sad because of the lack of ink upon his skin.

“Daddy has many,” he points out.

“He does,” Niall agrees, theatrical eyebrows playing along for emphasis. Adds a conspiratorial whisper of, “I’m a bit scared of needles, though. That’s why I don’t have any.”

Danny’s brow furrows even more at that, workings undoubtedly going on behind those eyes of his as he thinks. Then he reaches out and pulls the leg of his shorts up just a little, just enough so that they can look at the skin above his knee and see a tattered image of Lightning McQueen peek out.

“Have this,” he says, tone happy in an instant. “Like Danny does!”

Splinters vibrate in Niall’s chest, stirred by all the care that is gathered in that small body. He brushes a palm over the top of Danny’s head, and says, “You put that on with water and a sponge, right? I don’t have that kind at home. But we can try another day.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Niall hums. “Maybe tomorrow.”

This doesn’t seem to strike as very reassuring. Fingers continue to wander restlessly over the bone in Niall’s wrist even though Danny finally aims his gaze back at the telly, and the overwhelmed pieces of Niall’s heart point out that he has to do something.

He grabs a pen from the coffee table, clicks it once before cutting into the line of Danny’s gaze with it, suggesting, “Would you want to draw a tattoo on me, Danny? Until I can get a proper one tomorrow?”

The gentle green of Danny’s eyes lights up with hesitant excitement; the boy turning his entire body towards Niall, yet eyeing the offered pen with suspicion.

“It’s a pen – not a needle. One you can draw with,” Niall points out, using it to make a dot on the back of his own hand. “See, it doesn’t hurt.”

A smile grows slowly on Danny’s face; stretches his mouth into something fascinated and happy as he takes the pen when Niall offers it a second time. He picks a spot on the inside of Niall’s wrist, and touches it gently again for another few seconds as though waiting for further instructions – needing that assurance that he’s welcome, that he’s allowed and wanted there.

“Anything you want,” Niall tells him softly. “I trust you.”

On the screen, a plane is scared of heights. In Niall’s flat, a boy suddenly isn’t scared of anything. Danny positively beams, and seems to grow ten sizes around the proud breath that he takes before he decisively poises the pen over Niall’s arm and pokes his tongue out at the corner of his mouth in concentration.

What he ends up drawing isn’t all that obvious – lines and blots in stark blue that would look like abstract art to anyone else, but that feels a lot like a heart upon Niall’s sleeve. A symbol of love scribbled where everyone can see it, bright compared to the faded lines of a name on the wrist that is left alone on Niall’s other side.

And Niall thinks that maybe, possibly, a soulmate mark can be wonderful if he gets to go about it in his own way.

Four weeks post-AUB:

The final few days of August strike, and with them comes warmth. It’s sticky and humid, though, and Niall doesn’t like how tough the air is to inhale – how he feels heavy and lethargic with it in his lungs. His office has become an air conditioned blessing, and he’s ended up taking more naps at his desk than he’s proud of because of how badly he’s been sleeping at night.

The wind has been picking up as today’s progressed – clouds rolling in to enclose all that humidity and make Niall’s t-shirt cling to his lower back, and he expects that this summer is about to face its last thunderstorm. Something to clear the air up – make the city feel fresh again.

It’s all a bit ironic, really. Or perhaps symbolic, considering what today is going to entail and what it’s going to mean for the future. A new start. The sweeping away of old layers to let something new settle in and blossom. The prospect is light in his veins – counters that air in his lungs and makes him defy the weather with an easy stride along familiar pavement.

He makes a pit stop at the café and burns his tongue on his coffee because he’s too eager, but cool air washes over him when he finally enters the studio, and the soft smile that Harry greets him with is enough to soothe the lingering sting.

Harry. Long-limbed, messy-haired, beautiful Harry. His, Niall thinks possessively, standing in the doorway with chocolatey offerings in his hand and a body that still trembles with emotions at the very sight of the man that it loves. He’s going to think of Harry as his for as long as Harry allows it, for as long as Harry wants to be, and the thought alone makes his knees tremble even more, prone to giving in under the weight of that vow because he’s never imagined that he’d be in this position. Have someone so vital in his life.

“Hi,” he breathes out, backed up by Patti Smith over the speakers. He’s probably overpowered by her, actually, and by her music, but Harry’s looking straight at him and the lines around his eyes deepen along with his smile in reaction.

He arches eyebrows, a teasing glint in his eyes when he twists a little on his stool behind the counter and echoes, “Hi.”

Niall nods. Forces undependable legs forward, around the counter, then he places to-go cups and the accompanying paper bag on it, and murmurs, “Hi.”

They’re close, now. Harry’s twisted completely on that stool of his in order to face Niall’s approaching form, and now Niall’s a step away from pushing in between Harry’s knees. Has inches on Harry, stood like this, looking down the bridge of his own nose and admiring every curl, every line, and every feature on that handsome face. The way it’s smiling from mouth to eyes, subtly bright as though he is the sun that the clouds are trying to keep safe by guarding the sky outside.

“Hi,” Harry suggest, with a barely-there question-mark infused in those teasing eyebrows of his. He leans into Niall’s palm when it presses to his cheek; Niall admires that, too, from where he stands, fitting his own fingers to Harry’s jaw in order to tilt his head upwards. And he breathes out a chuckle – soundless but powerful, happiness too big to contain within his chest.

“Yeah, hi,” he whispers, and pushes in. Fits himself between Harry’s thighs and his mouth against Harry’s before it has the chance to produce something sarcastic that’ll make Niall truly laugh and put him off his quest to kiss Harry senseless.

He loses his own senses, too. It’s inevitable; they always disappear when Harry’s so close that the scent of his skin tickles Niall’s nose. He loses himself completely in the warmth of Harry, in the feeling of hands fisting the front of his shirt to keep him close and in the pressure of Harry’s lips against his own, the way they part with a sigh and allow Niall access into his mouth. Heat and slick lapses of tongues meeting – the exploration won’t ever get boring, won’t ever stop shivers from breaking loose at the top of Niall’s neck and falling all along his spine. This is where Niall wants to be forever.

It’s Harry who draws back eventually, just an inch. His eyelashes are long. Delicate. Enticing to look at from such close proximity, as is the rest of him where he blinks himself back to the reality of the studio slowly.

“Hmm,” he considers, licking his bottom lip in the most distracting of ways. “You do know that you have a machine to make coffee with at home. Big, fancy thing.”

It’s not a question – it’s sarcasm, belated and weaker than it would have been, had Niall not silenced it with his own mouth, but with a hint of fondness to it as though he actually, deep down, finds Niall’s love for café-bought caffeine charming.

“Too fancy,” Niall grumbles, slipping a hand free from the back of Harry’s neck in order to reach for his beverage. “Too complicated. I can’t get the damn thing to make a regular old cup no matter what I do.”

His hand catches blindly on the other cup; plastic covered with condensation, chilly against his fingertips. He slides it towards Harry, and enjoys the delighted look that appears on the man’s face despite the previous dig at shop-bought drinks. Niall’s come to learn that Harry is weak for a good glass of ice tea, and the way he fits his lips around the straw and sucks, now, makes Niall understand its appeal better.

“You could just take it back to the shop,” Harry suggests a moment later, tugging lightly on Niall’s shirt where his hand’s still caught in fabric. “Exchange it for a simpler one.”

It takes a moment for Niall to trace the conversation back and catch up – mentally shaking indecent thoughts away in order to make proper conversation. Granted, the damn machine wasn’t the best thing he’s ever bought, but it was an impulse. His thoughts and emotions were scattered all over the sidewalk that leads from the studio to his flat, and he was so desperate to get away from that zone that he spent a ridiculous amount of money on something that he didn’t really need.

It’s not something he usually does – even now that he makes more money than he ever could have dreamed of he likes to save most of it. He has dreams. White picket fences and guest bedrooms and a porch with a swing on it. Harry and Danny and him. It’s a faraway wish for a future that no longer seems as impossible as it used to, and he’s keeping it close to his heart. Isn’t going to blurt it out.

“I might,” Niall nods. Takes a pointed sip out of his own cup and finally takes a step back. Nods at the bag that they’ve left aside. “Brownie now, or after?”

Harry tilts his head at that, and assesses Niall with a gaze so attentive and fond that Niall’s skin feels transparent. Veins on display; crooked on their way to a heart that amazingly doesn’t break from the fragility of that moment, that crystallized breath of admiration that pauses the entire world, puts it on hold in order for Harry to love him back in peace.

“After,” Harry says. He nods decisively along with his own choice, and breaks the moment.

There’s determination growing in his eyes, pushing the fondness aside so that it simply clings to his eyelashes and the curl of his hand in Niall’s shirt while the rest of his expression’s shielded off. Guards up – clouds hovering with ominous threats.

Niall’s not surprised – has been expecting this ever since they decided on a date – so he does the only thing he can come up with. Covers Harry’s hand with his own and pulls him up on his feet, reels him in closer and kisses him swiftly.

Again, again, again.

He doesn’t move an inch when he stops; only opens his eyes to see the words sink in when he says, “This doesn’t mean that I don’t love you, or that I don’t want you. It’s the opposite; I love you. You’re all I want. You and Danny.”

Harry nods gently, barely a movement at all but still enough for their noses to brush and their lips to rub against each other. It tickles Niall’s want – he can feel it in his bones, loud and feral, and he tilts that hairsbreadth forward for another kiss just to still himself, to settle his heart before Harry goes on.

“Yeah,” is what Harry says. He swallows, audibly. “I know.”

“Do you?” Niall searches Harry’s gaze, and leans back in order to keep himself from getting distracted by the wash of warmth and scent from Harry’s body, but he also slides his hands down and into Harry’s, entwining their fingers.

“I know that this relationship is pretty new, and that it hasn’t been the easiest for us lately. But I’m crazy about you, and this – the ink represents a past that I don’t associate with you, do you get that?” he wonders, hoping desperately that Harry does. “Those were years of pain that – while they technically brought me to you – tore me down bit by bit until I never thought I’d find happiness with another person. And I don’t want that reminder on my skin even though that fear has been proven wrong. I just want you. To build myself up again with you and your son.”

Harry’s eyes started to water somewhere in the middle of that unintentional speech. He’s blinking slowly, now, looking through the blurriness at Niall as though he’s the entire universe again, and Niall doesn’t know what to do. He just moves one pair of their hands up in order to stick his thumb out and catch the first tear, and hopes that that’s enough. That he can be enough.

“Fuck you,” Harry sniffs eventually, laughing wetly a moment later. “Stop being so amazing.”

Niall laughs at that, at once settling comfortably in his shoes, on his feet. He knows from Harry’s reaction alone that his words were unnecessary – that Harry meant it when he said that he knew – but it feels good to have loosened those confessions from his heart anyway, and to know that they share them, now.

He squeezes Harry’s hands, hoping to radiate comfort, and says, “I can try?”

“Won’t work,” Harry tells him. Smiles, stealing another one of Niall’s breaths away. “You didn’t owe me an explanation, you know. I do get it, I’m sorry if it seems like I don’t sometimes. I’m not trying to stop you in any way, I just... I haven’t had the same amount of time to get used to the idea as you have. But I understand.”

The shop’s empty, closed up for the weekend with no one but the two of them and Patti’s voice to disturb the peace. They bring their drinks over to Harry’s station, and Niall sips away while he watches Harry set everything up. Not the same prep work as for a tattoo, Harry’s told him, but still enough to do to keep him occupied for a while.

“This one’s going to hurt more than the others,” Harry warns him eventually, rolling closer on his chair and gesturing for Niall to reach his arm out so that they can get started.

Niall takes a deep breath. “Seems fitting.”

He feels Harry’s thumb run along a line in his palm; can trace the movement of it when he looks down, and tries to follow the unspoken demand and just relax back into the chair like the previous sessions.

Harry smiles softly at him, a playful hint to his gaze when he promises, “I’ll kiss it better later.”

“You better.”

The smile fades on Harry’s lips, but lingers in the corners of his mouth even as focus kicks in and he applies pressure on Niall’s arm to keep it in place. The pain is worse than it’s been the previous times, Niall doesn’t even pretend that it’s a good kind of pain because of what it represents, he simply closes his eyes and tries to breathe along with Harry, tries to focus on the chord changes in every song that dances on in the background of the sensations, and reminds himself that he needs to bring his guitar home with him when they go back to Wolverhampton in a couple of weeks. He misses playing – misses how he used to be able to strum away hours, sat in his childhood room with no idea of where he would end up in life.

His knee was already fucked up, then, which was a big reason why he needed to distract himself – make sure he had less time to worry. Back when that was happening, when operations and crutches were going on, he had morphine tablets, though, and considering the way it feels like Harry’s slicing into his wrist with a knife and burning the inside of it, now, he wouldn’t say no to another prescription for those pills. Or a bottle of whiskey, for that matter. Anything to numb the pain a little.

“Good thing I’ve never thought of myself as a tough guy,” he mutters an eternity into the sitting, addressing the grey street outside. The clouds seem to hang low out there, barely holding themselves together. “The illusion would be absolutely shattered by this. Fuck.”

Harry pauses for a moment – enough to draw Niall’s attention to him. His eyes are full of concern, his brow furrowed.

“You’re doing better than most people,” he says, brushing comfort into Niall’s skin. A massive contrast to the lingering sting where the final layer of Harry’s name’s disappearing. “We can take another break if you want, get some air maybe? But we only have a few minutes left, I reckon, if you’d rather just push through it.”

Niall considers him, the way he manages to mix business with pleasure right now; be professional and supportive while simultaneously working their personal relationship to his advantage in order to make sure that Niall’s okay, that they’re both okay. His hair’s sticking to his forehead a little, as the concentration’s been present in both lines and a sheen of sweat on that brow. Even with the AC blasting coolness into the room it’s hot in here, and it’s not fair how it complements Harry’s features – makes him look rosy-cheeked and gorgeous.

“Let’s keep going,” Niall decides. “I just want to get it done.”

Harry doesn’t question him, he just nods once and holds Niall’s wrist still again – warns Niall that he’s about to start and gets on with his work. It’s obvious that he believes that Niall can do this, can face a fear of needles and past demons and – with Harry’s help – create a new, clean slate for himself.

His Daniel tattoo is visible above the loose neckline of his shirt, stark ink secure upon skin and over bone. It’s a comforting thing to look at – a reminder of the future that Niall can focus on as the minutes pass by, and then it’s over. A burning left, less harsh but there and insistent where nothing but redness is visible anymore. Abused flesh free from black lines, yet the veins beneath – the blood and the cells and every damn fibre of his being – have Harry written all over them due to invisible imprints. And Niall has never felt more settled in his life than he does then.

“Done?” he asks, because he has no other words that aren’t clumsy and amazed and lovesick. Can’t put into words what the lack of lettering upon his skin means even though he’s been longing for it for years. Right, maybe. Like closure.

“Done,” Harry echoes, smiling crookedly. “Just going to put some ointment on it and wrap it up, keep it protected for a few days.”

Niall realizes that he’s smiling, too, then. Shakes his head at himself, and considers Harry’s hands on his skin again. Says, “Thank you.”

“You look happy,” Harry shrugs. “I like it when you’re happy.”

Harry rubs the ointment on gently, and wraps the wrist up just like he promised. There’s a cooling effect to it that Niall appreciates, something that lets his entire body relax now that there’s no horror or sharp pain to tense up against, and he watches Harry move around to clean his station up again. Feels like he’s rewinding the entire scene from before when Harry was preparing for the session. He likes it. Likes watching Harry all the time, whichever way he’s moving, even if it’s back and forth in time.

He pays for the session, final one, done. Harry locks up the studio’s front door, and leans back against its inside, breathing out heavily. Patti Smith has stopped singing by now, the speakers quiet and the clouds outside so dark that they almost look blue. The world’s holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

Niall steps forward, into Harry’s personal space. Says, “You said you were going to kiss me better.”

Harry does a bad job of hiding a grin. Tilts his head back against that door, exposing a particularly enticing expanse of skin at the hollow of his throat. His Adam’s apple moves pointedly when he swallows, and his voice is its usual deep, raspy self when he says, “Don’t think it’s possible to get any better than you already are.”

It’s suggestive. Makes Niall feel hot all over, accompanied by this look that more or less picks every item of clothing off of Niall’s body. Scans right through them, at least; visibly tracing every curve that it has seen naked before.

“Charmer,” Niall accuses, reaching out between them. He fits his hands over Harry’s hips and curls his fingers there, against flesh and denim. Presses them together from thigh to chest and blinks once, twice. “Make me worse, then.”

Thunder cracks in the distance; Harry’s gaze becomes even more heated. He pushes his hips against Niall’s, fighting the resistance of Niall’s hands enough that the fingers dig in more firmly, and asks, “Yeah?”

Niall surges up, then, and kisses him longer than he intends. Captured by those lips, that beautiful mouth, but eventually manages to say, “Yeah. Do your worst.”

Mid-September:

It’s not very warm anymore. The wind has picked up a chilly edge somewhere on its way to Wolverhampton and is throwing it around the corners of the buildings carelessly. Niall has discarded his expensive jacket in the back of his dad’s car now that he’s done looking like a professional manager for the day, and is tugging the sleeves of a jumper down roughly over his knuckles, aware that the collar of his shirt is sticking up awkwardly at the neckline. His tie is too loosened to even show at all.

The jumper smells a bit odd after hanging in a closet for years, but it smells even more like his childhood, like nostalgia. He likes it. It fits better now that he has bigger muscles to fill it out with, broader shoulders to fit under the knitted threads than his younger self had when he bought it some years ago, and it protects him against the burgeoning fall.

His guitar is resting in the backseat, too, packed into her case and ready to finally move to her new home. The flat in Manchester has slowly come together during the past months, especially since Harry and Danny started to leave little bits of their life in it, but Niall has missed his guitar. His dad bought it for him back when things started to fall apart; a gift badly wrapped up and waiting for him when he got home from the hospital after the first surgery on his knee. He still thinks of it as a seam holding his life together – a reason why he never tore himself apart when it would have been the easy option.

“Sure you got everything you need?”

Niall looks up, over the top of the car to where his dad’s standing on the front step with his foot lodged between the door and its frame, keys in hand. It’s a familiar view, and as warm and comfortable to drink in as a cup of tea.

He smiles. “Yeah. Won’t be long until I’m back anyway, will it?”

His dad shuts the door and fits the key in the lock, facing away as he turns it. The wind’s helpful now, though, carrying his note of, “Sure hope not.”

Niall waits until Bobby’s walking down the steps and out onto the street, then he aims a stern look his father’s way and says, “It won’t. Harry will come too, he was really grumpy about missing today.”

Bobby looks content with that piece of information, fitting his own suitcase with the rest of the things that Niall has shoved in the back of the car to bring back to Manchester. More clothes to go with his jumper, along with random bits and bobs that he had no use for while he was still staying in a hotel and trying to finalize Liam’s transfer, and a couple of boxes full of books that will fill up his bookshelves nicely.

One of those books in particular holds more value to Niall than the others do; the collected poems of Dylan Thomas encased in a hardback cover that has his mother’s delicate penmanship on the front. Black ink declaring her name and subsequently showing the care that she held for those pages, the entire thing worn by love and time.

Maura Horan loved words. She was animated when she read them out loud from children’s books to Niall when he was little, and she put them down in notepads with an inspiring brand of focus while she sipped her morning coffee on the weekends.

Niall loved to watch her love them, loved to see how creative she could be with them, but he never truly understood it. There was no space in-between football and the guitar where he could fit an interest like that; no patience for metaphors to settle in his mind and spill out on paper when he could be creating things with his entire body instead, and he hates thinking back on it now.

He wishes that he’d given words and their potential more attention – tried a bit harder to nourish the bond that his mother created between them through the art of fairytales so early in his life – but he has managed to let go of some of the bitterness, now. Has realized that he couldn’t be everything, that he wasn’t a lesser son because of the hobbies that he chose to pursue.

Harry holds a love for words, too. He has the same sort of creativity running in his veins as Niall’s mother did, and it blossoms in pencil strokes and ink and letters all around him. He captures strangers loved ones’ portraits in detailed beauty upon their skin, draws tiny puppies upon his son’s napkins in restaurants, and devours stories as though they’re air.

The man was reading the very first time that Niall laid eyes upon him; he reads almost every evening in-between his son’s bedtime and his own. Niall sits with his toes curled beneath that very man’s thigh upon his sofa some of those evenings and simply watches as eyes reflect the emotions that are splayed upon the pages of the books. Admires it. Loves it the same way he loved watching his mother disappear into the same worlds.

Niall has plans for his mother’s old book. He thinks of it as a faraway introduction between two people that have no other way of meeting and sees it as a part of his own story to tell, as a thread that can tie the important pieces of his life together when the right time comes.

“Ready to go, then?”

His dad is looking at him, amusement evident in his kind eyes as though he’s been able to tell how far away in thought Niall has been for the past minute. Niall clears his throat in response, and straightens a little on the spot. The car Is packed up and ready, but that’s not why he insisted on doing things this way.

His dad could have gathered Niall’s desired possessions and thrown them into the car so that they could have left for Manchester right after the game, but Niall wanted to come here, to wind down after ninety minutes spent in flowing waves of trepidation and elation and simply be for a while. Wanted to breathe in the familiar air of the street that he spent so many years walking up and down on his way to everywhere, and settle into a kitchen chair with a cuppa and feel like a kid for a little while.

He’s gotten to do that, now. They had tea and time and conversations about then and now, and Niall got to pick among his things and choose which ones to bring to the future in a rather therapeutic way, so he does feel ready to go.

He slams the trunk shut, and addresses the license plate with a long exhale before he nods. “Ready if you are.”

They get into the car; himself behind the wheel and his dad next to him, the road ready ahead of them. Niall starts up a playlist of seventies rock songs, same as what they used to have on in the background when he was only just starting out at the whole driving thing and nearly reversed his dad’s old car into the mailbox.

He doesn’t need to reverse this time; just throws a glance over his own shoulder and pushes them away from the curb, letting a minute pass before the quiet has tickled him for too long, has felt too inviting.

“I still can’t get over how terrible they are at widening their game,” slips out of him. “They’ve got an attacking back who’s quicker than most of the athletes in the summer Olympics, yet no one ever gets the bright idea to pass him the ball until he’s already offside.”

Bobby sighs. Niall can see him shake his head from the corner of an eye, and hears a sigh of, “Really, Niall?”

“All it would take is a nicely timed pass across the field and they’d have themselves a golden opportunity, but no,” Niall goes on, fitting his elbow on the edge under the window only to slap his hand over his palm to emphasise his disbelief. “What?”

When he doesn’t get an answer he looks over at his dad and is met with amusement sparkling in those mirroring, blue eyes and a fond grin stretching the man’s lips.

Niall furrows his brow, looks back out at the road, and repeats, “What?”

“Nothing, just – you’re still my boy. My youngest son,” Bobby murmurs, layered over Blondie through the sound system. “From the moment we moved to Wolverhampton we pretty much went to every single Wolves’ game together for five years straight, and you must have said that exact same thing after at least half of them. You said it after today’s game, two hours ago, and now you’re at it again.”

Niall is briefly stunned by the comment, by the meaning and history embedded in those words and by the realization of how strong the bond between them actually is. His dad has been by his side through everything, has been full of care and belief and shown support for every version of himself that Niall’s ever wanted to become, and despite the exasperation that is lining Bobby’s words now, he’s sat in the passenger seat with pride, on his way to join in on this new chapter of Niall’s life, too.

They’ve reached the highway at this point. He changes lanes; passes a lorry and finds his footing once more. Says, “Well, that just shows that I’m right, doesn’t it? If they had just listened to me then they would have won the league at least once during all these years, but even Liam ignored my advice when he was playing for them.”

Bobby snorts. “Maybe you should change careers, then. Manage a whole team instead of a single player and make use of your expertise. Let all the offensive plays go through the right back.”

“Yeah, well...” Niall ponders, ignoring the sarcastic tone in his father’s voice. “I don’t know if I’d be any good at actually doing the job. I just like to rant.”

“You would. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

Niall fixes his dad with an unimpressed look. “You sound like Harry, now.”

“I like Harry,” his dad says.

“You haven’t even met Harry yet.”

Bobby crosses his arms over his chest and looks out of the window to his left. “As long as Harry likes you, I like Harry.”

Niall shakes his head. “Stop saying Harry.”

He misses Harry unreasonably much – thinks that it must be the miles between them that are to blame because it hasn’t even gone twenty-four hours since they last saw each other. He misses Danny, too. Can’t wait to get back home and see them both – see these three people that mean so much to him meet for the first time and watch the affection start to blossom there.

He can’t wait – can’t not hope – to have a family. A more complete one than he’s ever thought possible for himself, mismatched pieces coming together and somehow fitting perfectly.

“Have you heard anything from Greg yet?”

Traffic isn’t as bad as Niall had suspected it to be; everything flows on and the miles disappear behind them while Niall’s thoughts are allowed to stray. Thoughts of family, of connecting pieces, of pieces left behind along with the miles and his teenage self’s home. The future doesn’t have room for all of his baggage, he’s still learning about that.

“He texted me a greeting this morning. As formal as ever,” he admits, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. They’ve moved on to Dire Straits now; to music so familiar that it might as well be ingrained in his spine, in his flesh, in the blood that passes through his fingertips and make them want to play along.

His dad is tapping a foot along, too, where he’s observing the passing scenery. Calm and wise and warm – such a comforting presence to have while pondering one’s life along Britain’s roads. A man to trust.

“Have you told him? About what’s been going on in my life, I mean,” he wonders, curious. Not wishing for any particular answer. “You talk to him far more often than I do.”

“I’ve talked to him about some things – he does care about what you’re up to despite what you might believe, you know,” Bobby hums. “He keeps track of the news – read about Liam’s transfer and wanted to hear more about it. And I’ve told him about your move to Manchester, but not about the rest – not about Harry and his boy. That’s not for me to tell, it’s entirely up to you if you ever even want to share it.”

The words rest upon Niall’s skin for a while – it takes them a few minutes enveloped in silence and music to fully sink in before he can think about them. He’s not entirely the same person that he was back when Greg packed up his things and moved away from them to be with his soulmate so he has grown up a lot, gotten a more personal relationship with the world and what it entails.

It’s obvious that his dad knows this, and that there’s no blame embedded in those words – no sign of Bobby thinking that Niall is being childish with the way he’s still keeping his life so private.

Niall thinks of Harry and Danny. Of Liam and the lives they’ve made for themselves in Manchester – of the circle of friends that they’ve already knitted so tightly around themselves and of the anchors that they’ve tethered themselves to in this new city. Office and studio and stadium – of private parts shared with meaningful people because it somehow feels inevitable, now. Feels like it was destined to be this way all along.

After being away for a day, returning back to all of those things feels like coming home. If that was what Greg was feeling back then – if moving back to Ireland in order to be with his soulmate was the only thing that could help him heal after their mother passed away – then Niall supposes that he can’t blame his brother quite as much anymore. He understands it better, now, and something in the back of his mind can realize that he needs to talk to Greg about everything at some point, because if their dad isn’t bitter about the choices that Greg made, then neither should he be anymore.

He relaxes his shoulders, his grip of the wheel. Ponders aloud; “I think I get it, now. That Greg and I are very different people. I couldn’t relate to his way of thinking back then, and I still can’t understand it fully now, but...”

He drifts off. He hates when other people do it, and even more so when he ends up doing it himself – doesn’t like leaving things unfinished. The wind tries to grab hold of the car and push it off the road; he pushes back and keeps them level, keeps them going.

His dad does the rest of the pushing, prompting him with an inquiring; “But?”

“But... I guess I’m just glad that I got to do things my way. Stick around when things were at their toughest and be a family with you,” he manages to get out, hoping that it makes sense. “I got to spend my teenage years going to football games with my old man and ranting about the right back not getting any good passes, and I’m really grateful for that.”

His dad laughs at him, and his chest swells with everlasting pride at the sound of it.

*

The door to Niall’s flat is unlocked. He spends about thirteen seconds panicking internally over this fact until he looks through the crack of the door that he just created and catches a glimpse of a small foot on his hallway floor, and then he exhales a heavy rush of relief.

He can hear Danny mumbling to himself even from his spot in the staircase, and finds himself hesitating for a moment, breathing through the enormous knot of happiness that has suddenly lodged itself in his chest. Then he grins at the sound of the familiar car noises that keep bouncing off his hallway walls. A glance over his shoulder at his dad tells him that he’s being judged as utterly ridiculous where he’s standing, though, so he pushes himself and one of his boxes inside eventually.

Danny looks up immediately, seemingly drawn out of his own little bubble by the commotion that Niall makes as he’s shuffling in. The boy’s eyes go wide, and the corners of his mouth lift in recognition before he lets amazed joy out in the form of a familiar, “Hi.”

The knot in Niall’s chest loosens up; liquidizes to elation and love and blends with his blood to fill all of him up. He lowers the box of books to the floor and accommodates the outstretched arms that Danny is flailing his way – picks the boy up and holds him close on his hip.

“Hi, Danny,” he murmurs back, smiling uncontrollably. “What are you doing here, huh?”

Danny is blinking at Bobby over Niall’s shoulder at this point, but he still manages to tilt his chin up with determination and addresses Niall with those wide eyes of his, saying, “Playing, Niall. With McQueen.”

The same, red little figurine that has been present for as long as Niall has been a presence in Danny and Harry’s life is held protectively in Danny’s curled first, and the same, overwhelming care is still thrumming in the boy’s body and showing in the way he clings to Niall’s neck with his free fingers.

“I can see that, buddy,” Niall tells him. He’s aware of noises spilling out of the kitchen; chopping and chattering. A symphony created by people in motion, in company, in contentment. “Are you having fun?”

Danny squirms and snickers quietly when Niall pokes a finger against his side, but he’s gone back to eyeing Bobby suspiciously and doesn’t answer the question. Niall gives him a gentle shake – points a finger at Bobby and says; “That’s Bobby, he’s my dad.”

All Danny does in reaction to that piece of information is nod and continue his silent consideration, and it makes Niall huff out a soft chuckle entirely made up of fondness. He tilts his head in invitation, after, in a silent plea for his dad to come inside and make himself at home.

“Guess we’ve got company,” he manages to add, too, though he fails to sound apologetic about it because he loves this – coming home to a flat full of people that mean the world to him. And Bobby is just grinning at Danny anyway, he probably didn’t hear a word that Niall said. Niall doesn’t blame him.

They drop Bobby’s things off in the guest room, and then they move towards all the noise. Louis is there, moving a spatula around in a pan and gesturing wildly with his other hand as he speaks; Harry listening while he chops up vegetables nearby and Eleanor rolling her eyes fondly even further into the room. The ring on her fourth finger shimmers in the orange tint of the kitchen lights, as does her smile when her eyes finally stick to Niall’s form in the doorway.

“Birthday boy!” she hums happily, pushing herself away from the counter. “Surprise?”

Niall blinks at her, probably adopting Danny’s dubious expression for a moment before he can feel his mouth mirror Eleanor’s warm grin. Louis is turning around now, too, with a wide-eyed kind of excitement radiating off of him that explodes into an equally warm smile and a greeting of, “About time you lot showed up. Happy birthday, lad!”

Niall flounders for a bit, tightening his grip of Danny just to anchor himself in the moment and stand securely against the oncoming waves of affection. His dad’s presence is warm behind him, punctuated by the low chuckles coming out of the man in appreciation of the scene, and Danny seems to have dropped his guard just a little because he’s turned his head away from the newcomer and is adding yet another smile into the gathered joy in the room.

A breath. Two. Niall’s gaze skitters around the room and he inhales once more, searching for a reply that doesn’t want to form itself upon his tongue until he finally, finally locks his own eyes with Harry’s. Shades of green framed by long lashes; warmth and happiness and affection shining in them. A welcome home spelled out in those pupils, and Niall breathes out, “This is – I don’t really know what to... Surprise, yes. Thank you. This is just - it’s great.”

Harry snorts at him, undeniably fond. Danny’s rolling the Lightning McQueen figurine over the knitted threads of Niall’s jumper, back to making noises in his own little bubble again. Niall can detect a larger one, something shiny and bulletproof around the three of them that stems from the way he cannot possibly make himself look away from Harry.

He can faintly hear Louis asking Bobby for spice-related advice and feels the man slip past him and into the room; fails to feel guilty about his lacking manners when it comes to introducing his loved ones to each other because there’s too much going on. Too much for his heart to grasp and make use of, so he just stands there, grinning stupidly and feeling so warm from the inside and out.

Harry’s coming closer, now, letting chaos happen behind him in favour of stepping into Niall’s personal space. His eyelashes really are unfairly long and enticing, his eyes safe to look into over the barely-there threshold in the doorway.

He reaches out into the breath of air between them, then, and fits his fingers to Niall’s collar, straightening it out over the neckline of the jumper and letting Danny drive the car over this wrist once. He keeps smiling a small, private little crooked smile while he does it, and moves his fingers back from Niall’s throat to the back of his neck and tugs him even closer.

And then he muffles a happy birthday against Niall’s lips, soft and warm and everything.

Niall kisses him back, hungry for more, for it never to end, but crumbles into quiet laughter when he simultaneously gets a wet kiss on his cheek and hears delighted little giggles close to his ear.

Danny looks entirely pleased with himself when Niall and Harry break apart to look at him, and doesn’t even try to lean away when Niall ducks in to kiss his temple in return.

“It is a happy one,” he finds himself saying, looking back at Harry. “And I appreciate all of you being here a lot, I just don’t – I mean, did we change our plans? Because I don’t remember having that conversation.”

Harry looks at him as though he’s stupid in a lovely way, then checks quickly over his shoulder to make sure that someone’s taken over the vegetable duties before making himself lean comfortably against the door frame. Reveals, “We did, we just didn’t tell you about it. Wouldn’t have been much of a surprise if we’d let you in on it, would it?”

“Suppose not,” Niall mutters, grinning sheepishly. Danny’s had enough of him now, wriggling about until Niall lowers him to the floor and then rushing back to the garage that he seems to have built out of everyone’s shoes near the front door. “I am surprised. Does Liam know, too?”

“Who do you think borrowed me the spare key to the flat?” Harry muses. He looks far too good like this, smug and happy and framed like artwork in Niall’s line of sight. “He checked with your dad too – made sure Bobby was okay with us being here.”

Niall can feel his own eyebrows rise with an unimpressed brand of disbelief, stating more than asking; “Dad knew.”

“We all just wanted you to have a good evening,” Harry tells him. He’s lifting a hand, now, and fitting it to Niall’s cheek. The palm’s soft, the thumb gentle when it brushes over Niall’s cheekbone. “The restaurant would have been nice and all, but this felt more private. More personal. I hope it’s okay.”

“More than okay,” Niall decides, leaning in for a swift kiss and then staying close. He feels good like this, held in Harry’s palm with his own resting at the curve of Harry’s waist, smiling at the love of his life. He can hear his dad chatter away with his friends, and Danny play in the hallway. “It’s perfect.”

Harry nods. Kisses his nose. Promises, “It will be any minute, now.”

*

Harry is right. Liam and Sophia come knocking less than five minutes later, offering even more warmth and happiness to the evening with their matching smiles and demands of embraces over Danny’s playground. Niall accepts a wrapped up gift from Sophia and breathes in the familiar scent of her perfume when he hugs her in greeting, revels in the familiar sound of her voice as they exchange a quick few words, and smiles when she disappears into the flat with Harry and Danny.

Liam smells of aftershave and an undertone of something fruity; his worn out body wrapped up in a light blue button-down and an entirely content grin stuck to his face. It’s not the same, euphoric joy that usually washes off of him after a victorious game – it wasn’t when he scored his goal today, either, sending his former club to a loss – but it’s there and it’s simmering in his eyes, in his posture.

“Sorry we weren’t here when you got back,” he says, squeezing Niall’s arm with a hand that has lingered there since their hug. “The bus got back later than I expected and I thought you’d be at your dad’s place for a bit longer.”

“We stuck around long enough,” Niall shrugs, not the least bit bothered by the late arrival. “What matters is that you’re here now, anyway.”

“Yeah, like I’d ever miss your birthday dinner,” Liam snorts. He moves his hand and slings his entire arm around the back of Niall’s neck, tugging him in close to his side and moving them towards the kitchen, back to the heart of the evening.

Niall looks at him for a moment; his best friend present for yet another birthday and acting like it’s equally exciting after all this time. Leans a bit heavier against Liam’s side and finds a teasing tone upon his tongue when he says, “No, you’re right – you’ve missed enough opportunities today.”

Liam makes an offended noise, high-pitched and hilarious when matched with the theatrical hurt upon his face. “Hey!”

“I mean the goal was sick and all, but you could have made another two at least.”

He gets pushed away playfully for that comment, Liam’s expression crumbling into amusement while he waves a greeting in the general direction of everyone else, and then he turns back to Niall once more. He looks comfortable, his shoulders relaxed and his hands sinking lazily into his trouser pockets, and he lets Niall’s sarcastic side note evaporate; nudges his shoulder gently against Niall’s and says, “Everything turned out alright in the end, didn’t it? Like we always hoped it would.”

Niall ponders those words for a while, even after Liam has moved further into the room and left him behind. They ring true – sink through his skin and settle in place against his bones because what he’s witnessing right now only complements the fact. Everyone present are part of a constellation that is just right, and it’s nice to just stand back and watch.

Liam has already ended up in conversation with Harry and Bobby. Louis has Danny in his arms and is not so sneakily slipping the boy bits of tomato from the salad, all while Eleanor and Sophia seem to be getting the drinks in order, and Niall takes it all in. Thinks that it’s beautiful to see that they’ve all found each other – that maybe he’s not the only one who’s truly come home.

*

It’s well past midnight when everyone start to head for the door. The flat is warm and lit in orange glow and Niall feels full to the brim from both food and love as he hugs each person tightly and thanks them – he can’t even blame alcohol because there’s been none, he’s just overwhelmed and bursting with affection.

Liam and Sophia slip quietly out of the door, and then everything’s suddenly silent. His dad has already slipped back into the living room where everyone were last seated, and Harry’s shuffling out into the hallway slowly, Danny half-asleep in his arms with a pout on his lips after being lifted from the sofa and stirred out of sleep.

Niall meets them, drowning in the billionth wave of fondness that washes over him at the sight of them, and fits a hand to Harry’s hip to pull him in close. He kisses the man swiftly, once, before going in for more and loving how Harry smiles into it.

“Stay?” he murmurs some time later – can’t tell if seconds or hours just passed. “You shouldn’t have to force Danny outside now, he’s sleeping and it’s cold.”

Harry searches his eyes. Asks, “You sure?”

Niall nods with conviction and gets another kiss in reply, off-centre and sweet, before Harry excuses himself to put Danny to bed.

Niall uses the stillness of the moment to simply take a breath, then he gets his phone out of his pocket, thumbs out a reply to his brother, and nods a little to himself. He feels settled. At ease. Like he’s finally caught up with the world and with himself, and finds himself smiling about it when he joins his dad in the living room.

Bobby’s already started to deal with the chaos; gathered glasses and bowls and seems to be about to bring them to the kitchen where the mess from the dinner still lingers over all the surfaces.

“No, come on, leave that ‘til tomorrow,” Niall tells him, sinking back down in the sofa. He’s discarded the jumper by now; left the tie somewhere and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “You’re a guest, anyway. You shouldn’t be cleaning up at all.”

Bobby snorts at that, but does mirror his son and takes a seat as well. He looks a bit tired, the late hour catching up with him after a day spent socialising and being active. He’s always had a need for some quiet, for some space, and Niall’s been the same. They could always sit in silence together for hours.

“It’s a nice group of people you and Liam have found here,” Bobby tells him. “I’m glad.”

Niall leans his head back. Grins at his ceiling. “I am, too.”

Another few minutes pass. There are no cars driving on the street outside of the building, nothing but cool air slipping in through the open window. Niall wonders, briefly, where Harry’s gone, if he’s coming back out.

“Did you text Greg back?”

Niall tilts his head along the backrest in order to look at his dad, and says, “I said thanks. Asked how the family’s doing.”

Bobby looks at him for a long moment, then, sombre and squinting as though piecing something important together. “I’m proud of you, you know. Of who you’ve grown up to be.”

An education, a career, a home. A terrific group of friends and a soulmate with an amazing son. Niall doesn’t say as much, but when he thinks about it, he thinks that he might be proud of himself, too.

“Thanks, dad,” he hums instead, genuinely touched by those words, by hearing it out loud. “I think I’m gonna go to bed. You promise not to touch any of this?”

His dad raises his hands in surrender, feigns an innocent expression. “Promise. It’s way past my bedtime, anyway.”

Niall brushes his teeth and splashes water in his face, feels exhaustion settle like lead weight in all of his limbs and aches to just lie down in bed. The longing intensifies as soon as he reaches his destination – finds Harry asleep upon the duvet with his clothes still on, his body curled like a c around Danny who’s sleeping on the middle of the mattress.

Harry is always beautiful. Endlessly, artfully so in a way that takes Niall’s breath away. Like this, though, gone in slumber upon Niall’s bed and turning the flat into a home, the beauty feels even grander. Scorching. A fire kindling inside of Niall’s chest in reaction, because he was burned a long time ago and he wants to stay warm like this forever – turn into flames and lick the sky until it isn’t just orange at sunset anymore.

For now, though, he simply finds an extra blanket to put over Harry – adds a kiss on top of the pile, on Harry’s temple – and makes himself comfortable on the other side of the little boy.

*

When Niall wakes up, his toes are warm. They wiggle smugly, squished against a Harry who radiates just as much heat as he does kindness, and Niall is slowly getting used to being on the receiving end of that mixture – still trying to figure out how people wear this brand of affection upon their skin without hunching in on themselves.

Words are hard to form on the clearest of afternoons, and in careful morning light he finds himself entirely dumbfounded. A bit lost among sheets and Manchester air, floundering in Harry’s presence and the heat that his toes steal from Harry and spread through the rest of him. The toes. Always the toes; nestled snugly and kept safe between Harry’s calves at the bottom of the bed, the two of them laid like a parenthesis around the most important bit of their life, the miniature version of the man that Niall is head over heels in love with.

Danny’s not lying between them now, though. Isn’t there to add additional warmth to Niall’s cold flesh where he’s usually curled up tightly in the harbour of two meeting ports made up of adult arms. The space between Niall and Harry is empty, save for the arm that Harry has slung across the expanse of wrinkled sheets, and Niall forgoes words entirely in favour of venturing out of the bed and into the familiar morning chill of the rest of the flat.

The telly is on in the living room, set on a low volume with his dad launching comfortably on the sofa in front of it, still kindly ignoring the mess on the coffee table. He looks more amused than one should while watching a documentary about the European railroad system, and his gaze keeps trailing inconspicuously to the side, off to the kitchen doorway on the other side of the room where Danny has eased his way inside a few steps.

The boy is tousled – his cheeks red from sleepy heat and building curiosity, his hand hanging forgotten in the air in front of him in an aborted gesture. He must have been distracted by the wonders displayed on the telly, drawn into a world that he can’t possibly understand fully.

It’s six in the morning and years too early for Niall’s heart to be breaking like this, to be shaking so fondly at the sight of Danny and Bobby in this room; generations apart but equally soft and fascinated in the increasing morning light.

While Niall stands undetected and watching on the other side of the room he gets to see Danny shuffle further into the room. The boy forces his gaze away from the screen in order to assess the man on the sofa; the one that he met last night who hid his face behind a napkin and made him laugh over lasagne – the man who kept running a big, safe hand over his head when suspicion finally evaporated completely.

Niall can’t tell what the boy is thinking, exactly, or what Danny actually remembers of the previous night, but nowadays he’s familiar with the recognition that is nestled in Danny’s expression and this is a more guarded version of the face that Niall was met with over and over again when he first moved to this city and met this boy. The recognition is there, and a moment later it grows even bigger in the form of a faint smile, a proof of reliance under the protection of the watching sun.

Danny gives the telly another gaze filled with lingering curiosity – seems to physically tear his bare feet from the floor in order to move them closer to the sofa. Then he does the thing – the decisive climb with elbows and knees that can get him up on any sofa cushion in the entire world if he just gets a little help from a patient palm the way he did in the studio, once, when Niall’s heart almost burst out of his chest with pride because he got to assist.

Bobby Horan is the epitome of patient. Fond, too, where he lets one of his wide palms hover over the boy’s back and watches with an impressed tilt to his smile until Danny has shuffled himself together into a cross-legged slouch against the backrest.

The volume is raised a bit by Bobby’s thumb on the remote; Danny’s eyes widening with further interest even as that gaze of his keeps flicking back and forth between the show and the man beside him – the one with the napkin, the one that Niall let into his life last night.

The comfort is undeniably there, embedded in Danny’s memories and crystallized in Bobby’s calm. They look like old friends, with matching smiles taking shape on both of their faces.

A couple of minutes must pass, and Niall’s starting to feel a bit like an intruder, watching from afar as the two parts of his life bond over old railroad images, and he’s just about to turn around and go back to bed when Danny’s voice fills up the room, quiet but loud at the same time.

“Can... can I watch? With you,” is what he asks, hesitant as though he’s only just catching himself doing something bad; going against the self-composed school of manners that he lives by.

His face is free of lines, though. Free of worry despite the miss that he seems to think that he’s done when it comes to politeness. He looks hopeful, with wide eyes locked expectantly on the older man.

Niall can almost feel Bobby’s heart quiver all the way to the hallway, and feels grateful for the space between them that hides the noise of affection that slips out of him when Bobby simply fits a hand over the back of Danny’s head, brushes a thumb over it, and says, “It would make me very happy if you did, Danny.”

Niall does turn around, then. He takes a moment to collect himself, to get a fucking grip, and then proceeds into the bedroom where he can sneak back in under the covers and shuffle close to Harry without being wary of any space between them.

Harry makes an unintelligible noise when Niall slips an arm around him; protests badly when Niall pushes the neckline of his t-shirt away in search for skin to press his nose against.

“Dad’s absolutely smitten with Danny,” Niall declares against protruding bone, against skin and flesh and safety that affirms itself in the weight of Harry’s arm when it curls around his side. “No way he’s leaving now.”

“Good,” Harry grumbles. He’s already recapturing Niall’s feet between his own calves, his voice cracking with disuse and effort. “I was going to invite him back for Christmas anyway.”

Niall scrapes his teeth along that tantalizing clavicle, announcing with muffled syllables that, “You’re ridiculous in the mornings.”

“You’re cold.”

“Dad likes you,” Niall counters badly, though it makes the smile that Harry’s got pressed to Niall’s forehead feel even more pronounced. A soft press of skin against skin that makes Niall’s flesh heat up with affection. “I knew he would. Called it before I ever knew he’d meet you.”

*

The second time Niall wakes up, it’s to an empty bed and full daylight, to the scent of coffee and the noise of the toaster going off in the kitchen. He makes his way out of the bedroom slowly – is about to croak out a good morning when he catches the sight of Harry and Bobby’s profiles at the dinner table, along with the back of Danny’s head where it sticks up over the backrest of his little chair.

The two men are talking quietly, their expressions open – serious but kind and seemingly attentive any time the other speaks. Niall can’t hear anything they’re saying, can only detect a melodic humming of a song that he thinks he might have heard in a Disney movie at some point now coming out of Danny in-between mouthfuls of cereal, and he doesn’t strain himself trying to listen in, either.

He does end up watching for a moment, though, setting some kind of observing tone for the day when he once again admires the people in his life, the way they seem to be getting along. Thinks, suddenly breathless and amazed and on the verge of crying, that this is it. Everything. A family.

It feels like a secret, though. Like he might be jumping the gun, might be jumping across oceans and from planet to planet of hopeful, idiotic ideas, so he tucks those thoughts beneath his tongue and hopes that they won’t slip out in conversation any time soon. Backs out of the kitchen in order to let the men have some privacy while they talk, and goes to take a shower.

When he gets out, warm and damp and more awake, he’s drawn forward by a hand around the knot of his towel and tugged in close against Harry’s body. It takes a second for him to realize what just happened – to gaze down at his own stomach and see the fingers that are curled around the fabric there. Then he blinks up owlishly at Harry, at the mischievous grin upon that handsome face, and revels in how happy the man looks. Thinks that it must have been a good breakfast conversation, whatever it might have been about. That he’s had his best birthday ever and that he doesn’t know what else to wish for, ever, because this is better than any wishes.

“We’re going now,” Harry tells him. “We need to go home and change.”

Niall nods slowly. Doesn’t lean in to kiss him quite yet because he actually has some self-restraint even when Harry’s looking at him like he very much wants to stay and get the towel out of his way.

“You should think about maybe keeping some clothes here,” Niall suggests, fitting two fingers in a front pocket of Harry’s jeans. “Some for you and some for Danny.”

Harry doesn’t feign nonchalance; he grins like the sun. Says, “I like that idea.”

“I have another one.”

“Two in one day?”

Niall fixes him with an unimpressed glare, which only makes Harry snicker in response, so he gives in. Shuts Harry up with a kiss and pretends that doing this, leaning in and soaking up Harry’s heat, doesn’t still light all his nerve-endings on fire.

“The spare key you borrowed from Liam?” he goes on, using his free hand to tap a finger against the centre of Harry’s chest to emphasize his suggestion. “Keep it. If you want.”

“If I – of course I do,” Harry tells him, tilting eyebrows over emotional eyes. “You sure?”

Niall hums out a confirmation, and presses a smile against Harry’s open mouth. “Very.”

Harry blinks at him then, dazed from the kiss or perhaps from the gift – the quiet proclamation of love – and says, “I’ll get you one, too. To our place.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” Harry insists. “Though it’s more of a symbolic gesture seeing as the studio door’s mostly open when you come around, but if it’s ever not – if you ever want to get in when it’s not – then you should have access to the private door.”

They kiss again. A punctuation of an act of love, though chaste. Kept at bay by the knowledge that there are people present, that there are places to go to, that now isn’t the right time but that they’ve got all they want of it to spend together in the future.

They kiss, and Harry’s mouth is warm and soft and home, and there’s the sound of Danny’s shoes hitting the hardwood floor in rapid steps as a soundtrack of it all, and Niall can’t not laugh. Can’t not love everything about it.

*

There’s a spot on the counter that is free from dirty dishes. Niall sits upon it with his legs curled to his chest like so many times before, and nibbles on a piece of toast while the sun shines companionably at him through the window.

“That still does my head in,” Bobby informs him, swatting at Niall’s feet upon the wooden counter when passing to get to the table.

“Harry doesn’t mind it,” Niall counters, aware that he sounds like a thirteen year old with his first crush. It’s what he feels like. He likes the feeling; knows that it’s supported by grown-up compromises to solidify it and that he’s not truly behaving like a teen.

“Harry hasn’t lived with it for eighteen years yet.”

Niall looks up at that word. Yet. Feels his heart beat and thinks that it might crash through a rib or two.

Bobby has realized what Niall’s reacting so quietly too; his eyes are softening with a brand of assurance that only a parent can show when he says, “He will have, one day.”

“You think?”

“Yes.” Full of belief, of conviction. “You think of him as the love of your life, not as your soulmate. You’re not taking him or his son for granted. And you’re the happiest I’ve ever seen you despite the fact that you have more than ever to lose. For you to have so much hope after everything you’ve been through, I just think... he will. You’ll both make sure of it.”

Niall tilts his head. Tries not to get motion sickness from all the emotions whirling around inside of him in reaction to those words. Concludes; “You like him.”

It means more now than it’s done when he’s said it before, because this time Bobby has talked to Harry, has more than Niall’s stories to go on when making a judgement. This time it’s not an assumption, it’s a fact that is spelled out all over Bobby’s face and laced around every word he just said.

Bobby leans back against the opposite counter and crosses his arms over his chest. Says, “I think he’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”

Niall never did hear the conversation that took place over breakfast earlier. He brushes crumbs off of his t-shirt, now, and thinks about loss and of fathers using nothing but their hands to hold the remains of their families together after disasters. He doesn’t have to know; it’s not his space to barge into with inexperienced feet.

All he says is, “He’s amazing.”

Mid-October:

Harry’s hair is soft against the back of Niall’s hand, against his fingers when he uses them to brush rebellious strands away into a safe hold behind Harry’s ear. Harry’s temple is warm against the side of Niall’s thumb, not yet affected by the chilly winds that October so carelessly flings at them out on the street, and Niall soaks it up – the warmth that radiates off of Harry – for as long as he possibly can.

He lets his hand slide down from the side of Harry’s face to press the index finger beneath Harry’s chin; lets his thumb brush along Harry’s jawline and ride on the movements there as they kiss. The bricks of the building are rough against his back, scratching through the thin cotton of his t-shirt, but Harry’s soft against his front, and he grabs the man by his hips to reel him in even closer. Mutters, “Go, before you get cold.”

“Will in a minute,” Harry murmurs back. He’s swaying a little on the spot, eyes closed and lashes trembling against his skin. The tip of his nose is warm, too, when he presses it against Niall’s, as is the skin over his hip and lower stomach when Niall sneaks his hands beneath Harry’s sweater and curls his fingers around the waistline of Harry’s jeans.

He lets Harry nudge him with his nose for another moment before he gives in and opens his mouth, tilts it towards Harry’s and is engulfed in even more heat; in sizzling attraction and a burning need to taste even more, to savour the absolute bliss of the moment where the two of them are together like this.

When they eventually do part again, it’s with Harry’s hand pressed to Niall’s cheek. A palm moving slowly from the top of Niall’s cheekbone down to his jaw, with Harry’s gaze tracking its movements, observing everything it touches.

Niall simply leans more of his weight against the wall – takes more of Harry’s weight against his own body – and watches it. Harry’s gorgeous face with all its delicate lines, and the palpable focus in Harry’s gaze.

“I promise to shave before you get back.”

Harry blinks, gently stirred from his trance by Niall’s voice but still not looking away from his own thumb against Niall’s jawline, from the barely-there movements of it over Niall’s overgrown stubble, scruff against fingerprint.

He murmurs, distracted, “Only if you want to.”

Niall waits for something more, for something to follow that murmur up, but he gets nothing. He presses his own thumb firmly into the flesh of Harry’s hip to urge him on and hums softly, questioningly, beneath the noise from the street around them.

“I like it,” Harry indulges him, finally dragging his gaze lazily along the rest of Niall’s face and leaving warmth in its wake. “Suits you. Felt good between my thighs last night.”

The warmth spreads in an instant, blossoming from Niall’s face and heart alike, kindled by love and desire and coiling itself around the top of his spine only to fall down along it, down to the pit of his stomach. Then lower, sparking new layers of interest.

The memories of last night are suddenly visceral again, flashing in his mind and dancing over his skin, teasing nerve endings and leaving phantom pressure where the sheets pressed up against him from the bed last night – of Harry’s flesh under the palms of his hands and of his own sweat pooling at the dip of his lower back where he was curled between Harry’s legs. He can still remember every hitch of Harry’s breathing and the way the man’s muscles twitched wherever Niall touched him.

Niall likes the scruff, too. He loved the way a graze of it against Harry’s inner thigh made Harry shiver all the way down to his toes and he adored the noises that spilled out over Harry’s bottom lip because of it. The way Harry’s thumb is still running over his jaw now only solidifies a decision in Niall’s mind, puts a dot after the fact that he’s not shaving after all – that he’s going to tear Harry open with hands and stubble the moment Harry gets back home again.

For now he just looks at Harry, stuck in the moment and in the aftermath of those words, those memories of last night. Harry’s looking right back at him, and there’s thickness layered over that connection, making every second feel heavy with meaning, with emotion and intent.

Then Harry blinks, slowly moving those long eyelashes of his. He clears his throat, too, but his voice still comes out rough when he says, “I need to go.”

“Yeah,” Niall bites, tightening his grip on the front of Harry’s jeans and tugging, making their noses bump once more – their breaths mingling. “Back to bed. With me. Now.”

Harry shakes his head slightly, though not enough to actually move away – only his gaze drops briefly, pointed in the contradiction that lies between words and actions. “Don’t have time for that.”

Niall sighs, leaning his head back against the bricks. “I hate you.”

It makes Harry laugh, bright and joyful in a way that makes happiness dance in his eyes and expression. He leans into Niall and kisses away the pout upon Niall’s lips because he’s charming like that, and Niall never stood a chance. Not ever. Will always smile when Harry’s looking at him like this, like he’s someone to feel happy with.

Whatever Harry has on his tongue in reply is never said aloud, dispelled by a tap on the glass to Niall’s left. Louis is knocking on the inside of the door, peeking out from between the letters of the studio’s name that are printed there. A moment later he’s opening up, sticking his head out and showing off raised eyebrows that fail to make him look unimpressed by the situation.

“It’s three days, lads, not forever,” he announces, bracing the door against his shoulder. “Go make the people in London happy, Harry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry sighs. He slips his hand down from Niall’s face to the side of Niall’s neck instead, palm against pulse point. An anchor for another, prolonged moment. “Where’s that super important client you were supposed to work on today, anyway? Did I drop Danny off at nursery for no reason?”

Louis rolls his eyes. Scoffs, “As if I’d give up time with Danny for anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

Harry blinks at him. “Where’s the client, then?”

“Coming any minute now, I’m sure,” Louis hums. “Have fun at the convention, yeah? Take a picture or two for our Instagram.”

Niall ignores him – slips his fingers around Harry’s wrist to get his attention and moves Harry’s hand from the side of his own neck to his mouth so that he can kiss the tips of long fingers and tell them, “Come on, you really are getting cold now.”

“You’re worse off,” Harry frowns. “You always are.”

They move the few steps over to the curb and Harry’s car anyway, lean against that instead of the wall for another few moments while they look at each other some more, and Niall assures him that, “Louis will probably offer me a cup of tea in your absence – try to cheer me up a bit before I head to the office. And the office is warm, anyway. I’ll be fine.”

Harry hums, leans in for a kiss. “You better be.”

“Call me when you get there.”

“Of course,” Harry nods. Unlocks the car. “Say hi to Liam from me when you see him tonight, yeah?”

“I will,” Niall smiles, arching an amused eyebrow. “It’s been days since you saw each other, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

Harry’s halfway into the driver’s seat, now, but he stops. Thinks for a moment, and then shrugs. “I guess, as you get to know people, that any amount of time spent away from them just feels longer somehow? And we’ve all come together in this big, mismatched family at this point, so. I miss him when he’s not around.”

The words are heavy with implication, with emotion and depth and life-changing clues that Niall can’t possibly breathe in all at once unless he wants to burst right there on the street, but the way they brush up against him now makes him feel light, makes him smile like a fool, like a flower blossoming in winter, and he’ll take all those implications, all those emotions and clues and hold them close until Harry’s back. Until they can burst together, fall like confetti into that word that Harry spoke so easily. Family.

“Love you.”

Niall lands on the ground again, dreamlike clouds settling impatiently inside his shoes while his heart flies once more, just from hearing those words. He looks at Harry, his Harry, and is still smiling. Still so in love.

“I love you too,” he murmurs. “Drive safely.”

*

Niall isn’t familiar with the music that’s playing in the studio when he gets inside. It’s the singer-songwriter type of thing that he always finds himself swaying along to when he hears it, but it sounds a bit rough around the edges, like it might be one of the demos that Ed is working on with some of his mates in his downtime.

Louis is sat at the counter, phone in hand and gaze lazily scanning whatever page it is that he’s scrolling through, and there’s two cups of tea on the countertop, heat visibly rising from one of them.

“So you could finally tear yourselves apart, huh?” he hums without shifting his gaze from his phone. “Made tea for you, thought you might need it.”

Niall smiles at him, at the predictability of it all and the way Louis’ default setting is to offer tea to anyone who might feel the slightest bit uncomfortable for some reason or another. Niall loves that about him. Loves him, for a multitude of reasons which all boil down to that word again. Family, and the way Harry was right in saying that they’re all seemingly becoming one.

“Thanks, Louis,” he says. He takes the cup in both hands, breathes in the warmth that it emits and follows Louis to the adjacent room once the other man has parted with his phone. He glances around the room, takes notice of Harry’s empty station and of Ed’s occupied one. “You ready to go?”

The man Ed is working on has a portrait of Dave Grohl on his calf. What Ed is doing on the man’s thigh isn’t visible from where Niall’s standing, but the rock star is undoubtedly made up of Harry’s lines, conjured by Harry’s talent. It could be a photograph seared into the man’s skin, it’s that good.

Niall thinks that it’s amazing, what Harry’s doing. Thinks that Harry’s talent is as incredible as the things that he has decided to do with it – the way he’s figured out a way to make people whole by either taking something away from them or giving them something brand new. Harry removed a name from Niall’s skin and unknowingly removed a lot of strings to a past that Niall needed to get away from in the process, and he gave the stranger on the other side of the room something to look at that will hopefully bring joy to watching eyes for years.

“Niall?”

He snaps his gaze back over to Louis. Blinks. “What?”

Louis looks one part amused and one part concerned, smiling at him softly. “I said I was all set, but now I’m starting to wonder if you are.”

“No,” Niall shakes his head, huffing out a breath of laughter. “I am, sorry. Was just thinking.”

It’s Louis’ turn to shake his head, then. Amusement’s settling fully in his expression, now, and he says, “Finally figured out how to do it, huh? Good for you, mate.”

Niall opens his mouth – is about to counter with something equally sarcastic when Louis aims a wide grin his way and adds, “Finish your tea so we can get started already.”

Niall does as he’s told, muttering dickhead around the rim of the cup and earning a hearty laugh from Louis that feeds his soul some warmth – counters the chill that stuck to his clothes once Harry wasn’t pressed up against him anymore.

He goes to discard the cup next to Louis’ empty one on the counter, and comes back in to the sight of Louis rolling around his set-up on his chair. There’s already plastic wrapped around the rest that Niall’s arm will lie on, same as when Harry removed the name on Niall’s other wrist, but the things that Louis has prepared by the chair are different. A tattoo gun. Needles. Niall can’t not be nervous, no matter how much he wants to do this.

“White, right? You haven’t changed your mind?”

Niall takes a seat in the chair, giving the awaiting gun a sideways glance, wary. There’s determination in his voice, though. In his heart. “No, definitely white. If people can’t see that I love him without reading his name on my skin first then I’m doing something wrong. I shouldn’t need black ink to spell it out for me.”

Louis snorts. His smile’s soft and warm to look at – something that smothers the trepidation that Niall otherwise would connect to what his hands are doing, the final prep that is happening with disinfectant wipes and plastic gloves and the outline of Harry’s stolen, elegant handwriting pressed to Niall’s skin for Louis to trace with white, soon.

“I’m pretty sure they can see it from space, Niall. You’re fine.”

Niall hums, considering those words. He’s gotten used to the buzzing noises of the tattoo guns at this point, so he doesn’t flinch when Louis turns his on so close by. Knowing that it’s for him this time, though, makes the air feel charged somehow. Makes his heart beat a bit faster, his foot tap nervously in a rhythm that doesn’t match what’s playing on the speakers at all.

He breathes in deeply, tries to focus on something else by looking at Louis and saying, “All I really care about is that Harry sees it, anyway. Tattoo or no tattoo.”

“Well,” Louis says. “There’s about to be one, whether he ever finds out about it or not. Ready?”

Niall exhales slowly, and nods.

Stories have unfolded over the past months. Louis has become a part of Niall’s life, and has simultaneously let Niall into his own life and opened up about things that Niall doesn’t think that a lot of people have seen.

It’s obvious that there was a time when Louis wasn’t all that good at taking care of himself, a period where destruction was a way to deal with life, to escape it. It’s also clear, though, that Louis has always cared more about other people than himself – has taken care of other people with the intention to keep his loved ones happy and safe with little to no consideration of his own feelings.

They don’t talk a lot about Louis’ situation with his family – about the bridges that he’s repairing in slow-motion after everything that went down a few years ago – but they talk about Harry a lot. And Niall gets to see first-hand how the two of them work together – how there are tracks left from a youth spent looking out for each other that they’ve been able to get back to, to drive along together and expand further in order to move on to better places. Healthier places.

He gets to see Louis with Danny, too. With Liam. With Eleanor, rings around their fingers that promise a bright future and smiles so wide on their faces that they compete with the sun.

The Louis that sits in front of him now is a Louis that is caring for a customer. The care is shining in his eyes, the crinkles around them only enhancing it when he smiles an assuring smile after a first, quick and experimental line is made upon Niall’s skin.

“Feel okay?” he’s asking. “Not too bad?”

He’s turned the gun off again, and Ed and the man with the Dave Grohl tattoo are shuffling outside for a smoke break, and there’s music that Niall doesn’t recognize playing in the background. Louis is smiling at him, and Niall’s sat here because he wants to – because nothing has driven him to this moment but love and happiness found in ups and down with a man that he fell in love with in the shadow of the world’s expectations.

He flexes the fingers of his right hand, looks down at his wrist and the net of veins beneath Harry’s familiar scribble, and thinks no . Not bad at all – not any of it. Because it led him here.

“The first time I met Harry he told me that removals hurt way worse than regular tattoos,” he reminisces, glancing briefly over at Harry’s empty station. “He was right. And it’s always been the needles that have scared me, anyway. Not the pain, not really. But it’s… this is okay.”

It is okay. It’s more of a burn than a shocking pain, and it’s nowhere near as bad as he’d expected it to be – it’s mostly just irritating to sit through. Louis works in bouts of silence interspersed with the odd hum along with the music, and Niall simply breathes through it. Feels settled in the moment, in the act of doing something solely for himself, for his own happiness.

The idea was born on his living room floor, in the feeling of Danny’s fingers gripping onto his arm in an attempt to hold it in place as he marked it up with magic markers, and then it grew along with the realization that love displayed so visibly can actually be a good thing. That it’s okay to be happy, to be in love.

His skin is tinted an angry pink when Louis is finished; lingering irritation reaffirming that the road to love isn’t simple, but that it’s worth it when you get there, when that special name is a part of you forever. The letters are visible, stark white in contrast to all that pink, and Niall feels a bit breathless just from looking at it, feeling the fading throbbing where the wounds are sighing in relief from finally being left alone.

It won’t be this obvious in a few days, though – his skin’s pale enough that no one will see Harry’s name upon it unless they’re looking for it. Only Niall will know. Will carry it with him on his skin and in his heart, in veins and soul, all of it circled in by white ink and affection.

Late November:

Warmth. A bubble of it, sealing him up and marking him as something complete – that’s what waking up feels like. He’s only disoriented for a moment, only has to sort dreams from reality for a couple of seconds before he remembers what his reality is like these days, how many dreamlike qualities his waking hours actually contain.

He can feel the sofa in the studio flat beneath him, almost around him where the plush cushions cling to his contours, and his head is tilted at an odd angle against the armrest. He’s bound to get an ache in his neck if he doesn’t change his position, but his mouth tastes of sleep and faded traces of tea, and his bones are heavy beneath skin and flesh.

Exhaustion lines his body. It has crept in under his skin and settled there over the past couple of weeks; built up like a layer of dust that he hasn’t been able to wipe away because there hasn’t been any time to rest. 

Quite often, the people that he meets in his line of work make him feel like he’s too young to be in the position that he is in, but he can’t quite imagine what it would be like if he had pursued his career as an agent any later than he did. His younger, almost childish excitement for the world that he has entered alongside Liam hasn’t quite worn off yet, and no matter how much other – older, more experienced – agents try to belittle his efforts or drag him back down into some kind of realistic bitterness, he doubts that it ever will. Without it, he doubts he’d be able to keep going.

He is still tired, though. Has spent weeks in various vehicles, moved across landscapes and sat in hour-long meetings. Has curled up in chairs in anonymous hotel rooms with paperwork as his company and missed his family back in Manchester so badly that even his heart is exhausted now, but he’s also overjoyed. Despite his lack of experience in the business, the work he has done with and for Liam over the past years has gotten a lot of recognition, and that, along with Liam’s endless words of praise in every social media outlet on the planet, has put Niall in a bit of a spotlight. Has left him a position where he finally feels ready to take the next step in his own career, especially since Liam has settled in nicely with both feet in his new chapter of life.

The long nights, the flights and the paperwork have amounted to a new client under his name. A sixteen-year-old midfielder from Cardiff who’s already making a name for himself in Wales’ under-nineteen team and who has garnered interest from Bayern Munich as a result of it. The kid has shown a surprising amount of maturity both on and off the field since Niall first met him, but up until now he’s been represented by his dad and Niall’s had to work hard to find a middle ground between the two of them – sort out paternal care from professional standpoints and set the boy off on the right path under his own management.

The interest from Germany was enticing – Bayern Munich’s youth academy being an amazing route for any ambitious player to take – but after a weekend visit to their facilities and hours spent weighing pros and cons against each other they ended up turning the offer down. The lad is still young, after all. Despite the admirable amount of maturity he’s displayed they all agreed that he needed more time back in Cardiff before he ventured into the completely unknown.

Niall finally, finally came back home this evening. He got in just in time to read Danny a bedtime story and kiss the boy’s forehead enough times to make up for the days he lost, and has been planted on the sofa ever since. 

He’s under a blanket that he doesn’t remember pulling over himself, now, and the empty cup he narrowly managed to discard on the table once he’d finished his tea is gone. He faintly remembers Eleanor’s voice, the soft hum of it drifting down the corridor and fading, and wills himself to remember to thank her in the morning, to tell her that he’s missed her while he’s been away.

Niall keeps drifting like that. He doesn’t quite sleep and he doesn’t quite dream, but simply drifts in a state of non-thinking and tiredness, until sound sneaks in. It’s hazy at first, curling like smoke around him and poking curiously at Niall’s interest until he’s reluctantly dragged towards a more conscious surface. 

The steps of the staircase are creaking under shifting weight as someone moves over them. Niall finally moves his head out of the strain-inducing position it’s been in for hours and rolls it along the armrest, angles his face towards the source of that sound. Anticipation’s already curling in his belly, up towards his chest where it puts pressure on his lungs – makes his breathing more shallow.

Niall cracks an eye open – spots Harry on the top of the stairs, framed by eyelashes and cardboard boxes, his lean body dotted with a bright blue beanie. The fabric is holding curls in place; lets the ends of Harry’s hair crowd his ears and frame his features in a manner so familiar that Niall can picture it without truly seeing the fine details through the blurry traces of sleep in his own gaze.

He lets his eye shut again, and in the darkness he savours the image along with the extra warmth that it infused his entire body with. In the meantime, Harry moves again. Niall listens to the rhythm of feet against floor as they expertly navigate the maze of cardboard and discarded toys down a path towards the hall and to Danny’s room.

When the steps come back into the living room again, they bring Harry’s warmth with them. Harry’s scent. It teases Niall’s nostrils, trickles down to Niall’s lungs and makes his entire chest hurt around it, around the familiarity of it and how badly he’s missed holding it.

He can feel Harry sinking down on the floor in front of the sofa, can feel the cushion beneath him dip a little where Harry fits elbows on it and leans forward, spreading body heat all over Niall’s side. It’s a scene on repeat; this has happened before.

A fingertip presses against the corner of Niall’s mouth a moment later, drawing attention to the smile that has grown from that very spot without Niall’s permission.

Feigning sleep has never been a talent of his – hiding affection even less of one. He lets the smile spread even wider across his own face; hums out his contentment and soaks up Harry’s presence, his warmth. It feels like he’s glowing from somewhere deep within.

He cracks his eyes open again. It happens slowly and the room’s golden, lit up by yellow orbs of spread-out lamps. Molasses everywhere, the air sweet to breathe in and taste upon lips that are still stretching out in a smile when he looks at Harry properly. He rumbles out a soft, “Hey.”

Harry grins back at him, eyes soft. “Hi there.”

They spend lapses and lapses of breath looking at each other after that, silence lowering itself between them as oxygen rolls into lungs and comes back out tinted with affection. Niall’s breathing in particular is a bit strained, a bit shallow and tense with the effort of holding back, of trying not to slip out in one, giant collapse of emotion. 

The moment stretches on, suspended in air while Niall’s heart beats pointedly under the constant reminder of how new this still feels to him. To be loved like this and admit it, own up to it and hold it in his hands – not the way one holds something delicate and fleeting but tightly, clenching it in both palms and clinging because it’s that strong, that unquestionable. And it’s his. Harry won’t push him aside, won’t leave him for someone better.

Harry has moved his hand away from the corner of Niall’s mouth by this point. He’s stroking Niall’s cheek with the backs of two fingers, still smiling softly, and he looks feather light when he pushes forward, in over Niall’s chest, for a kiss. Niall instinctively hums into it, curls fingers in Harry’s hair and holds him close, deepens the kiss.

He thinks minutes must have passed when Harry leans back on his hunches again. Gilded air filters in between them, highlighting the dazed aftermath, and all Niall can do is reach through the fog of exhaustion and desire and pull at the front of Harry’s shirt until Harry relents. He gets Harry on top of him, cradled between his own legs and aligned from toes to chest.

Harry looks down at him from there, furrow of concentration present between his eyebrows when he presses the pad of an index finger against the collar of Niall’s shirt, still neatly curled over the top of Niall’s sweater. Niall was so tired when he got here that he hasn’t even unbuttoned the damn shirt – doesn’t feel like it’s about to strangle him the way he used to feel in the beginning of his career when he first exchanged his worn-out t-shirts for long sleeves and buttons.

“You look good like this,” Harry tells him. A conclusion settling in the air, content in the glow from the lamps.

It makes warmth curl in Niall’s stomach. A familiar heat that still, somehow, manages to take him by surprise every time it ignites there, because the intensity is so overwhelming, so unrelenting when it grabs him. It happens every time Harry looks at him like this, with want tainting his entire face, as though he finds Niall endlessly fascinating. As though a change of clothes is all it takes to steal his breath another time.

Liam makes fun of Niall’s clothes all the time; calls the ironed shirts and ties and the shiny dress shoes a uniform with a cheeky glint in his eye at least once a week. And with Liam it still does feel like a bit of a masquerade because with Liam standing by his side he still feels like a kid. Feels like the shiny shoes are too big for him. Borrowed. As though he’s just waiting for someone to untie them for him so he can get out of them and slip back into his muddy football shoes and run off. 

But then Harry looks at him like this; reminds Niall of who he is now, of who he’s grown into. The past six months alone have matured him so much, have made him feel like he fits a bit better into the breadth of his own shoulders, as though he has caught up with the man he was always supposed to become. Someone calm and confident. Someone happy.

“Time’s it?” he wonders, blinking up at Harry.

Harry gives him an amused grin. “Few minutes past midnight.”

“You’ve been down in the studio ‘til now?”

Harry nods. Hums a soft confirmation, easing more of his bodyweight onto Niall’s chest.

“I found a wisp of inspiration and clung to it delicately,” he says. “Think I got most of my flash done for the drop-in. I might add one or two more later in the week just in case a lot of people turn up.”

The guys have been arranging a drop-in Saturday every winter since the studio first opened; collaborated with local breweries and offered anyone who stops by a cold beer, some fresh ink and a lot of good banter while the lads give all the proceedings from the day to charity. Niall though it sounded amazing when he first heard it. He almost wishes that he could be a part of it this year; sit in his spot on the couch and swig back beer, listen to the chatter and the buzzing of the tattoo guns that has somehow become a noise of comfort to him. It would have been nice to watch Harry, Louis and Ed make art come alive upon people’s skin and take in the happiness of each client with rock music underscoring it all in the background.

He’s going to watch Danny that afternoon and evening, though, and he’s been excited about it for weeks. Has made plans for them to go to Liam and Sophia’s house to let the boy meet their new puppy – see if that’s something he’ll enjoy.

“Can I see them later?” he asks. “The flash sheets?”

“Of course,” Harry murmurs. He doesn’t even opt for an easy ribbing of ‘are you finally thinking of getting some ink done?’, but simply brushes fingers against the fabric over Niall’s chest while he uses the other hand to cover up a yawn. A moment later, bleary eyed and perfect, he asks, “How was Germany?”

“Cold as fuck,” Niall grumbles. He doesn’t bother digging into the work-related aspects of the trip because Harry has been a knight in too-far-away armour over the past two weeks, supporting Niall over the phone and making lonely hotel rooms feel a bit warmer.

“Must be nice to be back in toasty Manchester again,” Harry muses, voice laced with sarcasm. He eases himself down fully on top of Niall, ducking in under Niall’s arm and hiding his grin against the base of Niall’s throat.

It’s a joke of course – it is freezing outside – but the joke falls flat in Niall’s head anyway, because lying like this he feels the warmest he’s ever been. He’s got Harry as a blanket, hot and heavy and just right against him, and he loves it. Loves holding Harry close.

He curls his fingers in the hair at the back of Harry’s head. Presses white ink against black; the inside of his wrist against Harry’s neck, letting their names kiss in secret. He wraps his other arm securely around Harry’s back and breathes out the last dregs of exhaustion – refills his lungs with this. With warmth and comfort and the sense of home . The ceiling smiles down at him, keeping the scene safe for a while longer and letting the moment stretch on.

The fabric atop Harry’s head is unfamiliar against his cheek. A bright blue distraction in the corner of his eye.

“Is the beanie new?” he questions. “I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”

Harry moves his head slightly, a barely-there nod against Niall’s sweater. “Danny kind of picked it out for me the other week.”

Niall breathes out a laugh. “Kind of?”

“He saw it in the shop and the first thing he said was that you’ve got blue eyes, which I didn’t even know that he’d noticed,” Harry explains, a fond note of amusement in his voice. “Anyway, that alone made a compelling case for me to buy it, so here we are.”

“Here we are,” Niall echoes, quieter. Silence encompasses them for a while, settles easily around them until Niall speaks up again. Remembers; “He noticed it really early on – that they’re blue. Corrected me when I said that my eyes were bad because I wore glasses and told me that he thought blue was pretty. I think he was wearing a blue pyjama at the time.”

“Yeah?” Harry hums. “I didn’t know that.”

“I think it took me a while to resurface from the moment, that’s why I never talked about it. His kindness was overwhelming in the beginning. The good kind of overwhelming, but still new and difficult to handle,” Niall admits, loosening his fingers. He lets them slip down from Harry’s hair, brushes the thumb against the spot where his name is scrawled instead. “I was… honestly, I was kind of terrified to break him. Still am sometimes.”

The silence makes room for itself again, wrapping around them comfortably and complementing the exhaustion in Niall’s bones, the faint, faint ache sprouted by sleep-deprivation at the back of his skull.

“I’m glad you’ve got memories with him that I don’t know about,” Harry murmurs then. His hand is heavy over Niall’s heart, a paperweight to keep him in place, keep him from drifting away. “Moments to tell him about when he’s older, like secrets.”

And Niall – suddenly and all at once – is incredibly glad for that too. He can’t imagine anything better than that, than him and Danny being linked together by Harry and by affection, by a soulmate bond spelled out with ink.

Harry hasn’t noticed Niall’s tattoo yet. The white, nearly invisible ink on the inside of Niall’s wrist has gone undetected by an inattentive eye and often been covered up by long sleeves in the winter weather. That one wrist isn’t the part of Niall’s body that Harry pays most attention to – not a part he spends hours tracing with fingertips and tongue the way he traces other parts of Niall’s anatomy. 

He doesn’t ignore it either, doesn’t address either wrist with any trace of resentment or bitterness, but Niall understands the sensitivity, the hesitance. Revels in the knowledge that Harry will find his own name there someday, that it’ll be something for them to carry together.

“Can we come stay at yours tomorrow night?”

Niall blinks his eyes open, startled. He moves his fingers again, brushes them against the warmth of Harry’s skin and tries to ground himself in the world again, to separate sleep from wakefulness. 

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop asking?” he teases, pressing a pointed finger against Harry’s side. “You can come any time you want, it’s what the key’s for.”

It makes Harry grin; Niall can feel it against his own skin. A smile, a warm wash of breath over the hollow of his throat.

“Danny and I are staying at your place tomorrow night.”

“Good,” Niall breathes out, allowing himself to close his eyes again. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed staying in a flat that isn’t overflowing with cardboard boxes.”

“Fuck off,” Niall retorts weakly. He’s too tired to move, to pretend to shake Harry off of himself in an act of indignation. Truth is that he loves this, loves Harry and his dumb jokes. “They still haven’t found anywhere to move?”

Harry lifts his head, then. He’s looking tired now, with an indent from the collar of Niall’s shirt across his cheek and eyelashes that kiss at the corners of his eyes.

“Nowhere near enough to the studio,” he says. “And it’s nice having El here too, it’s just… cramped. But we’ll be fine living out of each other’s pockets for a while longer, I won’t let them move someplace that’s just decent just because it’s quicker. They deserve someplace good.”

“They do,” Niall agrees. He thinks of Louis, of the way he positively brightens anytime Eleanor is near and the kindness he exudes after everything he’s been through –  thinks of how hard Louis has fought to get back to a good place in life. For him to have a physical good place to complement all of that with would be perfect, and it’s something every newly engaged couple should have. “I’ll pull some strings, yeah? See if the realtor who found mine and Liam’s places knows of anything.”

“They’ll appreciate that,” Harry hums. He blinks down at Niall, all slow and beautiful, and smiles. Whispers, “I’m glad you’re home again.”

And Niall is, too.

Late December:

Niall sits on the sofa with Danny on Christmas eve, while his dad and Harry make a mess of the kitchen. He’s been banned from going in there all week, because his dad still curses the presence of Niall’s feet on the countertops and slaps them away with a grunt, and Harry keeps insisting that kisses are lovely at every possible time of day apart from when he’s busy cooking a nice, festive meal for the family. Blinking innocently at him in a try to get to the fridge hasn’t worked; Harry has pushed Niall away by the face with an amused grin adorning his own, beautiful one and that’s been the end of that.

Niall has been reduced to a thief in his own home, sneaking gingerbread cookies out of the cupboards and letting Danny pick out all the tree-shaped ones to nibble on while they’ve watched movies on the iPad on Niall’s lap. It’s how they prefer it – there’s something about the intimacy of curling together around the device that both he and Danny favour over the long-distance relationship with a tv-screen.

Niall has loved these moments ever since it first happened in the studio, on the sofa there, when the boy crashed all barriers and barged right through to Niall’s heart. There is a shape of him in there now that Niall hopes will never grow hollow. He can’t imagine that it ever will.

He’s got Danny leaning up against his side now, just the way it’s supposed to be. The way it always is. Danny consistently leans into the curve of Niall’s body and rests his little palm on the same spot on Niall’s thigh as though making sure that Niall is still there. 

The colourful scenes that are capturing their interest this afternoon aren’t actually Christmas-themed. It’s not Planes or Cars either, because Danny has neglected them ever since that one, fateful dinner several weeks ago when Niall let it slip that the panda is his favourite animal. He was met with absolute soul-crushing hope in wide green, two-and-a-half-year-old eyes later on in the living room when Danny gently suggested that they’d watch Kung Fu Panda before his bedtime.

It’s been Kung Fu Panda at least twice a week ever since, because there is pride and excitement bursting in those same eyes every time Danny asks Niall to put it on – every time he waits for Niall to beam in response to that act of selfless care and beams right back when he’s rewarded with it. Because Niall’s happiness means that much to him. Because Niall has become that important. And Niall’s heart is heavy with that shape of Danny in it. With love and affection, all while Jack Black’s voice offers a soundtrack to it.

Danny’s pushing himself into a more upright position now, away from the curve of Niall’s body. His hand flails a little, knocks the iPad askew on Niall’s leg so that it balances dangerously for a second. Niall just waits it out; expects a yawn, or for a small hand to reach out for another cookie, or maybe for a sign of boredom from the boy. 

Danny forgoes it all and reaches his hand out for Niall’s instead, tugs at Niall’s fingers in an attempt to turn the entire palm around and carefully fumbles his own, tiny fingers across Niall’s hand with concentration lining his entire face. He works slowly to fit his fingers in-between Niall’s, and spends minutes getting it just right. Closes any and all space by squeezing his hand around Niall’s the best he can and holds on. Then he turns his attention back to the film as though something monumental didn’t just happen. As though Niall isn’t sat next to him, holding his breath because he’s so scared that his heart will explode if he exhales too heavily.

Niall struggles to comprehend it all at times, how it all came to be, how this life pieced itself together for him to submerge himself in. He knows that Harry is responsible for a lot of it, and he’s still trying to find the words to express just how much he admires Harry for the way the man has handled everything since Niall entered his and his son’s lives.

Harry never hesitated to let Niall collide with Danny’s world. The fact that Niall came into the studio one day, wishing for Harry to remove his own name from Niall’s skin didn’t keep him from letting Danny get close to Niall, or from letting Niall become inevitably spellbound by the boy. Despite how slow Harry was to open himself and his life up to Niall, he never seemed to doubt Niall in that regard, he never seemed hesitant or dubious of the way Niall would handle his son. Niall can’t imagine that many men in the world would be like that, would be able to trust so wildly, especially with the past that Harry carries on his shoulders.

Harry looks gorgeous this afternoon. He looks gorgeous every afternoon, but today he’s traded his t-shirts and sweaters for a simple, dark blue button-up to go with his usual skinny jeans, and it’s just so different. A small change that steals Niall’s breath; makes his fingertips shake a little and turns to volume of his own pulse up in his ears. He can see the lines of Harry’s waist under that fabric, can admire the ink on Harry’s forearms where the sleeves have already been pushed up to his elbows now that he’s coming out of the kitchen.

He’s singing along to Bublé as he sways, grinning around the melody and tilting his head cutely at the scene of Niall and Danny on the sofa. The singing trails off briefly when he notices the linked hands upon Niall’s thigh and his mouth hangs open when his gaze locks with Niall’s in a wordless exchange of awe. A quiet moment of yeah, he just broke our hearts again and fuck, how we love him for it.

Harry finds his footing again when the chorus picks up; joins Bublé’s dream of a white Christmas and dances forward towards the sofa. He leans down there, kissing Niall swiftly on the mouth and then rubbing the tip of his nose against Danny’s.

“Come on, peanut,” he urges. “Sing with me.”

Danny presses his shoulder back into Niall’s side and tilts his chin down towards his clavicle, struggling to feign irritation when he mutters, “Not a peanut.”

“You are though,” Harry insists. He’s making tickling motions with his fingers and easing them gently in against the boy’s sides, making Danny squirm in his seat and lose the pout of his lips. “The cutest one in the world.”

He lifts Danny up into his arms a moment later, back to singing from the tops of his lungs with a background melody of Danny’s giggle-infused protests. Niall can’t even make himself mourn the loss of Danny’s hand in his own, because the scene before him is too perfect, makes his heart feel so full and brimming with happiness. He has his boys dancing around in his living room and he has his dad peering out from the kitchen with music and the scent of food trailing out from behind him, and Niall wants to stay in this moment forever.

Harry keeps singing and Danny has moved on to full on, deep belly laughs that charm the entire room. He’s a giggling lump of flesh and bone and pure joy that is melting into his father’s chest and Niall loves them.

“It’s a proper Christmas, this,” Bobby’s saying. He has moved soundlessly in the shadows of the musical taking place in the centre of the room and it startles Niall, makes him turn in his seat to look at his father next to him on the couch.

He takes in the warm smile on his dad’s face, the happiness shining in his eyes, and breathes out heavily. Says, “It is, isn’t it?”

Their past Christmases haven’t been bad, but things changed when Maura passed away and ever since Greg moved back to Ireland it’s just been the two of them. Niall and his dad, preparing dinner and having a quiet time in. Niall has appreciated it – will always look back fondly on those moments – but his dad is right. This feels as warm and jolly as the holidays used to feel when his mum was still alive. They’re a family now – they are pieces coming together out of love and appreciation – and he’s glad that Harry finally has something to belong to, too.

*

Danny stubbornly makes it until ten in the evening before he finally gives up the fight against his own eyelids and sags completely against Harry’s chest. Harry kisses the top of his head and rises expertly to his feet, boy still held safely in his arms when he moves to Niall’s bedroom.

Niall follows after a while, curious to see what’s taking Harry so long, and ends up peeking into the bedroom from the doorway. There’s a star lit in the window, casting an orange glow over the two beds in there; Niall’s large one and the smaller one that usually stands in the spare room when Bobby isn’t borrowing it. Danny’s to use, to have, to call his. 

Harry has eased his son into it now, has covered Danny with the comforter and made sure that the plush puppy that Danny got as a gift from Liam and Sophia is tucked tightly under the boy’s arm even when he sleeps, the way it’s been all evening.

Danny fell in love with the couple’s puppy at first glance just a few weeks ago – ran around all starry-eyed in the backyard with the dog barking happily after him, chasing him in attempt to lick at his face. Niall knows that he’s screwed. That a puppy of their own is inevitable in the future, because that boy has his father’s wide, expressive eyes and Niall can’t say no to either of them. He doesn’t want to.

He shifts his gaze from the toy to Harry, now. The man is kneeling at the side of the small bed, hand stroking the soft curls that are growing wildly over the boy’s head. They both look soft in the dim glow, they’re both beautiful, and Niall can physically feel the fondness lining his own body, colouring his cheeks pink.

Harry looks up at him eventually, smiles softly and gets up from the floor. He’s quiet on his feet when he moves closer; his hand coming up to sneak in under Niall’s jumper as soon as he’s within arm’s reach. His fingers are warm and gentle in their exploration of Niall’s skin, their path familiar when they shift to rest against Niall’s hip and ties them together.

Niall touches his index finger to the underside of Harry’s jaw; brushes the line of it with his thumb when he leans in to kiss Harry’s mouth. It’s soft, warm and familiar. Makes heat curl in Niall’s stomach even though it’s over after a minute and leaves him blinking dazedly at Harry’s handsome features.

Harry kisses him another time, swiftly, and then leans his weight against Niall’s side with a content exhale. Niall follows the line of his gaze to Danny’s sleeping form of the bed, and they spend a long moment breathing in the silence, watching the boy sleep soundly.

The telly’s on in the background, with Bobby accompanying it, laughing at its contents every now and then. Niall’s longing for them to join him in there, but he’s happy to have this moment first. To settle on his feet, to sink into Harry’s presence for just a while longer.

“He’s had a brilliant day,” Harry whispers, tilting his head in Danny’s direction. He shifts his gaze after, addresses Niall with a look full of emotion when he adds, “Thank you. For making it perfect.”

Niall doesn’t know how to respond. He wants to argue, to say that Harry and Danny are just as responsible for how great the evening turned out as he is – that he can’t thank Harry enough for coming into his life, for making it brighter – but he can’t make any words form on his tongue. He doesn’t want to take anything away from Harry either, because he knows the meaning behind those words, knows that Harry hasn’t felt truly settled over the past Christmases spent with Louis’ relatives, spent on the sidelines of other people’s families.

“You’re here,” comes out of Niall’s mouth, heavy with gratitude.

Harry raises an eyebrow in amusement, addresses him with a gaze full of fond sarcasm but he doesn’t voice it, doesn’t make fun of the sudden, obvious statement because he is patient like that. He can tell that there is more coming; that teasing Niall will only delay it.

Niall touches his toes to Harry’s ankle in a bad attempt to show his dismay anyway, to show that hey, I know what you’re thinking, shut up, and it only makes Harry snort at him. Harry presses his thumb against Niall’s hip – urges him to go on.

“I like having you here,” Niall expands. “Having the two of you around. It makes me happy.”

“We like being here,” Harry says. His smile is stunning. “I know I joke about it a lot, but we’re not actually staying here a lot just because it’s crowded back home. You do know that, right?”

Niall nods. Fits a hand to Harry’s lower back to keep him close. “I know.”

“I miss you when we’re not here, and I know Danny does, too,” Harry murmurs. His grin goes a bit crooked, his gaze almost wistful when he adds, “I’m kind of glad that Louis and El haven’t found somewhere better to move yet. It gives us an excuse to stay here more often.”

A moment passes. Bobby’s laugh trickles out from the living room again, deep and familiar, and Niall breathes it all in. Cherishes the feeling of having everything that is important to him so close, so intertwined. 

He presses a kiss to Harry’s temple. Mumbles against it when says, “You don’t have to have an excuse.”

“I know, Niall. Was just joking,” Harry tells him. “We’ll probably stay here more than at home even when Louis and Eleanor do find a place of their own anyway. It’s where you are.”

Niall looks at him for a long while, takes in the sharp cheekbones, the soft mouth, the amused eyes that stare back at him.

“What?” Harry challenges.

Niall remains quiet, suddenly terrified upon the threshold and wondering where he will end up, which side he will fall on when the impact of his words land once he finally says them. If maybe the aftermath will hurt. Rationally, he knows that nothing will happen. Rationally , he knows that Harry will still be here. But he has a past of people walking away from him when things have gotten too serious, and anxiety makes him irrational, makes doubt sink into places where it doesn’t belong.

“Niall,” Harry hums, his hand a heavy anchor at the centre of Niall’s chest. “What are you thinking?”

“Stay here,” he rushes out. “Make this your home. A proper one.”

He breathes in deeply to settle himself back in the moment, to ward off the anxiety, and Harry allows him that moment. Harry’s still patient with him, still knows when to give him space and time, and Niall wants to show that he can do the same – that he understands Harry just as well.

”I don’t want to push anything, I’m not saying this to pressure your or Danny into doing anything – I know it hasn’t been that long,” he explains. He’s perhaps clinging a little to Harry, holding on a little too tightly, but Harry’s letting him. Harry isn’t moving away from him. “I’m just saying that I’m here. The flat’s here. There’s space for the two of you in my life, however permanently you want to stay in it. And even if you say no now, I just… I want you to know that. Remember it later on.”

All Harry does for a while is consider him; eyes wide and full of curiosity as if Niall is someone to figure out, as if he’s something unexpected. He has moved the hand that isn’t resting on Niall’s chest up to the side of Niall’s face and is brushing hair away from Niall’s forehead – is settling each and every nerve in Niall’s body just by being there, touching him.

“I’ll ask Danny in the morning – if that’s something he’d like,” Harry tells him, smiling once more. It’s quiet, it’s private. It’s everything. “I can’t imagine that he’d ever say no to that.”

Niall blinks at him. “You want to live here?”

Harry nods. His smile grows bigger – dimples and all. “I know it’s early, that maybe I should be more hesitant, but… well, if meeting you has taught me anything, it’s that it’s okay to trust your guts sometimes. To not overthink every little detail and be a bit hopeful. And I like to think that I’ve gotten better at trusting people, believing that they’ll stick around.”

Niall leans into his hand, into the warmth of that touch, and grins. “The studio flat will still be there.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “I think Louis and Eleanor will take good care of it.”